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What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

 

 

DESERT DOGS

 

The Gabbs dogs might be siblings. Or cousins. Heck, Herbie might be his own grandpa! They come from that sort of situation: indiscriminate breeding. They lived out in the desert in large pens, each pen holding a milling aimless mob of dogs. Other than the few minutes it took to throw some food on the ground or replenish the water, they got no attention from humans. There was no structure to their days, no routine other than the passage of the sun overhead: endless days, on and on, spent roaming around in the pen, dodging dogs they didn’t like, fighting for food, surviving.

The owner, a woman who lived near the town of Gabbs, Nevada, claimed to love the dogs, all one hundred and forty-four them. The dogs knew nothing about her love. They were outside twenty-four seven in the harsh Nevada climate with only rudimentary shelter; she had heat in the winter and AC in the summer. They slept on the dirt while she slept in a bed. They were not trained, groomed, or petted. Her love was more a matter of theory than practice. In the end, the biggest favor she ever did for the dogs was to die.

With her gone, the dogs got rescued.

It was a huge effort.  Luckily, after the hoarder/rescuer’s death, the property owner continued to provide food. Liz Finch of Best Friends coordinated efforts to get the dogs off the property and into placements. Kris Brown became involved in 2007, through her volunteer activities with the Yerington, Nevada, dog shelter. Over the next year, Kris and others managed to place all but fifty-seven of the dogs. From the dogs’ point of view life went on as usual--days of discomfort, boredom and loneliness—but with one new element: dogs kept disappearing. Week by week there were fewer dogs to compete with for food or huddle with for warmth. Many of the dogs that left were adopted into homes, but the dogs left behind didn’t know that. They just saw people come, and dogs go. It was a strange, stressfull, confusing year.

Then rescue efforts stalled out; the remaining dogs were feral, rescues were full, volunteers were tired…and the situation, while not good, was safe. The dogs had the basics: food, water, shelter.


INTERLUDE IN RENO

Once again fate intervened, this time in the form of bad weather.  The pens flooded, cattle ate the haybale shelters built for the dogs, and dogs escaped through holes in the crumbling fences. Crisis led to action: Best Friends, HSUS and Red Rover organized one last push to get the remaining dogs placed. About half went to Bay Area shelters, while the rest went to “Camp Reno”, an old unused shelter in Reno. There the dogs went through a crash course in socialization.

All of the dogs were, at that time, in good physical condition. Mentally, emotionally—well, that was a different story. The dogs named Tippy, Itsy, Herbie, Dixie and Able were among the most feral, the most frightened. To them, life with minimal human contact was normal. People were providers of substance, that’s all.  They had grown up in a strange limbo, not family pets, but lacking in the instincts and rearing to be wild animals. They did not know how to live without people, but didn’t know how to live with them, either. The rescuers started looking for a sanctuary placement for the Gabbs five. They found the Olympic Animal Sanctuary.

In February of 2008, Steve Markwell agreed to take Tipp, Abel, Dixie, Herbie and Itsy. This is a link to the Red Rover site that has a story about Steve picking up the Gabbs dogs:
 http://www.redrover.org/article/few-final-stories-camp-reno

This is a link to the video Steve made about taking the Gabbs dogs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sArfWcUdCeM&noredirect=1

They were at the “sanctuary” for five years.

 

 

DESCENT INTO HELL

In September of 2013, Kris Brown saw a picture of Itsy and realized that OAS was a cruel scam.

 

I can only imagine the horror she felt. Years ago I thought about contacting OAS about a feral dog that lived in the woods. I didn’t contact Markwell—there were little indications that put me off—but I almost did. When I think of that dog, that old feral dog, and how she would have suffered if I had placed her in Markwell’s hands—well, that’s when the fantasies about attacking him with a Taser start. Me showing up at his door, Taser in hand, zapping the son of a bitch, then frantically searching in the chaotic darkness, running from crate to crate, seeing the desperate needy faces of the dogs I could not help while looking for an old black dog…

Steve Markwell had betrayed the trust of people who sent him dogs. He had betrayed his obligations to his donors. Worst of all, he had betrayed his obligations to the dogs. He had promised a high quality of life: good food, exercise in playfields, rehabilitation. He had presented himself as an expert in dog behavior and a dedicated rescuer. It was all a lie. He had no expertise, he provided none of the services claimed on his website. His organization wasn’t even managed legally.

 

 

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=16.52.207

 

Forks police photos show evidence of multiple violations of the very minimal standards of care required by the law: lack of adequate food, lack of potable water, cramped filthy conditions, health problems from excessive confinement and lack of exercise, untreated medial conditions. The photos also shoe the claims made by Markwell on his website about the living conditions and services offered by OAS were lies.

