Happy Tail: Cheddar Cheese Man!

Farewell photo

Woohoo, Cheddar found his forever home today! He was one of several JW pups adopted out at the We Dog Care First Birthday Bash this afternoon. I'll be sure to make a post on that soon so everyone can see how awesome WDC is, but for now, we'll focus on Cheddar. I'm thrilled for him to be in a household that's active and playful. Our home is quiet again, this time for a while as we're taking a break for a month due to travel plans. We'll miss Cheddar, but it's awesome knowing he won't be bored anymore and it's nice for our dogs to get some peace and quiet. They really put up with a lot from the crazy red-tailed firefox!

Cheddar & his new family!

Cheese Man hit the jackpot with his new folks. You see, Cheddar is all smiles and wags at home, but as soon as he gets outside of his comfort zone he retreats into a nervous shell. Meeting his adopters at WDC was very scary for him, but they fell head over heels despite his tail-tucked first impression. I'm super grateful that his new people were able to look past the scared little dog they met today and imagine the "real" Cheddar with all of his spunkiness and joy. I am so excited for them to meet that Cheddar once he gets settled in with them at home. Out of all the dogs we've fostered, Cheddar did the most drastic 180 from shelter to home. His personality completely changed. I can't wait for his new family to see that side of him - the cheesy Cheddar who springboards off furniture, grins from ear to ear, rabid dog runs around the living room at 100mph, and entertains nonstop with his antics. Oh, Cheddar also gets a canine sibling out of the deal! His new Husky sister, Banksy, will surely keep him busy wrestling and playing day after day. Paws up for Cheddar and his first day of furever!

Settling in together

Siblings out for a walk

PUPDATE! Cheddar's first day in his furever home went very well. His mom says he and Banksy are well-matched energetically and even insisted on holding Cheddar's leash on their evening walk. They're playing great together and Cheddar is settling in well. Yay, Cheddar! Check out all the pawsome photos of him enjoying Banksy's company.

Playtime!

Happy Tails: Waffles & Koa!

This weekend brought happy tails for everyone! Both of our foster dogs, Waffles and Koa, found their forever families. It's nice and quiet at the Bowen house with just our three old geezers. We'll see how long that lasts...I think we're going to shoot for a week off here if possible. Anyhow, we're super happy for Waffles and Koa! They've both got fantastic lives ahead of them.

Waffles and his mommy

Waffles, foot healed and good as new, wound up as an only child. His mom is retired, so he's got all her time and affection all to himself. How nice! He'll love being the star, but hopefully she'll take him to daycare or the dog park every so often so he can get his crazy play on. He does love to socialize. His mom said they'll come in to my store and visit every now and then. I'll be sure and do a pupdate post on him after they come visit so you can hear how he's doing. Waffles is a nervous little guy when he first meets people, but he gave his new mom a face full of kisses right away. How awesome is that? His mom instantly fell in love with him and was moved to tears by his story, gentleness, and affection. Oh, and she's keeping the name "Waffles"! Love it when that happens! 

Waffles was sort of a co-foster effort. We pulled him and got his foot on the right track, then traded dogs with another foster family we're good friends with after about three weeks. Anne-Laure and Steed had been fostering a difficult Chihuahua named Mischa for a few months. Mischa hates men and was really having a rough time. We traded Mischa for Waffles to see if the change in scenery / routine would help at all and to give Anne-Laure and Steed a much deserved break. Waffles was a pretty easy dog - always happy, joyful, sweet, and playful. Sometimes you need a morale boost after dealing with a tough case for a while. Waffles gave them just that. Mischa's a story for another day. Anyway, Anne-Laure and Steed did a fantastic job with Waffles. They loved his carefree spirit just as much as we did. They continued helping his foot heal by giving him medicated foot soaks twice each day for a week (no joke...they're troopers) and making sure he took his antibiotics to ward off infection. Before long, his foot looked nearly perfect. We dog-sat Waffles for a few weekends here and there from that point on, but Anne-Laure and Steed remained his primary foster parents. It's been really cool to share the load so to speak with such good friends. Waffles became sort of a joint custody project, giving us all the opportunity to be touched by this sweet little dog's wonderful spirit.

