Today is the RELEASE DAY for 100 Dogs & Counting.
With all the hoopla and hope, I almost didn’t post to this blog. Continue reading “My Hope and My Thanks”
My Hope and My Thanks
Tag: shelters
We CAN Rescue These Dogs
Our foster world is pretty quiet these days. And that’s a good thing.
I’m busy getting ready for the release of my new book, 100 Dogs & Counting: One Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey Into the Heart of Shelter and Rescue. It’s a strange time for all of us, dogs included.
OPH has been saving dogs in record numbers with Continue reading “We CAN Rescue These Dogs”
A New Year, A New Mission
Happy New Year, friends! With the puppies launched and Bell in the process of being launched, I’ve got a little breathing room to focus on a few upcoming projects for 2020.
The first of those projects is one I’ve mentioned on the blog and been hinting about for the last few months. It’s a Continue reading “A New Year, A New Mission”
Fifteen Dogs in My House
We survived our record-setting weekend.
Now we just have fourteen dogs. Which we’ve had before.
Gosh, this makes me sound like a dog-raving lunatic. Which maybe I am. Or at least I feel like one after this weekend.
Saying we fostered fifteen dogs this weekend is somewhat misleading since Continue reading “Fifteen Dogs in My House”
Please Don’t Forget the Dogs Still Waiting
Today is Remember Me Thursday.
It’s a day to light a candle to remember the countless dogs who are waiting in shelters for a forever family or who have lost their lives while waiting.
Having just spent over a week visiting the shelters and Continue reading “Please Don’t Forget the Dogs Still Waiting”
I Just Can’t Wait to Get on the Road Again…
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…”
The Long Haul
We are settling in for the long haul with our pack.
Flannery has no applications (C’mon people! You are missing out on this super fun, super loving, super smart pup!)
and I really can’t imagine anyone Continue reading “The Long Haul”
A Dog’s Eye View
Flannery is such an interesting dog.
The puppies are cute and Hula Hoop is a sweetheart, but Flannery is complicated and funny and just so not-your-average-dog. I adore her. Even though she is nothing like any dog I’ve ever wanted.
She’s little. Only 30 pounds.
She’s a busy-body – always in the middle of whatever is happening and worming her way onto the couch or dog bed, even if there is clearly no room for her.
She is the first dog up at the slightest noise. And weirdly, Continue reading “A Dog’s Eye View”
Look Around You, You Can Save These Dogs
The dogs and shelters are beginning to blur together.
Thank goodness for Lisa, who is traveling with me and taking copious notes, asking the questions I forget to ask, and handing me crackers with cheese as I drive the behemoth van between stops. Our days and hearts are filled to the brim.
If you knew Lisa you would be surprised and not surprised that she is traveling on this journey with me. Lisa is not a dog-person, but she is a Cara-person. When she visits my dog-filled house, the dogs will flock to her and she will inevitably say, “I don’t even like dogs, but this one is nice.” (every time)
Here’s what this trip is doing to her – she is often the last one out of the kennels as we finish our visits, lingering in front of cages, tears on her face, snapping pictures. One dog, at Anson, stole her heart – a fluffy, older white dog, not one likely to be pulled by OPH or many rescues. One likely to spend its final days there. She keeps bringing her up and yesterday said tentatively, “I would foster her.”
On Wednesday night we stayed at my friend Melanie’s Proud Spirit Horse Sanctuary. Melanie and Jim have eight dogs – every single one friendly and sweet and engaging. After seeing so many dogs through chainlink kennel doors, it was wonderful to finally get our hands on some dogs.
Tuesday morning we stopped at Anson County Animal Shelter, an hour outside of Charlotte, NC where we met Maureen who is single-handedly trying to save every dog she can. She has no fosters, no volunteers. No one comes to walk dogs or play with the kitties or take pictures or help Maureen with moving dogs out through rescue. This is a one woman show.
There are too many dogs at Anson, which like all the shelters we have visited is at capacity. This is Oreo, a 45 pound male boxer mix whose kennel I came back to over and over. He was starving for a human touch. If you put your hand against the kennel, he would place his face against it and stay still as long as you would stand there. He just wanted to be touched and loved. Continue reading “Look Around You, You Can Save These Dogs”
Another Good Dog ON THE ROAD!
I am the queen of best laid plans. I almost always assume the best. The way I see it is – why waste all that negative emotion dreading and worrying and stressing something when you can instead bask in the view from your rose-colored glasses?
Or – more simply – as the poster in the guidance office says, “Save your drama for your llama.”
We are now four days away from the start of my southern book tour and Billie Jean and Grits are still here.
Still not adopted.
Billie Jean is Continue reading “Another Good Dog ON THE ROAD!”
Another Good Dog™ 