The dogs did not get home cooked meals; they got uncooked, unrefrigerated garbage. The dogs did not go out into the play fields in compatible groups: they rarely were allowed out at all and, when released, the groupings were random, resulting in deaths and injuries from fights. Many dogs had untreated health problems including in grown toenails, cancerous tumors, and wounds. Far from being a happy, nurturing environment, the facility was noisy, filthy and stank.

How were the Gabbs dogs treated at OAS? Here are the dogs that appeared in police photos taken in early 2013:

Kris immediately emailed Markwell and asked for the return of Dixie, Abel, Herbie, Tippy and Itsy. Her email was polite. Markwell respond with lies and threats: be claimed that all of the dogs were well, claimed that Itsy needed to continue the imaginary rehabilitation services he had never provided, and threatened Kris with a harassment suit if she contacted him again.

Kris spent the next year as an active member of the growing Facebook movement to free the dogs.  This link provides a summary of that story, plus a list of links to primary resources: police reports and photos, emails, and other evidence.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/28/1295316/-One-hundred-and-Twenty-four-Dogs-Rescued-by-Facebook-Activists-Twenty-Five-Still-Need-Help


 

ARRIVAL IN ARIZONA

The Year of Freeing the Dogs is a story worth telling, but not here. This story is about the five dogs from Gabbs. All five may have been alive in 2013, but we have only Markwell’s word for that and his word is not good. What we do know is Markwell jammed one hundred and twenty four dogs into crates in the back of a truck, drove for four days and finally turned the most of the dogs over  to the Guardians of Rescue in Arizona on Christmas Day in 2013.  Kris was one of the many people anxiously looking, hoping, praying as dogs were unloaded into the bright fresh air of the Arizona desert.

Some of the dogs had to be carried off the truck. One escaped, fled into the desert, but collapsed, too weak to keep running. Three were rushed to a veterinary clinic, near death. But where were the five Gabbs dogs? Where they still alive?

In the evening of December 29, Kris got a call from Dori of the Guardians of Rescue: Itsy had been identified. On New Year’s Day, a driver from Safe Haven, Kris’s rescue, left for the rescue site. Over the next couple of days Herbie and Tippy were identified. Markwell said that Dixie was dead. Abel was rumored to still be with Markwell, but hidden.  It is possible that Dixie made it to rescue, but was taken away by Markwell. That might be Dixie in the pen with the dogs Markwell kept:

 

 

So Tippy, Itsy, and Herbie survived, but Abel and Dixie are missing.

The of the three survivors were in terrible shape emotionally: shell-shocked, terrified, depressed. They were taken to Safe Haven, a rescue in Yerington, Nevada. There a local vet examined them.

Herbie was in the worst shape. He had an injury to his leg which the vet estimated it was 4-6 weeks old and healing. There was nothing that could be done to undo the damage. Herbie was still a feral, so there was no hands on exam. He was given pain pills and antibiotics for the injury.

Herbie was seen by Dr. Steve Talbot at the Carson Valley Vet Hospital in Minden, Nevada the next week. He was sedated and given a full exam and blood work was done.

The leg injury was noted, but again, it was healing, so it was not an immediate concern.

Noted in the vet exam was:

      Body condition poor, very thin and malnourished.

      Ear infections with pus draining from the ears

      Partial nerve paralysis in his face either from trauma or the ear infection

      His blood work showed anemia from starvation or  possibly parasites

      He also had a low T4 indicating hypothyroidism. The vet explained this as possibly due to stress and malnourishment, as opposed to a chronic condition. As is seen in vet record 2, it is self-correcting without medication.

·         A common condition known as compensatory hypothyroidism, or sick euthyroid syndrome (SES), may account for many of the false diagnoses of hypothyroidism. The difference between true hypothyroidism and SES is that in SES, the thyroid gland retains the ability to return to normal function. SES describes the situation in which dogs with normally functioning thyroid glands have decreased thyroid hormone levels with an appropriate cause. Virtually any condition trauma, stress, injury, illness, poor diet can affect thyroid hormone levels and cause SES.

SES is actually a protective mechanism. When the body experiences altered demands and priorities such as illness or stress, the thyroid gland tries to compensate by minimizing energy requirements. Energy is conserved by reducing thyroid hormone secretion. This, in turn, lowers the body's metabolic rate.

.



 

 Tippy had many of the same issues as Herbie: poor body condition, anemia due to starvation or parasites. She also has a condition around her eyes. Autoimmune.... it seems to be stress related, but may, like Lupus, react to sun light. She still has abnormal blood work. Still anemic.
 

 

Itsy was in the best shape, perhaps because Markwell anticipated having to return her and fattened her up a bit.  However, her teeth were worn down to nubs, a side effect of having been confined to a crate for years.

 

HAPPY ENDING

What a long strange trip it’s been from hoarder to rescue to hoarder to rescue.  The three Gabbs dogs arrived in their final rescue nearly affectless with depression. They were close to giving up.