Here's what Anne-Laure has to say about Waffles: "When Waffles first came into our house, he brought his liveliness and energy with him. Being used to Chihuahuas, we were a little unprepared for his athleticism when we left a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the coffee table. What would have been out of reach for a Chi definitely wasn't out of reach for the determined Waffle-nator's fast jaws. He ate all the food he could manage to get his paws/nose on. When there's no food around, he chomps on ice cubes after playing with them for a while first. This playful dog puts all his focus into whatever he's doing right right at the very minute he's doing it. If you take him on a car ride, it's his favorite thing ever. But so are walks, play time, belly rubs, cuddle time, dinner time, sleepy time, whatever! He loves it all! When he's content, he gently puts his chin on your arm and lets out a long sigh. He's the easiest, most loving little dog we've been lucky enough to have for a few days. He so wants love. I've never seen him show any sign of dislike toward anyone. One of my friends brought her 15 month old toddler over. She's scared of dogs so we were a little apprehensive, especially because Waffles has a much bigger bark than his size. He approached her very gently and rubbed his head on her, asking to be pet. When she felt safer, he chased her and she chased him back. When she picked up a little branch, he sat a few feet away from her with his eyes begging her to throw it. She didn't, so he very gently pulled the branch from her hand and threw it in the air for himself. He did that a few times, determined to teach her how to play fetch. This special little dog reassured my friend, I think, that dogs and toddlers are not incompatible. His gentleness combined with his puppy-ish love for play and passion for cuddle makes him the perfect dog in my book."

Derpfest!

None of us were able to make the adoption event this past Saturday. Anne-Laure dropped Waffles off at our house Friday night, planning to pick him up after the event on Saturday evening.. We snuggled, played, and enjoyed his company as usual. He's such a fun dog. We gave him a bath and cut his nails in prep for the event so he'd look his best. He'd had zero interest so far, which none of us understood given his endearing personality and extremely goofy cuteness. Saturday morning, I dropped him off at daycare on my way to work. He was transported to the event later that day. When I texted to ask how Waffles did, I nearly jumped out of my skin to hear that he was getting adopted. A lady had been pre-approved to adopt another Jake's Wish dog, but when she came to the event and saw Waffles it was love at first sight. We miss this happy little guy already, but we're so glad he's on to his forever! Best of luck to you, Waffle Cone!

Koa & her new momma!

Koa got the forever family of her dreams! She's got two canine brothers: Kielbasa the pittie and Sausage the Chihuahua. Sounds pretty perfect for her! Kielbasa needed a playmate. I'm sure he and Koa are running and wrestling as I type this. Koa's new people are great with training and consistency. The dogs have to wait for them to say "good morning" as the release phrase for coming out of their crates each morning! Too cute. Once per week, they're all allowed to sleep in bed with the people for a special night of snuggles. I'm so happy for Koa. I don't have as much to say about her happily ever after as I did for Waffles because we only had her for a week, but it's awesome to see this itty bitty happy pittie pup surrounded by love. I'm hoping we'll get photos of her once she's fully grown. If so, I'll be sure to share. Kisses, Koa!

Bonus: Waffles photo-bombing Koa in the backyard!

Meet Koa: An Itty Bitty Happy Pittie!

Such sparkly eyes!

This adorable little girl's name is Koa. She came into Santa Clara County Animal Control as a stray and Jake's Wish couldn't resist her sparkly eyes. Koa is 4 months old, 30 pounds, and just oh so sweet. She has a very mild case of demodectic mange. It's localized to just a couple patches here on her side and feet, so the vets are hopeful it will simply clear up on its own as she matures. All dogs carry demodex mites. Whether they develop mange is a matter of how overrun with the mites they become and how well their immune system is able to battle the mite population. Young dogs that are in stressful situations are more prone to developing a case of mange. It always seems like it's most often pitties that have demodex, but all breeds are equally susceptible. Perhaps it's just because pitties make up a larger percentage of the stray population. Puppies get the mites from their mother as they're born. Not all puppies in a litter may end up with mange, just the ones that have weaker immune systems. Basically, it's more of a sensitivity than anything else. Demodex isn't contagious like scabies (sarcoptic mange is highly contagious...our Bunkin had this when we got him). We saw some seriously horrible mange cases back in Atlanta: dogs with no fur left and their skin reduced to a full-body oozing scab, reeking of decay, dying of secondary infection and organ failure. Koa's will never be like this. You probably won't even notice anything in her photos.

