Almost all of the PA Pups are fat little butterballs.
It’s been a challenge to get to know them as Continue reading “Mostly Fat and Happy in PA”
Our adventures as a foster dog family
Almost all of the PA Pups are fat little butterballs.
It’s been a challenge to get to know them as Continue reading “Mostly Fat and Happy in PA”
This week, I was reminded again when it comes to rescue—you can’t predict anything.
Or, at least, I can’t predict anything.
The wild ride began last Wednesday when Continue reading “A Puppy Hero”
There was a time when we had two, even three new fosters each month, but for the last few years, it’s been one long-term foster after another (Gala, Flannery, Daisy…) and a few puppy litters. This weekend we had planned to welcome a much anticipated foster dog from Alabama – Houdini, whom I met while visiting Walker County Animal Shelter where OPH partners with RUFF to support the shelter and rescue dogs.
That reunion has been postponed because transport for Houdini and the other RUFF dogs fell through at the last moment. Hopefully, he will catch his freedom ride at the end of this month and we’ll welcome him then.
Meanwhile, Fanny was in need of a playmate as Flannery and Gracie easily tire of her endless puppy-like energy, so I Continue reading “A Designer Dog Looking for his Designer Family”
It’s very hard for me to talk about my dog, Frankie.

But while I don’t talk about him, he is constantly on my heart; I see him everywhere.
Losing him and the way we lost him truly leveled me and to be honest, Continue reading “Miss Fanny Wiggles, My Girl”
Normally when I bring home a new foster dog there is an extended shut-down period – a time when the new foster is kept away from the other dogs, spends a lot of time in her crate, is kept on a leash all the time even when out of the crate (and confined to the kitchen). This generally lasts one to two weeks.
We started down that path with Fanny Wiggles, but Continue reading “Member of the Pack”
It has been a long time since I brought in a new foster dog. April to be exact.
(Which makes me wonder what I’ve been writing on this blog for all these months!)
There is a very special dog in my kitchen. She arrives with a story that began back in June. A story that inspired me to return to Tennessee and go on to Alabama and to now explore more ways I can change the situation.
You may recognize her face… Continue reading “Home Again with a Stowaway”
This is a long-overdue post to catch you up on Daisy’s Diary of a Rescue.
Truly, I did not imagine I would still be writing this Diary almost six months later. But maybe that’s the piece of rescue that is hardest – they are all good dogs, but some require a little more of us than others.
Sometimes you rescue a dog from a shelter, imagining it’s shiny new future now that it is ‘out’, but Continue reading “Diary of a Rescue: Month Six”
We have a very special guest with us this week. (As if four dogs wasn’t enough!)

Oreo and I go way back to the day I met him in a shelter in North Carolina, where he’d been living on and off for over a year. He’d been adopted out twice, but neither adopter chose to neuter him or bring him inside, so he ran off (as unneutered male dogs are want to do) and Animal Control returned him to the shelter each time.
There was something special about Oreo—the way he looked at us, the way he leaned into his kennel fence desperate for your touch, and how he’d hold your hand through the fence.

It was a long and winding road from that day Continue reading “Our Special Visitor”
I owe you an update.
From my perspective, I’ve been to the moon and back this past month emotionally. Between losing my precious pup Frankie and witnessing all that I saw in Tennessee, our foster dogs have been an afterthought, at least in terms of writing. Yet they’ve been here all along demanding care and attention, an anchor preventing me from being washed away by the sadness. So here’s what’s happening with all of them. Continue reading “The State of Our Pack”
I am still struggling on a daily basis to accept that Frankie is gone. To say I miss him doesn’t even begin to touch what I feel. Caring for the other dogs gets me out of bed, but moving forward? That seemed out of reach. I need to do something with my grief – so the trip that Ian and I have been planning since winter has been the perfect panacea.
I had hoped to share about this trip weeks ago, but like so much else in my life right now, it was pushed aside. We’ve shortened our originally planned trip in terms of days and distance, but it feels right to be doing this now and I’m grateful for the distraction and the chance to do something to honor Frankie.
Ian is my 17-year-old son, my youngest.

He’s my baby, despite the fact that Continue reading “I Just Can’t Wait to Get on the Road Again…”