They Never Leave Us

They never leave us.   I was working in the yard today and I was weeding a flower bed that I had put in several years ago. I was thinking about our first foster special-needs dog, Willow. The day I put that flower bed in she had stayed right next to me playing in the dirt and then eventually she fell asleep right there.  

Willow came to the rescue from a very unscrupulous breeder who routinely got way over count on her dogs. She had turned loose some thing like 11 huskies in January, keeping three of them at their house. Rescues in the area worked together and all, but one of the dogs was recovered safely. Animal control was on their way to the breeder house and they called and said they would surrender the other three to us if we got there before animal control did.  Several volunteers rushed over, and Willow, her brother and her mom were all saved.  

Willow was about 9 months old when she came to us.  She was pregnant, bred to her brother who had hind leg issues.  Willow was severely impacted by hydrocephalus, was basically blind, had never been handled and never outside.  Basically, she was scared and wild when she came to the rescue. She was taken to Michigan State, where they were going to perform an MRI, and she was in significant distress. She was rushed to surgery where they discovered the puppies had died in utero and were severely malformed. Because of her condition, they ended up not doing the MRI. They did not want to leave her under sedation any longer.  After her incision had healed a little bit she came to us. 

I had wanted to foster, but had never done so. From the day she arrived her story and some thing about her called me. I brought her home and got her settled into an enclosure area, where she could become accustomed to the household and yet still have a safe space. she took an immediate liking to Molly and I thought she acclimated to us quite quickly given her challenges. One of my favorite photos is of her greeting Mark when he came home from work. It was the first time she had initiated touch.  We got her in February or March, so we had to acclimate her to snow, rain, and just regular grass.  She was absolutely terrified, and I spent hours upon hours outside with her running in big circles at the end of a long lead. It was just like lunging a horse for hours on end.  More than one time I asked myself what in the world I was doing.   Eventually, she figured out being outside was great and we gave her more and more freedom. I was so proud of her as she blossomed to the point where we could take her camping and into large crowds of people and she remained confident and settled. In October she had a stroke and we said goodbye in December. We did not have her a full year, but she left an indelible mark on our hearts. 

I stood up from the flower bed that I was working on, her flower bed, and I glanced under the corner of the deck, and there in the dirt was something shiny.  It was her name tag. I did not remember she had lost it. The tag was right on top of the dirt. This is a place we pass almost every day.  The dogs run around under there. It still makes no sense to me why it suddenly appeared.

I have been doing a lot of soul-searching and contemplation about my future fostering special-needs animals.   I'm still not sure what direction it's going to take, but Willow reminded me how I would do it all over again.