ZzzzzZzzzz

Koa is a super mellow pup, which is of course awesome. Most of the time she just follows us around the house or rests on one of the dog beds in the living room. She knows what antlers and nylabones are for and she'll spend a good while chewing on them while she lounges. When she is feeling playful, she entertains herself by tossing ropes and other toys in the air and chasing them. At most, she'll do a couple gallops across the living room and maybe try to convince Oliver to play with her. That's pretty much it! She does enjoying going to We Dog Care doggy daycare and getting to be a little rowdy with her friends every now and then, but she certainly doesn't need to do that every day. Other than having to potty train and watch out for inappropriate chewing, it doesn't much feel like we have a puppy in the house. Fine by me! She's just a really good girl.

Koa at Hermitage

One of Koa's nicknames is Baby Hippo. She's none too graceful, she guzzles water, weighs a good solid beefcake ton, and makes these ridiculous deep snorting noises when she's excited. In fact, I think she learned to answer to Hippo before Koa, but that's ok. She knows both now. At We Dog, they call her Baby Shark because of her smooth sleek silvery coat and sharp puppy teeth. Every time I go to pick her up from daycare, one of the handlers is always holding her. I get home and wonder why she's not entirely pooped out - it's because all she does at daycare is snuggle with the hoomans! Silly Hippo. Everybody loves her and she loves everybody. She even gets along with cats. This pup is a piece of cake. We took her to Hermitage Brewery with us the other day and people just took turns asking if they could walk her the whole time. It was pretty great. Easy tip for getting dogs adopted: brewery photos. Works every time (knock on wood).

Who you callin' Hippo?!

Other than Zeke and Girl, both of which were super quick cases I did 1,000 years ago before knowing anything about rescue, we've never had a pittie before. Koa is our first. I don't know how we've gotten this deep without ever fostering a pittie, as they're the breed in the most need. Shortly after we moved here, someone said to me, "Oh, but you guys don't do pit bulls though!" and I said "What?!" before I realized we hadn't done one. We've fostered so many dogs that at this point it looked like we actually made an effort to not foster pits. I had to fix that! I'm not great at the whole "you shouldn't care what other people think" thing to begin with, but jeez I can't stand to have folks thinking that about us. We foster everybody and give them all the love they deserve. Just so happened that Jake's Wish needed a place for Miss Hippo, so there ya have it.

Pit bulls: they'll snuggle you to death

Cue crash course in being a pit bull [foster] parent. It hasn't even been a week and I've already had abundant opportunity to receive ignorant comments from folks about my [foster] dog. Within 5 minutes of arriving at the brewery, a lady asked us, "Is that a pit bull?" and then saying "how lucky we are to have gotten her before she was abused". I just smiled begrudgingly and explained that she's just as much of a blank slate as any other puppy. The next day at work, a customer and I were chatting about his teething puppy over nylabones. I laughed and, in an attempt to commiserate with him, mentioned that I've got a pittie puppy at home who likes to run with her mouth open, so I feel his pain about sharp puppy teeth. Instead of understanding the happy goofy puppy image I was going for, the guy looked horrified and warned me to "watch out for that" because "those dogs can turn dangerous fast when they're not raised right". Another WTF moment. My puppy teething is no different than your puppy teething, but because mine's a pit and yours is a lab, I can't talk about mine without incurring a safety lecture. Well, that's stupid. Today I ran across a lady who was absolutely certain Koa couldn't possibly be good with cats, no matter how many times I affirmed that she is. None of this is surprising to me in theory because I know how the story goes, but it's been interesting to experience firsthand. Mind you, Koa is a beautiful, super sweet, affectionate, quiet, well-behaved puppy. If people say stupid garbage like this about her now, I can only imagine what it'll be like when she weighs 50 pounds and loses her derpy baby face.

