Along for the ride:

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Liberty

Life continues here, although not much blogging. For the moment I'm feeling creatively fulfilled in other ways, with some client projects, one in particular. I've been documenting before and after with progress photos, as we change the style of a previously-ugly house. Our second container of stone just arrived from France and the scope of the project keeps growing. Needless to say, there are time demands. This has become the hobby, and passion, of this client. He's one of the nicest people I've worked with for a long time. He even forgave me not recognizing his Aston Martin, which he'd so proudly shown me. I did like the raspberry red leather interior, including dashboard. Usually, when he has an hour or two gap in his schedule, and calls to see if I can meet him, 98% of the time, I go running.
The 2% unavailable responses, were on two recent occasions when I was driving in the other direction to rescue our latest collie. Libby was brought into a shelter with another dog, a couple of weeks ago. The other dog was micro-chipped, the owner located and, although Libby had been living with them since he found her a few weeks previously, he took his dog home and left her behind.
Most shelters will call breed-specific rescue groups, if a recognizably purebred dog comes in. The breed rescues take on veterinary expenses and can spend some time evaluating dogs and people to come up with perfect matches so that dogs find wonderful forever homes. Many dogs adopted directly from shelters go to well-meaning people who have no idea of the commitment they are taking on, or specific characteristics inherent in different breeds. A significant number end up back at the pound six months later, with health or behavioral problems.
Libby had been held for the legal waiting period, to give any owner time to find her, and her photo popped up on the Pet-finder website as an available dog, bypassing any outreach to Collie Rescue. Someone emailed us and our fearless leader, Karen, called the shelter. They didn't want to release her to rescue. They have an unwavering set of procedures and no flexibility to change the way they do things. They needed someone to come in, pay the adoption/spay fee and return a few days later to collect the dog.
Next step, which has been successful in the past, go through all of our waiting adoption applications, to see if a qualified adopter was a match for a six year old collie girl. Find someone who could drop everything and go get her. All of this done at speed because we wanted to make sure Libby was safe. People were out of town, tied up in meetings, yada, yada, yada...
All I had planned was a DMV appointment to renew my driving license and a desk full of the usual obligations. The decision had to be made, as the shelter in question was across the Bay; up past Oakland and Berkeley; part way to Sacramento. A ninety minute drive, if I didn't get into commute traffic. I mapped out my directions, cancelled the DMV appointment online and buckled up for my mission.
"Pick a bridge, any bridge," to cross San Francisco Bay, from my starting point.... That pleasant ten minutes accomplished, with cormorants eying me from their perches along the way, I had to concentrate to pick the correct entry point onto the snarly, truck-infested East Shore Freeway. Not helped at all by the enormous blind-spot created by the dog crate crammed into the back of my little car, I had to be very strategic about any passing or merging maneuvers. Thousands of cars and trucks channeled side by side between the dingy, institutional-beige sound walls, exhaust stained the color of grief.
I got really lucky. Listening to the radio for traffic reports, my ears kept tuning in to the numbered freeways I would be using. Each time I heard of an incident, it was in the opposite direction to mine. I made it to the shelter with time to spare before they closed.
The Pinole shelter is quite modern. The dogs are in small side rooms, divided up into five or six kennel-runs per room. The obvious advantage is that any illness is more readily contained and the noise level is greatly reduced, so that it's not as scary for the dogs. There are windows to the outside and to the hallway; As bright and cheerful as such a place can be.
I was sent to look at "Curly" as they'd named her. She came forward with a tentative tail-wag and a downcast demeanor. She had spent some time rolling in cow manure, from the smell of her, and one eye was red and weepy. I tried to talk them into letting her come home with me but "rules is rules". I filled out paperwork, paid for her spay surgery, and agreed to collect her five days later from the clinic, in another town.


