Rescue, that is.

As you all know, I’m just a bit involved in NYC Shiba Rescue. You may or may not know that my sister, Debbie, had the rescue bug long before I did. She fosters and transports for Above and Beyond English Setter Rescue and she is also a moderator for the online transport community, Drive for Life. If it weren’t for Debbie, I never would have survived my first foray into rescue - saving Kaos from Miami Dade Animal Services and bringing her home to the northeast.

Even Miss ~T~ (jaqi now for those of you not in the know) has done her part in the past by donating a few drawings to raise money for Animal Haven Shelter.

Well, this weekend, T went on her first rescue transport. In Florida. Who was driving? None other than her father, my ex-hubby. They picked up three Shibas from a surrendering owner and drove them over 150 miles north to meet the next driver in the transport.

Rescue. It’s a family affair. Let’s spread it around.

We have a new little foster dog, Penny. She makes the fourth confused Shiba girl that has moved in to Snick’s territory. (Counting? Secret, Shayna, Lola - who didn’t stay long - and now Penny.) I’ll write more about Penny in a day or two… the point is that watching Penny and Snick made me realize what a great host and teacher Snickers has become.

To add to that feeling of pride, when I opened the mailbox today, mine and Snick’s Delta Society Pet Partner IDs were in there! We are registered Pet Partners now. I’m excited because that means Snickers can go into the public schools. We’re one step closer to my goal of being involved in humane education.

Good boy Snickers.

And not just on the humans who do it.

When I speak with one of my partners in NYCSR in particular, the topic of our own dogs comes up a lot. We both have male Shibas that are at the centers of our canine universes. Or, at least, they WERE until we started NYCSR. These days, the rescue seems to be center of everything except the time I spend to earn a paycheck. It has taken over my social time, my SLEEP time, and, yes, my time with Snickers. I notice myself taking shorter and shorter walks with him, working longer hours at the office and at home, and sleeping later in the mornings when I should be walking him.

Yesterday another rescue person that I know was listing all the poor dogs that had been through her rescue in the last few weeks and then said

In all this, my Min Pin was neglected by me - not meaning to - and he died this Friday past… the 14th. Sometimes in rescue you neglect your babies without meaning to. I will never forgive myself… I never will…

Now, he didn’t die of neglect or abuse of course. Today she said

I am still crying and totally heartbroken. He was old, fragile, and very sweet. Had I not been so crazy busy I would have secluded him and given more gentle touch and love….

Now he’s gone and she’s full of sadness and regrets.

This morning I woke up late - again - showered, dressed and RUSHED Snickers through a quick walk. This one was even faster than usual because it was raining outside. When we got home, Snickers was very excited and I realized it was because we normally play in the apartment after our walk if it is raining. I was almost late for work already though and Snick had peed… I had to go. I change clothes, threw on my coat and gave Snick his "bye bye" treats. He was watching me the whole time, like "what are you doing?" As soon as I headed for the door, he started to whimper. When the door closed behind me, he started to howl. It only took a second for me to realize that I had disappointed him and that I’ve been doing that much too often lately.

Well, no more. The rescue can have my sleep time and it can have my social time, but it can not have my Snickers time any more!

Why did I not choose an easier breed to fall in love with and start a rescue for?? It’s bad enough that a majority of dogs (mixed and purebreds) that come into shelters and rescue are under-socialized and under-trained, but combine that with the Shiba Inu tendency to be dog aggressive (a lot) if they aren’t super socialized as puppies and… OY! SHIBAS!

Our need to play musical foster dogs never seems to end… it seems like someone is always trying to give us another otherwise-perfect-but-very-dog-aggressive Shiba. <sigh>

cross-posted from NYCSR’s blog

OK, first off, I have to say that the sound of two Shibas merrily destroying roasted lamb bones is almost as soothing as a stable full of horses chomping on their feed.

Today is Shay’s birthday. She’s THREE today. My special birthday present to her is… a brand new, wonderful, forever home! The main reason we’ve had Shayna as long as we have is because I took her off the available list over the holidays while I contemplated adopting her myself. It was a TOUGH decision because Snick and I are very attached to her and she’s clearly attached to us too. I finally decided that I’m too busy at this point in my life to give two dogs all the attention and training they need though. Shayna is sooooo affectionate, too; she needs a lot of loving from her humans, so I decided to find her a home where she would be LAVISHED with all the affection she could possibly ask for.

We’ve received a lot of applications for Shayna and one really jumped out at me a few weeks ago. After getting through the approval process, they came over this past weekend and spent several hours getting to know her. She was a little overwhelmed by all the attention and kept checking in with me, but she was definitely warming up to them by the time they left. I love that they understand it will take time for her to adjust to a new home and they’ve been asking me all the right questions about how to help her with the transition.