The struggle is real. My friends who are real pittie parents carry around an extra burden: an added level of accountability that is based solely on the breed of their dog and the ignorant generalizations surrounding it. See, I'm a bad pet parent: Oliver and Bunkin go to the dog park without their rabies tags on their collars sometimes. Just their name tags with my phone number. I know exactly where they are - at home, tucked away in the office filing cabinet. If something happened, I'd have to run home and get them on the way to the shelter / vet / wherever. No big deal, right? **[And yes, I know I really shouldn't do this]** Pittie parents don't have the luxury of being lax or negligent like that. They know their dogs don't go

anywhere without all their tags and licensing, because if something happens, it's going to be their fault. They aren't treated the same as terriers and retrievers.  Any dog might react differently in stressful situations than they'd normally act (getting startled, tail stepped on, a jerky dog at the park, etc), but if a pit bull gets scared and bites someone or someone else's pet, there will be a witch hunt. It's a daily fear for pittie parents that their dog gets in a tussle with another dog or person and not only gets blamed, but "proves" the breed stereotype right. It's sort of like waking up every day feeling like you've got to prove yourself. This may be your amazing, beloved, sweet-hearted couch dog, but there's still that nagging fear in the back

of your mind every day that if he ever does anything less than perfect, it's over. It's not just a risk for your one dog that you're worried about, it's the ramifications on all the other amazing bully breeds out there that's truly terrifying. Nobody else has to carry that burden. People know my Chihuahua is a jerk, but they don't just assume all Chis are like that. Unfortunately, pitties are victims of gross generalization. The pit never gets the benefit of the doubt, a second chance, an even shake, or any of that stuff. Just because he's a pit. It's not fair. 

It's one of my many doggy hopes that bully breeds someday soon regain their status as America's family dog. My hat goes off to all of you who advocate for these guys. Koa sends hippo kisses to Bruce, Bailey, Thor, Zaxby, Grace, Lacey, Rosie, Tank, and our other often misunderstood friends. Koa's proud to be a pit bull and we're proud to be her foster parents. For more information on adopting Koa, visit www.jakeswishrescue.org

To learn more about advocacy for misunderstood dog breeds, click here: http://imnotamonster.org/

Shiva's Journey: From Struggles to Success

It'd been a while since we'd had a shepherd and Drew was itching for another one. It was just before Christmas and Jake's Wish Dog Rescue was in need of a new foster home for one of their dogs: a gorgeous female White Shepherd who needed crate rest for a month. Shiva came into rescue from the San Martin shelter, where she'd been dumped as an owner surrender because she grew bigger than expected. Shiva weighed 78 pounds at 10 months old. That is a BIG girl. She blew breed standards out of the water; a typical White Shepherd female weighs 55-65 pounds full grown. Still, what sort of jackwagon dumps their dog because she grew 15 pounds more than they expected? It's not like she was supposed to be small. Unfortunately, this happens a lot. Anyway, Shiva was adopted from the shelter and then returned the very next day because she didn't get along with the new people's dog right away. 24 hours. I guess they didn't feel like giving it a chance. So, after all of that disappointment early in life, Shiva ended up with Jake's Wish.

Pretty Lady

Back to why Shiva needed crate rest. The vet suspected a slight ACL injury and wanted to see if crate rest would make a difference before considering surgical repair. Her foster mom was about to go out of town, so we agreed to take Shiva (formerly Bella) and do our best to get her leg healed. Crate rest is tough on everyone involved: the dog and the foster parents. You feel guilty for keeping the dog in the crate all the time, even though that's exactly what needs to be done. The dog feels slighted, agitated, and stir crazy after a certain amount of time spent day after day in the cage. Add in the fact that Shiva was a large breed puppy and you can imagine we had our work cut out for us. We'd done our fair share of strict crate rest before for heartworm recovery patients, FHO recovery, and of course for Raven the GSD with her awful carpal wound. None of those dogs were puppies though, so we were a bit nervous about this one.

Raw bone palooza!

