Monday, September 3, 2012

Adopt A Boxer Rescue

I know I promised a Grand Manan theme for you guys, but I'm kind of going to break it today.
"But you're only 3 days in, Megan! And you're already breaking your promised theme?!"
Yes. Yes I am.
But it's tangentially connected I guess...

So, while I was away on Grand Manan (see, tangentially connected), one of my dogs died. :sadface:
Here's a brief history of Missy's story: http://adoptaboxerrescue.com/availdogs/Avail2006/Avail0610/MissyPA0610.htm

We adopted Missy 6 years ago. When I say that she was the perfect dog, I mean it. She never did anything wrong, ever.

Right before I left for my trip, she got really sick, and the entire time I was away, I had no idea what was going on. I found out when I returned home that she had passed away about a week after I left.

The house seemed empty with out her there. We have another dog, a Shih Tzu (Chloe), but she's a lazy lump and isn't very... active... (but we still love that lazy lump of course). Anyway, it was incredibly weird without Missy. I suppose an 80-pound boxer has a pretty big presence in a home. Who would've thought?

Very quickly, we began looking into another dog. Another boxer to be specific. We had found Missy through Adopt A Boxer Rescue, and my family and I had been fairly active parts of the organization since then. This time though, we thought we'd help in a different way: fostering. Fostering is kind of like an in-between step for dogs. Foster homes take them in when the come to the rescue. Often, very little is known about the dog at that point, and they're far from being ready to be adopted. As a foster home, it's your responsibility to learn about the dog, acclimate them to a new life, train them, ... whatever needs to be done.

We had been looking at a few different dogs in need of a foster home, when someone contacted us saying that there was a dog they new almost nothing about, except that she was a puppy mill momma. We were immediately intrigued as this dog had come from a similar place as Missy. It just felt right. Within a few days, we went to meet the dog, and then brought her home that same day.

This is Patience.



Cute, right?







When we first met Patience, she was terrified of pretty much everything. She wouldn't eat much, she was skeptical of everyone, wasn't really up to letting us pet her...

Patience almost immediately took to me. Within hours, she would wag her tail for me (something we were told could take weeks). She became my shadow and followed me everywhere.

It's been about a month now since we picked her up, and now she's just as sweet as can be. She's a happy, social, sweet dog that is ready for adoption.

Like the idiot I am, I've become very attached to this dog, even though we've known from the beginning that some other family would eventually adopt her. The other day, we found out that a family had applied to adopt Patience. I was upset, and sort of unwilling.

Today the family came to visit, though, which helped me see that it's not so awful that I may not be able to keep this dog for myself. They're a great family, and I find them worthy of this dog.

So ... yeah. :)

~~~~~~~~~~

I kind of feel like this blog post really had no point. Because it doesn't really have much of a point. I mostly just rambled. So I'm going to try to give it a bit of a message now.


Let me start with a bit more of the story of our last boxer, Missy.
Missy was a puppy mill momma. She was bred about every six months (as fast and often as they could breed her). By the time we got her, it'd been a while since she'd been bred, yet her belly still had that stretched-out look that a dog that just had puppies has. 6 years later, she still looked like that. People asked us all the time if we had puppies for sale, and we were just like "No, but if you're looking for a dog, we can certainly point you in the right direction!"

Which brings me nicely to the next thing I have to say: ADOPT. Please.

There are so many amazing dogs in need of homes. Rescue. Don't just buy a puppy from the pet store (which come from puppy mills).

And if you're looking for a boxer, I can help you out a little bit there.
I personally believe that boxers are the best dog breed. I think that their personalities can't be matched. (Though, any dog owner will tell you that whatever dog it is that they own is the best breed... But whatever...).
We've had incredible success with Adopt A Boxer Rescue. Check them out.


Yeah... I think that counts as a "reason" for this post.
I feel like I have so much more to say, but ... words ... <sigh>
Oh well. Perhaps I'll have to revisit this some other day.


Happy Monday!

3 comments:

  1. Love this. Adopting is great (even if it leaves you with a neurotic moron of a Basset Hound for a dog...sigh...Fred...). I'm sorry to hear about Missy, by the way. :(

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  2. Aww. I could never foster dogs. That would be a bad mistake.

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  3. Yeah, as great of a thing as it to foster, I don't think my fragile little heart will ever be able to do it again.

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