A Pet's Prayer

Dear Lord........

Please watch over our humans, they are so weak. They have no claws or teeth, they can't run fast or fly away, neither can they burrow or build a nest in which to be safe. They smell bad, do strange things that aren't altogether intelligent, have no real ability to communicate with us, although we are able to figure out what they want.

Lord, grant us the ability to watch over our humans, care for them, cheer them when they are down, make them laugh, smile, and shower them with our love. We pray that we can bring a little joy in to their otherwise mundane existence.

Lord, please let them know that when we insist on getting attention, it is so we can check their emotional well being and boost their morale.

When we pester them for different foods, toys, etc., it is so they will learn to see us in ways they had not considered, bringing them closer and back into the fold...which they are part of but keep forgetting about. They expect us to know what they want even though sometimes they don't know what we want. Some of them really try and we know they love us but some of them do not yet know that our love for them remains intensely unfaltering.

Lord, when we die, please make sure to send us ahead, so we can pave the way for them and be there for them when they too die....

Please allow us to continue proving the humans are worth the effort. You placed these humans in dominion over us, but you charged us with the task of caring for them and showing them your love for every one of them. God bless these mere mortal humans, they know not that we are their guardian angels sent in love to task them so that they may grow to be part of your plan.

You and Us God... we'll bring them back into the fold... You and Us.

Author unknown

On the home page of this site I introduce all the dogs...give a bit of their personality and also medical problems.  I only have a couple of dogs who I have had since they were puppies...the rest are fosters and rescues who, for various reasons have extended stays or have been adopted by me.  When they have reached the point I feel them ready for placement I move their profile to my rescue page.

It occurred to me that because of the way I introduced my "extended family" I was leaving out the most important aspect of their personality, character, life and story.  I was doing them an injustice by not telling their story of how they came to be with me in the first place.  This was brought home to me recently when I lost my first rescue "Critter".  And because Critter died by my decision, because he had suffered so much in his brief one year of life, and there is now no record that he ever even existed, felt love or pain or defeat...I can only offer my apologies to all of the ones who are now in their new homes with their stories untold.  These are the first.  In honor and respect for him...Critter's Rescue Stories...

I am Missy.  I am very smart.  I have only been here a couple of months but I like it here!  My previous owner died and his mate left all of us alone in a trailer.  She went out. She never came home!  There were many of us there at first and we didn't know we had been abandoned.  Over time we all started getting weak and slowly without any food or water we slowly started to sleep and then go to the bridge.  Finally, someone realized what had happened and called the authorities...but by then there was just me and my other chi friend.  

But, because of what happened to us we were not allowed to go to a new home.  Instead they took us to this "shelter".  It was awful.  Cold and dark and smelly, there was no place for little dogs like us and they finally put us together in this tiny little cage meant to hold one cat.  It was better than being on the cold, wet ground, but I am old and handicapped and the wire bottom of the cage was hard for me. We kept each other warm, but over time the space was just too small and so they took my friend out and put her in the cage below mine.  We had to stay like this a whole month!  And only after the authorities had fixed all their paperwork to find our Daddy's mate, could we be sent to new homes.

I was afraid because I had heard the people talking about us being social "scarred" by what had happened to us and maybe not being safe to go to homes.  I became even more afraid when I realized that probably no one would want me because I was old had had medical problems.  I couldn't believe that even though I had not given up hope and had survived that it was only to die.  They were so certain of this that they would not even "waste" a vaccine on me until my "week was up"!

The Animal Control Person wanted us in something called "rescue" and was hoping to get us there together.  I didn't know what that was, but the day the courts released us a girl came in.  She barely glanced at me, but picked up and cuddled my younger and healthier friend.  Was this Rescue?  I called to my friend and she to me...but then something happened.  They walked out with my companion and they didn't take me!  Surely this was a mistake?  I yipped and cried and heard her calling back but they didn't come to get me and I was again left in the cold, dark place...only this time alone.

Almost at once the door opened again, but I didn't lift my head this time.  I was so very tired.  My mouth and my hips hurt.  My companion was gone.  I knew she was alive and they had not killed her you see...because I has seen, heard and smelled the death in this place for a month.  Then my cage door opened and these hands who I had not felt before lifted me gently up and out.  The scent was a new one.  Clean, fresh, lots of doggie smells...but no death! I opened my eyes and looked up and there was...Mom!  I just knew it was! So I twisted around and licked all the water on her face. She held me very close.  The Animal Control Officer gave me a shot and she took me out to this very large van.  Someone else was driving and she got in the other seat.  She reached around behind her and brought out the softest, fluffiest, cleanest blanket I had in a very long time!  She cradled me against her like a baby and for the first time in ever so long my hips didn't hurt so much!  She took me home!