So, this Sunday I will be driving her to her forever family in NJ.

Happy Third Birthday Shayna. Snick and I will love you forever.

NYC Shiba Rescue, Inc. (NYCSR) is participating in Super Pet Expo this coming weekend. We will be there to help educate the public regarding purebred rescue in general and Shiba Inu rescue in particular. Education is an important part of our mission, so this event is a key step for us. In addition to educating consumers about breed rescue, we hope to also recruit new foster homes and raise funds for NYCSR!!!

If you will be - or can be - anywhere near Edison this weekend (Friday 4pm to 9pm, Saturday 10am to 8pm, Sunday 10am to 5pm), please stop by to say hello.

Super Pet Expo takes place in the NJ Convention & Exposition Center in Edison, NJ, and 20,000 people are expected to visit during the three day event. Visitors will be able to peruse 200+ exhibitors and will be inspired and educated by wildlife and pet presentations including:
- Ultimate Air Dogs. Led by former Major League Baseball player Milt Wilcox and his dog Sparky. Dogs run at speeds in excess of 25 miles per hour leaping into a 30,000-gallon swimming pool. Prizes are awarded for distance and height.
- Faith, The Biped Dog. Disabled since birth, Faith is a ‘You Tube’ favorite because of her amazing ability to walk on two legs.
- Pony rides, alpacas and more!

Visit superpetexpo.com for directions and for all show details including a list of all entertainers and demonstrations.

Snickers and I will be there the whooooole time (egads!) and we hope to see lots and lots of you there too!

Well… I’ve decided not to keep her. As much as Snick and I love her, I can’t handle - or afford - another full time dog. Shayna isn’t getting the leash training or the attention that she needs. I realized my primary reason for wanting to keep her was to keep Snickers company and that just isn’t enough of a reason. If there was another human in the house to give Shayna the kind of loving she wants, I would find a way to make the money piece work, but there isn’t. When I have more time for another dog, then Snick and I will adopt a friend for him, but not right now. In the meantime, we will find Shayna an awesome home and we’ll foster every now and then (with sanity breaks for me in between).

Get ‘em while they’re hot! This is our first venture into fund raising. Please help us NOT crash and burn. (Click the preview below to visit the NYCSR Shop and buy yours today.)

OK, so I have a dilemma now. I’ve been through the pre-adoption process with two different adopters for Shayna so far and they’ve both fallen apart at the last minute. The first had a family emergency and the second found out they are about to be uprooted by the military.

Should Snick and I adopt Shayna?

• Yes, definitely. (82%)
• Maybe? (10%)
• No, you’ll regret it. (8%)

Total Votes: 71

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Of course, Snick and I have become more attached to Shay every day and vice versa. Most of you remember how upset Snick was after ~T~ and Secret moved out? Well, he’s loving having a buddy around every day again! A few mornings ago I was watching the two of them tear around the dog run so fast that both their tails were sticking out behind them and laughing at how much they enjoy each other. I started thinking maybe I should adopt her!

A couple nights ago, I took Shay to my friend lulu’s for a test run sleepover because it looks like I’ll still have her when Snick and I are supposed to be in Indianapolis for Christmas. lulu signed up as a temporary foster and said she’d keep Shay while I’m gone, so we were testing to see how lulu’s dog feels about that. lulu emailed me the next morning and said

She sat in front of the door for about an hour after you left. Then she curled up on the couch and went to sleep. she misses you and you can tell she doesn’t know why you left her here.

and then in reply to my reply a little while later

She wouldn’t sleep with me. I put her in the bed, but she got out. She slept on the couch. At the dog run, she sat at the fence and looked for you guys. I think it would be good if you adopted her. She’s very attached.

I keep bouncing the pros and cons around in my head and I just can’t figure out what the best decision would be. Please help me decide!

I think, if it were just about me and my own convenience, I wouldn’t do it. However, when I think of both Snickers and Shayna, I want to do it. Snick is very happy with a pal and Shay is obviously very happy living with us! Someone emailed me yesterday and said "Shayna was unhappy where she was and now she is happy and content. I would say go for it!!!" That makes sense. Yesterday I was leaning towards doing it. Today I am leaning towards not doing it. What do you guys think? At the very least, please vote. I’d love to see your comments or email on the subject also!

I have to show you these photos of Snick and Shay. They love each other!

Besides, you can’t go wrong with cute doggy pictures when you have nothing to blog about.