The lying tug strategy

The first week wasn't too bad. Jake's Wish stocked us up on raw bones, giant Kongs, dental chews, and all kinds of long lasting goodies to keep Shiva busy while in her crate. Once the novelty of those things began to wear off, we took her for tiny little walks to the end of the street and back in an attempt to burn some energy without straining her leg. I worked on commands with Shiva to exercise her mind - mental stimulation is just as important as physical activity. She learned sit, down, stay, wait, leave it, go to your bed, and other basic rules of the house with ease. When she got crazy, I'd pull up a chair in front of her crate and work with her on these commands for 15 minutes at a time. It helped, but she still had so much restless puppy energy. Going for car rides helped a lot - she loved sticking her head out the window and

Car rides for fresh air

watching the world pass by with the wind in her face. It helped to just get her out of the house for a brief minute without fear of her over-doing it. She also learned how to play tug lying down. When you weigh that much, it's actually a pretty solid strategy. She'd hold onto the rope and just plop down on the ground, letting the other dog try to drag her dead weight across the room. That was entertaining for everyone. In the evenings, we like to gather up the dogs and watch TV as a family for a bit. Normally we wouldn't let a Shepherd up on the couch, as it's a pretty bad habit for such a big dog to develop, but TV time with the family was a good opportunity for Shiva to feel included and get some love without being wound up. So in all of these little ways, we made it work. Slowly but surely, Shiva's leg got stronger.

It wasn't always friendly tug of war and snuggles on the couch. Shiva was really not ok with our dogs when she first arrived. We had flashbacks to Raven, the only dog out of 30 fosters that we weren't able to integrate, and feared Shiva might be the second. It took a lot of work, vigilance, caution, and patience to integrate Shiva with our dogs. We honestly weren't sure it could be done at first, but with time and baby steps we saw her develop into a wonderful dog. She learned how to behave around each of our dogs, learned when enough was enough in terms of play, learned who preferred to be left alone, learned to look out for the little ones underfoot, and learned not to use her giant paws to bat during playtime. We worked on integration for just a little bit every evening so as to not get anybody's nerves frazzled. It's very difficult to overcome negative interactions once they happen, so we wanted to set everyone up for success as much as possible. Before long, Shiva became just another dog in our pack. We are proud of ourselves for that. Drew deserves most of the credit - integration is his magic power. It's amazing to look back to day one at the dog who couldn't control herself at the sight of any of our dogs, then compare that to the snuggly baby girl who lived to play and cuddle with her canine buddies two months later. She became best friends with Kato, the neighbor Shepherd, too. Shepherds can be really tough to integrate, especially with other non-Shepherd dogs, but I'm convinced it helps a ton when you start with a dog who has little life experience as opposed to a dog who already has habits and behaviors ingrained. Raven was 3-4 years old and had been through a lot. Not to say you can't teach an older dog new tricks or work to overcome a difficult past, but it wasn't worth risking safety in that case. Shiva, although she'd had a couple stints in animal control, didn't really seem like she'd been through anything that formed negative associations in her mind. She just needed to learn manners and how to properly behave around others. Overstimulation is much different than aggression or possessiveness - it's much more workable for us. Points for the puppy! We'd make this work yet. Check out the video of Shiva playing gently with another [tiny] Jake's Wish foster dog, Mischa:

Tired Shivers

After a month of crate rest, Shiva's leg didn't bother her anymore. She started going to an awesome doggy daycare each day to burn steam and get more socialization. We Dog Care was a great experience for Shiva. They let Jake's Wish foster dogs attend unlimited daycare for free. This was a lifesaver for us, because we are nowhere near active enough for Shiva's energy needs. She'd come home after a day's worth of play and just flop down exhausted. This improved her relationships with our dogs immensely. She didn't feel the need to harass them for play all the time, so they grew more relaxed around her. We were able to work on obedience with her more effectively when she didn't have so much pent up energy. All in all, the household dynamic finally hit its sweet spot. Then Shiva got sick.