I am Pudgie.  My friend Cricket and me were left at a shelter!   We were so scared.  Our first Mom had died and even though her family had treated us nicely when visiting, after Mom died her daughter did not want us to live with her!  We are sure our Mommy thought her girl would love us and care for us just like she did.  But she didn't!  And she took us to this cold and noisy place.  Even though it was clean, there were BIG dogs all around us and we were in a tiny little crate in one of the big runs and we were so scared.  I was too afraid to come out of the little box.  I just curled up in a tight little ball in the back and hoped no one would see me!

Cricket is much older and wiser than I am and she stood guard at the front of the crate...between me any anyone who came near.  We had to stay there all night!  Then, the next morning this other lady came.  The shelter worker cautioned her to be careful because Cricket had snapped at them trying to keep me safe.  This lady was not the least concerned though.  She came right in to the kennel and sat on the floor and talked to us.  Cricket bit her but she didn't care so I reached out and licked her fingers so she wouldn't be angry.  I was afraid she was mad because she got up and walked out and so I just curled up in a little ball again...but now I am telling all the story!  I must save some for Cricket!

Well!  I thought that puppy would never hush!  No respect for her elders at all!  If it weren't for me she would have been eaten by the shepherd in the next run!  I was not going to have a bunch of strange hands on me or that trusting little one.  Mom was gone and it was up to me to take care of and protect Pudgie...especially since Mom's own puppy discarded us as she did!  

Anyway...so here is this woman, talking "baby talk" no less, cooing at me like I am wearing diapers...!  HOW deplorable!  And there is little Pudgie, eating it up and quivering like Jell-o with excitement.  Well...one chop on the hand should have taken care of it, but you know...she didn't even have the decency to jerk her hand away! She is as silly as Pudgie!  I thought I hadn't done it right and then she got up and left. I was just patting myself on a good job when I realized the baby had curled up in a tight ball again. Rats!  Me and my old temper!

But wait...just when I thought I had really done it...here she comes back...!  And before I can even think of baring my teeth she has scooped me up, walked me out of the room and into a bigger crate!  One filled with nice clean, soft wool blankets!  Then here comes Pudgie as well!  She then picks up the crate, smiles at the others and walks out with a "Bye for now girls!".

Then the most amazing thing of all...she puts us in this big driving places thing like our Mom had, patted the top of the box and said, "ok girls...let's get you home now"!

I am Bubba!  My new Mom gave me the name because she says I am a tough boy! My brother an I came here after being dumped in a pound.  We had no names.  Critter is what she named my brother.  He was very sick.  The man who had us took him first and then he came back and got me.  When I got to where he left me I didn't see my brother anywhere.  I was afraid and alone and covered in ticks and was very tired.  It was a long and cold and scary night.  The next day these women came and got me.  They put me in a crate and took me away.  At another place they picked up my brother.  He didn't feel well at all but I was still very happy to see him.  We had both been bathed and a lot of the ticks had been pulled off...but there were still a lot that were missed.  We had to stay in these crates all day and later were taken to another place.

Here was yet another lady who took us.  We were put in different crates and taken to yet another place!  This time however we did not go back to a pound. There were no concrete floors.  No stink. No smell of death or fear here.  Instead we were in this clean small room.  It smelled clean and was warm.  There was water and food...a whole bowl of nice crunchy food! She talked to us and she held us and she removed the rest of the ticks from us.  She sprayed us with this nifty spray which stopped my itching and she gave Critter the medicine the vet had given.  There hadn't been much of it and she was fretting over him.  I could smell her concern for him. At first he had seemed to get a little better, but then he just really wanted to sleep.

We went to her vet...and I knew something was terribly wrong.  They took Critter away. He didn't come back.  They did a lot of tests on me then.  The nice lady held me and let me know it was ok and that I would be fine.  The whole time she held me I could feel her shaking and feel the water from her face on my body.  The other people were very quiet around her and me, but I felt safe and calm.  She had told me I would be ok and I could feel she was not lying to me. The vet gave her a lot of medication and stuff for me to take and I have improved a lot.    She has played with me and given me snacks and has given me other small doggies to play with so I will not miss my brother so much...