I was crating Shayna at night and whenever I wasn’t home until she and Snick got to know each other better (and stopped fighting). Friday night, I let her sleep outside the crate for the first time. After I went to bed, Snick joined me as usual and a few minutes later Shayna hopped up on the bed too. I thought Snick might chase her off, but he didn’t. She’s done well… she stays on the opposite side of the bed from Snick and he doesn’t seem to mind. I had to go out a couple times without them today so I left them alone in the apartment with her out of her crate and that went well too. So, tomorrow, I’ll leave her out all day when I go to work. I think they’re fine. I took her bed out of her crate and put it by Snick’s (because she was stealing his bed when she wasn’t crated), so now they’re happily curled up side-by-side in their beds!

Snickers and I have our first NYCSR foster dog! Shayna was surrendered by her owner because she didn’t like sharing her home with puppies. (Her owner had other dogs that had puppies recently.) Shayna was apparently very unhappy and needed a place to live where she felt more comfortable. She’s definitely comfortable living with me!

And, as my friend Judith said when she met her yesterday… “She’s certainly Shayna!” (Shayna means beautiful in Yiddish and she is, indeed, quite beautiful.)

I have joked for a long time that Snickers is the Shiba Ambassador to NYC because so many people stop me on the street to find out what kind of dog he is. I have talked to people from all over the world about Shiba Inus.

Snick took his ambassadorial duties to the next level a couple weeks ago by deigning to be fawned over by hundreds of people at the AKC’s Responsible Dog Ownership Day in Madison Square Park. He was an incredibly good and patient boy and I couldn’t have been more proud of him. I’m so lucky to be owned by such a great dog.

 

To read more about what a successful event this was, please visit NYC Shiba Rescue’s blog.

It takes forever to get a Petfinder account (when you’re as busy as I am).

If the window below doesn’t show a list of dogs, hit the “go” button and they’ll show up. No idea why it’s doing that…

This was Keiko. She was meant to be NYC Shiba Rescue’s ninth foster dog.

One week ago, I received an email… a real estate appraiser upstate had been to appraise a home and while she was there she saw a dog hiding under the house. Keiko was a four year old, female, red "wooly" Shiba. The owner of the home was being put into an assisted living facility by her daughter. The daughter was buying the home and Keiko was slated to be put to sleep. When the appraiser drove around to the back on her way out, Keiko came out to say hello.

 

Believe it or not, even though this was almost 200 miles away, NYCSR has a shelter contact nearby AND we were about to receive a dog from them. Said wonderful shelter contact agreed to evaluate Keiko for us. We contacted the daughter who agreed to let us help find Keiko a home and she put us in touch with her mother, Keiko’s owner. The evaluation took place last weekend and her owner asked us to “please find her a good home with a big yard.” Keiko was a sweet dog, although a little leery of the evaluator’s dog. The only problem we foresaw was that Keiko had never been leash trained. We were determined to take care of her though and a transport for both dogs was scheduled for tonight. We were making plans to take turns teaching Keiko to walk nice on a leash and then find her a great new home.

NYCSR’s Intake Director contacted Keiko’s owner yesterday morning to confirm the details, only to find out that her daughter had taken Keiko to be put to sleep the day before.

They said they would rather she be dead than not know if she was in a good home. How anyone could be so self-centered and have so little regard for the life of another being, I just don’t understand.

I’m so sorry Keiko. Rest in peace.

If anyone out there is willing and able to foster dogs in the NYC metropolitan area, please contact me. NYC Shiba Rescue is getting dogs faster than we are getting fosters. We have four dogs in foster care right now and two more on the way in the next couple days. Especially needed right now - foster homes with no dogs or only a female dog currently in the home. Long term (indefinite), short term, with dogs, without dogs, whatever… if you can help, please contact me. If you live elsewhere, but know someone that might be able to help, please drop them an email and send them to this post to get in touch with me. THANKS!!!

NYC Shiba Rescue has three new dogs in foster care as of this weekend and at least one, maybe two, more coming this week. I wish I could buy a farm and start a Shiba Sanctuary.

Three dogs coming into foster care this weekend.

Nervous breakdown being held at bay. Barely.

One of my partners and I have a running commentary in IM now about staying balanced (family, rescue, job, etc.). A couple days ago we had a conversation that went like this…

me: deep breath
zee: ommmm
me: bigger deep breath!
zee: inu balance ommmm
me: LOL!!!!

It actually helped!

NYC Shiba Rescue has been around for less than a month and we just took in our third foster dog, Sabrina. Surely there won’t always be so many…?

Finding foster homes - and then adoptive homes - at this rate is practically a full time job. And, in case you don’t know, I already HAVE a full time job. And a ton of freelancing work. And a kid. And two dogs. Good thing I have no social life!

