Guest Post: Italian Greyhound Transport

The following post comes from my daughter, Heather Kalinowski, who lives in the Seattle area. It was originally published on her blog, Family and Fur. You can follow Heather on Twitter at @familyandfur.

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of helping to transport an Italian Greyhound in need to her foster home in Snohomish. I volunteer with Italian Greyhound Rescue (the same group where I adopted Ava) and we have quite the community! Several of us volunteered to help get two needy dogs from Eugene, Oregon, to the Seattle area. All I had to do was pick up one of the dogs from Capital Hill and take her to her foster home in Snohomish.

And, like always, I fell in love with this girl during the short period she was in my care. (This always happens. When I meet a dog in need who is in the program, I fall hard and normally come home broken hearted for the poor thing and I spend the evening just hugging Ava and trying to tell her how lucky she is.)

This girl is named Trinity and she is about 10-12 years old. She spent much of her life outside (and if you know IGs, you know that is NOT ideal) and she was not in great health. However, I have to assume that while her previous owners were very misguided on how to care for her, they did love her, because she was not scared of people, and instantly glued herself to me and wanted to be held close.

The crate she came in was absolutely disgusting, and I couldn’t bear to put her back in it for the ride to her foster home. So, while I don’t suggest this for dogs you don’t know, I allowed her free range in the car for the ride. She ended up on my lap, snuggled up to me as close as she could get. Like I said, I fell a little in love with her because of how absolutely sweet and loving she was. It was hard to drop her off, but it always is. (Obviously with the move and a baby on the way, I’m not in a position to be able to foster myself right now, so I always have to let them go…)

She will be taken to the vet soon and will start on the road to good health with a much-needed dental and loving care. I hope she finds a home because I’m telling you, she is going to give her new family nothing but love and adoration.

If you are interested in Trinity or want to learn more about Italian Greyhound Rescue, email Heather at heatherrey9@gmail.com.

Ringo

I have to share this story about one of the dogs I have the privilage of watching.  He’s a Bernese Aussie mix named Ringo and I’ve been watching him, along with the new addition to their family, a Bernese Golden mix puppy named Stella, while their “mom” is away helping her ailing parents.  Despite his missing eye and scarred face, Ringo is a beautiful gentle giant.  He’s so sweet and loving it’s hard to believe the life he had before coming to live in this loving home.  Here’s his story as told by the wonderful person who rescued Ringo.

Ringo’s rescue

Ringo came into rescue a week before New Years, after his owners were threatened with cruelty and neglect charges.

For four years, they’d allowed their intact, male Akita to routinely attack and tear up this Berner, and had never provided proper veterinary care.  Thanks to the intervention of a veterinarian and the local animal shelter, he was taken out of an awful situation and released to rescue.

He was in bad shape: his entire head, neck, shoulders, and right rump were extremely swollen from the numerous severe wounds received in the latest attack; grossly overweight; coarse wiry reddish coat; rat tail; blind bulging eye from a prior untreated injury; and absolutely filthy. The shelter workers said that the owners had claimed he was a purebred Bernese. When I first went to evaluate him, two things stood out: he was in such bad shape physically that it was hard to recognize him as a Bernese, and he had such classic Bernese behaviors that he had to indeed be one.

I looked at pictures the shelter had of him from 2 years prior. It was hard to believe that the young Berner looking at me from the photo was the same dog in front of me. We immediately named him Ringo for his extreme ringii markings. Two days later, he went straight from the shelter to the bathing parlor, and then to the vet. After three shampoo sessions, the water no longer ran black, and he smelled much better! Then he was off to the veterinarian for a blood workup and in-depth exam.

We suspected that he was low thyroid, and the vet agreed. He also recommended that the eye be removed since it could not be saved and was causing pain. The next day, the blood tests showed him to be extremely low thyroid, and medication was started. He was healthy enough to be neutered and to have the damaged eye removed. Bless the shelter vet who performed both surgeries! He did such a good job that Ringo didn’t have the bad swelling I’d seen with other eye-removal surgeries.

Ringo went to temporary foster mom Lisa for intensive nursing care while he recovered from surgery, and then to long-term foster mom Sandi for further rehabilitation. He blossomed under their care. Six months later, he looked like a new dog. He’d gone from grossly overweight to only mildly overweight, had begun growing a normal coat and you could see that he was indeed a Berner.

It took us a while to find him the right home. There weren’t a lot of people interested in a dog that wasn’t the classic Bernese beauty. Thankfully, his forever mom, Randi, easily saw beyond his slightly battered body and recognized what a loving affectionate dog he is.  Randi dotes on Ringo, and he has responded with absolute devotion. Ringo has shown amazing adaptability and trust of humans.  His favorite things to do are to cuddle and play with his squeaky toys.  He and Randi are attending training classes. Although he’s good with females and neutered males, Ringo has an understandable fear-aggression towards large, intact, male dogs.  With Randi’s support, he’s working through it. She has plans for him to certify as a therapy dog.

Beautiful Ringo