I spent the drive home reflecting on a new name. She was almost a "Glory" but that was too much name for the shy girl I'd just met. Liberty gave her the choice of the softer Libby and would fit whoever she turned out to be.
Two weeks later, her surgery incision all healed, she's had a bath and settled in. My car has been Febreezed and my office floor washed down with bleach. We had to wash our hands each time we petted her. I've never had a dog so relieved to be cleaned up.
Libby came to the beach with us yesterday. We walked along to the fishing boats and bought some live Dungeness crab, to cook at home, then we waited for an outdoor table at a restaurant frequented by almost as many dogs as people.
This morning she had her first off-leash playtime with some other dogs. She's sweet and flirtatious, all puppy-bows and big, carrosel-pony, gamboling canter strides with the best grin on her face. Life is looking up in a big way.

17 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting. Enjoyed your latest adventure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a lucky dog. You managed to squeeze the necessary time/driving/hassle it takes to get a dog out of the shelter and to the right home. She sounds super sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your life is full, and you're enjoying it. Result.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think it is fantastic the work you do with these beautiful dogs. My step-mom rescued a border collie that had been given up 3 times in 3 weeks until they took her in. She is a beautiful dog. It is sad that people look on animals as disposable.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a lucky dog Libby is to have found you. You are living proof that the human and animal bond is a beautiful thing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for all the kind words. I'll pass them on to Libby. I'm but a cog in the wheel of a good rescue group. Area Coordinator has already found a potential forever home for Libby. An applicant waiting for the perfect, calm dog to join her older dog. Home check is being scheduled and then the potential adopters will drive up to meet her. There's a plan-B in the works, if that doesn't work out.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lucky Libby! I always wonder why the shelters cannot manage to give their dogs a bath. If they hope to adopt them out, clean would be a major plus. Then again, short on volunteers and short on funding might be the answers.

    You went through some pretty serious effort to get Libby out of there. Now, if she can find her forever home quickly, your hard work will be well rewarded.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jean, of course we have to empathize with overloaded shelters. However, it saves us a lot of money (so assume it costs them more) when they work this way. Libby would have been out of their shelter much sooner, all vet expenses paid by rescue. Collies don't do well in jail. They get depressed. I'm in the guest bedroom with Libby, as Husband is "no dogs in the bedroom" kinda guy. I usually can make that happen, but this girl was too sad. Don't ask me to choose, unless you want to know the answer!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Libby and dogs like her are so fortunate that there are kind people like you to pick up the pieces .
    I hope it all goes well and she finds a loving permanent home soon . Meanwhile , have fun !

    ReplyDelete
  10. This warms the cockles of my heart, for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  11. S&S there's an application in hand, from a potential adopter who sounds ideal. They're almost two hundred miles away, so it's taking a bit longer to get a home-check done. Then they will drive up here to meet Libby. They want a gentle soul, as their existing collie is in his teens.
    If that doesn't work out, I took her to a client's house yesterday, they have two Labs and a poodle. They were rather in love with how sweet she was.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Argent, I love to see the happy dog appear from inside the anxiety of abandonment. We're been together for three weeks and Libby is more serene, with the occasional spurt of silliness and a big smile. My cockles get a work out too:)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Tell you what hen, you really are a nice lady eh?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Chef, Thank you. That's all I ever really had ambition to be. (and reliable, of course:) Satisfactory epitaph material.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I've always loved collies ever since my Mother bought me a set of books called "The Happy Hollisters" at a garage sale. They had a dog named Zip and I always swore that when I grew up I would have a collie dog named Zip. Instead, we have a Scottish terrier named Socks. (And even his name is off since he is black and had these cute white feet when we got him which quickly turned black...)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Libby is beautiful! Thank you for getting her out. I really do not understand shelters that do not work with rescues.....Anywho, thank you for the information on your Abbey. I am going to go back & check out her posts & learn from them.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Maria, a dog is a dog. Four paws and a tail, or three paws and no tail. They live in the moment, they are big hearted and have individual personalities. What's not to love?

    Pauley, things I have learned from my dogs are totally applicable to humans and the rest of our lives.

    ReplyDelete