Sometimes she will mention him, Critter, to me.  She still makes water on her face whenever she does. She regrets we are not even a year old and she has no pictures of him.  She says that is wasn't right that he should die so young and the happiest thing that had happened to him in that time was she had let him go to the bridge. She says that Critter and I were twins and that when she looks at my soon to be handsome self she sees him as well. And that I have to live twice as long, play twice as much and love twice as hard now...because I am doing it for both Critter and myself...

My name is MiniMe..at first I was called Chance because it was a chance meeting at the shelter which saved my life.  I have been called a couple other things as well...Gizmo is also my name...we are "trying them on" right now.  When I am very, very good I am "Mom's widdle Honey Boy"!  I like the sound of that a lot!

It was truly grace from God I am still alive.  I was waiting out my time to die on death row with Spike.  HE is a fear biter and they would not even let people see him.  They have to keep us a week before they can kill us you see.  I was turned in because I am older and was used only as a stud dog.  I got tired and no longer felt good.  I was no longer "earning my keep".  I have heart worms  and the treatment is very expensive.  No one would want me because of that and my age.

When my new Mom came in she saw me and took me in her arms and I felt so safe there I just snuggled down and tried to sleep there!  She put me in a small crate with lots of warm furry blankets. Very soft ones for old bones like mine.  She smiled at me and told me she would be right back.  When she came back she had another crate and in it was...Spike!  She put him in the seat behind us (I got the special one up front next to her!) and told us we were going home now and it would all be ok.

I have been to her vet several times  now.  Because I am so small (3.4 pounds) the heart worm treatment is going to be dangerous.  I am taking a tiny bit of baby aspirin and am eating well...and they think they will try and do it soon.  Right now I have only about a 50-50 chance...but I will have none without it...

I am Spike!  I am a chi-dachshie mixed boy.  The people at the shelter  named me Spike because I tried to bite them all.  See I didn't want to be there.  And I had been beaten a lot before I came there so why would I think that these people would be any different than where I came from?  What I didn't realize was that, because I was afraid and tried to bite them, they were not able to place me in a home.  I was just being kept there for a minimum period of time in case the "person" who dumped me there changed their mind and came back to get me.  Then they were going to "put me to sleep"...a nice way to say they were going to kill me.

One of the people there though remembered that my new Mom worked with hard cases so they called her and she came.  I didn't know who she was of course so I wouldn't go to her either.  She spent a lot of time trying, but it didn't work.  I had been fooled before too many times to just out and out trust her!  They ended up having to throw a towel over me to get me in a crate!

She took me home with her and put me in a room and took the door off my crate. She coaxed and pleaded and then one day she finally just picked the crate up and dumped me in the floor!  She took my house away.  I scurried in the corner, expecting the worst, but it didn't come.  She just put fresh water and food down.  All the food and water I wanted.  And blankets. And snacks.  And toys!

After a couple of days she introduced me to Bubba.  He is a very energetic puppy who absolutely adores the Mommy.  Every time he heard her he would get all excited and she would pick him up and hug him and pet him and croon to him.  I sometimes would stick my nose out and sniff her and after a while I came to realize she was not going to hit me. Incredible.  Unbelievable!  But true.

She would come into the room to do laundry. She talked to me and I really wanted to let her touch me. I was just too scared.  Then one day she said...this is enough Spikie and she reached down and scooped me up before I could even think. When I did react I am afraid I tinkled all over her. I knew I was in for it then, but she just held me and rubbed my ears and cooed to me just like she did Bubba!

That was  weeks ago and Mom says I am coming along nicely.  I am still very scared and will do what she calls "submissive urinate" , but she has high hopes for me that, with time and patience I will learn to trust people and then I can have a forever home of my own!  I am not sure I really want to go somewhere else...I really like it here with Mom!

"If a Dog Be Well Remembered"
by Ben Hur Lampman from the Sept 11, 1925
Portland Oregonian

We are thinking now of a dog, whose coat was flame in the sunshine and who, so far as we are aware,
never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought.
This dog is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the lawn
of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree or an apple or any flowering shrub of the garden is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer or gnawed at a flavorous bone or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder.
These are good places, in life or in death.
Yet it is a small matter.
For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where the dog sleeps.  On a hill where the wind is un-rebuked and the trees roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pastureland where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained and nothing is lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. If you bury him in this spot, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they shall not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he belongs there.
People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth knowing.
The one best place to bury a dog is in the heart of his master.