Shiva went from being perfectly fine one day to sick as the proverbial dog the next. She had the worst explosive diarrhea I've ever seen and it just wouldn't stop. She had no energy whatsoever. On top of that, she developed a nasty cold. Her immune system was just demolished by some mystery bug. No parasites, no worms, no idea. She couldn't go to daycare being so sick, which was ok with her for the first few days. Once we got her GI issues under control (still no clue what it was), her cold became an upper respiratory infection. So, antibiotics for that, which upset her stomach again. It was a less than lovely week in our house. Her energy began to return, but she was still snotting green goop and having a hard time breathing clearly. She needed to stay out of daycare for another week, at least. This was a super frustrating period. We'd come so far with Shiva, only to be blindsided by this bout of illness and watch her behavior backslide due to the absence of her energy outlet. Next thing we know, Shiva's limping again. She'd been so sick that she'd hardly moved, so we knew she hadn't injured it. It wasn't the same sort of limp, either. This seemed to be her hip, not her knee. A couple days later, she began limping on her front right leg as well. At first I figured she was sore from compensating for the back leg, but the front just became worse and worse until she just laid in her crate all day. We were flabbergasted. Usually we take them in, see them through whatever illnesses / injuries / issues they have, then send them on their way to happily ever after. We'd done our job just as well as we always do in this case, but we'd hit an unexpected road block that sent us back to square one.

You mean I'll be ok, doc?

It was time for a serious trip to the vet. When her x-rays came back clean, I really began to worry.  I was scared it had to be some sort of autoimmune issue causing this recurring lameness. Multiple limbs, different joints, on and off again. We ran a bunch of blood tests - nothing. It was just so bizarre. In light of all the negative test results, the vet concluded that Shiva was simply suffering from panosteitis: basically retroactive growing pains. The great majority of panosteitis cases present in male German Shepherds between 1-3 years old. Shiva is obviously female, but she is much larger than the typical female Shepherd. Panosteitis involves intense bone inflammation with pain and stiffness that comes and goes as flare-ups. There's nothing to do about it except use an anti-inflammatory during flare-ups. It will go away on its own with time. We breathed a great sigh of relief that Shiva wasn't plagued by some sort of left field autoimmune disease or horrible joint injuries that would destroy her life. She was going to be just fine.

Once we knew Shiva was ok, we could finally carry on with her adoption process. We'd gotten loads of applications for her, but very few of them were good. When you've got a dog who is show-stoppingly gorgeous, not to mention a fairly unusual breed, you can expect to be flooded with applications of the "she's so pretty, I want her!" variety. 9 times out of 10, those applications are as good as garbage. Shepherds are not for everyone. They are a lot of work, cost a lot of money, and require a lot of doggy know-how. We wanted Shiva to go to someone who knew Shepherds - someone we could feel confident knew exactly the sort of commitment Shiva needed. 

Just as Shiva fell ill, we got a winning application. We told the woman we wanted to wait until she was healthy to do a meet and greet. She was perfectly understanding. When we had to tell her Shiva had fallen lame again, we thought for sure she'd take a hike. She didn't! This lady waited patiently while we tested Shiva for everything under the sun. She still wanted her. We were stressed, but we knew if she bailed that it would be ok. We'd wait for the best home for Shiva, whatever it took. Turns out, this lady was the best home for Shiva. She had a male White Shepherd who passed away at 9 years old and knew exactly what she was signing up for by committing to Shiva. Bingo. She's a hiker and she even works from home. Awesome. We couldn't ask for more and we know Shivrar is just so happy with her new mom. 

Shiva was a very interesting challenge for us. Shepherds are always tough for us. We've got small dogs and we're relatively sedentary. We knew all of that already, but Shiva presented a whole extra set of challenges. I'm super proud of us for working through this one and finally ending up with a happy tail. Shiva became such a good, sweet, gentle girl. It was a pleasure to watch her go from an unruly pup to a well-mannered lady. She celebrated her 1st birthday with us on January 30 and I know she'll have several more wonderful years to enjoy life. We're grateful for Jake's Wish, for Shiva's first foster mom, and for We Dog Care. This one took a village, but it was such a rewarding effort. We love you, ShivRAAAAAR! Wag on, Great White Woman!

Shiva & her favorite toy: Mr. Purp

What's left of Mr. Purp

A word on Mr. Purp, the 3 foot long purple caterpillar. This toy was enormous and Shiva loved plush toys, so duh. It was a match made in heaven. Mr. Purp giggled maniacally every time Shiva kill-shook him. It was a bit disturbing. We are still finding pieces of Mr. Purp. He made the ultimate sacrifice and we'll never forget him.