Anyway, you can read about Sabrina, and our other foster dogs, on the NYC Shiba Rescue Blog.

Today was a Shiba Day. Snick and I went out this morning and he had a good romp at the dog run and then he sat on the bench with me while I had my coffee. We went to his favorite pet store so he could shop. After a few short hours at home, we headed to a Shiba Meetup at the dog run in Chelsea.

The meetups are almost always a blast, but they’ve become a lot more fun for me in the past few months as I’ve really gotten to know some of the other group members and their dogs. It was gorgeous out today and the dogs had a great time. Snickers got everyone riled up shortly after we got there and then he settled in to survey the crowd from his favorite hilltop perch. Several people commented on "king of the mountain" and "pack leader"" demeanor at the meetups, which I find amusing because one of the guys at our regular dog run calls him the Mayor. He has that attitude everywhere.

I was talking with several people during the course of the meetup about how the meetup group, and then the rescue group, got started and, of course, I blame it all on Snickers. He tells me to do these things for him, so I do. We decided he has some sort of telepathic abilities that he uses for the good of Shibas everywhere. A friend confirmed the mind control theory when she said she had just seen her dog - who tends to be pretty scrappy, especially with other male dogs - happily relinquish a tennis ball to Snick and then back away. Something is up with that!

Snick and I enjoyed a newly finished piece of the Hudson River Park, before stopping at our regular dog run on the way home. We had dinner with Miss ~T~ and Secret, took a nice long nap together and then, of course, we went for another walk! After all the activity, I guess I was too tired to resist the Shiba Mind Control, because Snickers talked me into starting a team for the NYC Shiba Inus to walk in the 2007 Dogswalk for Cancer. Speaking of which, click right on over to mine and Snick’s Dogswalk page and make a little donation to sponsor us if you can.

Edited 04/15/07 3:15pm to add video from the meetup. (I love that a couple members in the group do these videos… too fun!)

So… all that Shiba Rescue stuff I was babbling about during my vacation? Consider it the birth of NYC Shiba Rescue. We’re a group of about 10 people so far. We’re having our first meeting next weekend. We’ll probably incorporate so we can get non-profit status and also receive the New Hope list that AC&C sends out.

Of course, all that also means that I’ve started a website. There is still a LOT to be done on the site and for the group, but the first couple blog entries are up about our two current foster dogs - Suzie and Hero. Go over there and check them out!

So, I’m supposed to be on vacation this week. All I’ve done is work. It’s good though. It’s (1) getting a bunch of past due hanging-over-my-head freelance stuff done and (2) doggie rescue stuff. What have I been up to since my last post? Well, let’s see.

*Foster Mom Terra had already named him Hero when I got there. Poor Hero can walk but it’s pretty wobbly and he falls down sometimes. He has a terrible looking skin condition, which the shelter didn’t tell us anything about before we picked him up. The vet we originally went to wanted a fortune, so I called my vet and they squeezed us in at closing time. They examined him and gave him pain meds and an anti-inflamatory and kept him overnight. They ran blood work to rule out thyroid problems or testicular tumors that could be causing the skin condition.

My vet doesn’t think he has any fresh fractures but he has a good bit of muscle deterioration and arthritis. Mostly likely scenario is that this guy never recuperated from a previous accident (notes from the shelter say he has a plate in his hip from before they got him) and then was injured again recently. His general health checks out pretty well though except for the back legs and the skin. The vet thinks with some exercise and physical therapy he could build his muscle tone up to compensate. He’s only about 5 years old, so he’s got some good years left in him if we can get him healthy and neutered and adopted out. He’s definitely adoptable. He was an angel for us. He never complained when we picked him up. He walked as much as he could and we carried him when he got tired. When we were waiting at the vets he laid down and put his head on my leg. He was just so sweet. He’s got the Shiba pride and stubborn streak though. It showed through even though he was tired and in pain.

**The vet decided to keep Hero a second night. He’s resting comfortably. He has Lyme disease and a low thyroid. Nothing serious though. Vet changed his antibiotic to cover the Lyme disease. He got a bath and will get treated with Revolution in the morning. Vet thinks with good nutrition and exercise he’ll be ready to be neutered in a couple weeks and we’ll redo the blood work then too.

***Terra said he’s walking way better already and she has him settled in at her apartment. Her female Shiba wants to PLAAAAY with him, but she’ll have to wait.

I’ve been busy. OK? Just busy, that’s all. Here’s a quick recap of what I’ve been up to since my pre-cocktail pawty post.

And that’s just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head!