But they have finally landed in a safe place where people will treat them with kindness. Each day brings a reason for hope. Now they have choices and opportunities and are adapting to the experience of being loved. All of the dogs are more comfortable, better fed, and have become active and interested in life.  Herbie has a new dog friend in Apple. Itsy can go on off-leash walks. Tippy’s eyes have improved. They are beginning to believe that happiness is possible. They are in permanent home now, and their travels over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Itsy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Herbie

 

 

  

 Happy Tippy

Thank you, Kris.

What Every Dog Wants

     Rogue was rescued by Wolf Spirit Sled Dog Rescue in January of 2014. He came straight to me as soon as he came off the transport. He knew he was home. Rogue stayed at my hospital to detox some. Then when we brought him home. He fit in like a glove.




      He got to where he wasn't eating good, so I had my friend do reiki on him. After that he has been a social butterfly.







Rogue has brought us such joy here. He is so loving to us and has never bothered any other animals here. (Inc.cats) For a dog that went through 5yrs of hell, he is the most forgiving of humans. He is our ray of sunshine.










      Hercules came in March. As Rottweiler lovers, we could not believe no one had snagged him up, so my husband and I talked and things went in motion. Next thing we knew he was on transport to Vs. He is another great dog. We have not had a bit if trouble out of him. He has also fit in. We introduce him to diff.dogs and so far he has liked who he has been out with.


     Hercules, you could tell when he got here he hadn't seen grass for awhile. He loves to have the run of the yard. Not one problem out of this boy. He is so sweet and loving. These dogs are loved so much. We hope they never remember the horrors from the sanctuary of hell!

Please Don't Tell me How the Story Ends

Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends.

 

Dog rescue is so much part of my life now that it is hard to remember the time when I didn’t know anything about shelters or rescues or dogs. I had a dog, a small homely mass of anxieties named Blackie, that I had acquired by accident. He was a bite-first-think-later dog, afraid of everyone and everything except me and Paul. He didn’t really count as a dog, though. He was more like a foster child from Childrens’ Protective Services. He’s the reason I could not adopt Lassie.

Lassie was the dog of my heart.

I first saw her running with a pack. I was taking out the garbage for my client, and the pack streamed up the driveway, intent on foraging. I do in-home care for disabled people and my client was a member of a Native nation where it was normal to see packs of roaming dogs. Cleaning up her yard after the dogs went through the trash was part of my routine.

I have a snap shot in my memory of my first sight of Lassie: a brown and while mixbreed dog with a gimpy back leg and a queenly aspect. She was leader of the pack. She ran up to me confidently, sure that the garbage was for her. She was first to eat, before the lesser dogs got their chances.  It was a bright sunny day. The dogs seemed happy. She approached me with a bit of caution and I held my hand out to be sniffed. I was a little afraid of Lassie; she was the first pitbull of my acquaintance and had that large blocky pitbull head with a lot of teeth. It’s hard for me to think of her now. I can feel the tears coming.

I fed Lassie and her crew for about a year. I don’t know where she lived. She just showed up when she saw my car. She often had a playmate with her. She loved to play tug of war with stuff she found around the neighborhood: odd scraps of clothing, a bit of rope, a piece of tire. Sometimes she slept in my client’s garage on an old couch. She was a dog of the neighborhood and seemed to be confident and content.  I looked forward to seeing her and brought her gifts of bones and good quality dog food.

Then one evening when I drove out for a late shift at my client’s house my headlights caught the gleam of eyes in her garage. It was Lassie, curled up on the funky rotting couch in the garbage-strewn darkness. She was beat up, her face swollen and her paws bloody and lacerated. I sat down beside her and she snuggled up to lay her head on my lap.

Snapshot of Lassie with her eyes closed and her head on my lap. She had been just a dog I knew but now she became my dog. I stroked her dry rough fur and whispered that I would be her guardian angel. I would help her. I promised. My client donated some table scraps and a blanket. I wrapped her up and fed her. That evening I googled dog rescues and discovered that a no-kill kennel style rescue in the area. I emailed and got a reply: take her to the vet. She would be accepted into the kennel after her spay, shots, and repairs of wounds. The next day I drove out and convinced her against her better judgment to get in my car.

This is getting harder and harder to write. Lassie hated the kennel. She was used to being free and was good at it. She was tough, independent, smart, but in the kennel she became clingy and needy and looked to me to care for her. I started volunteering so I could be Lassie’s helper. For the next seven months I was at the kennel almost daily. I took Lassie for long walks in the woods, I drove her to McD’s for hamburgers, I drove her to the park to run on the beach. I loved her. I knew I could not adopt her, though, because she was possessive. She would not tolerate another dog near me. Once she grabbed a hound dog and threw him to the ground because he asked me for a pat. I knew that I could not bring her into my house where my little neurotic mutt found what comfort he could in the safety of his favorite refuge: the closet.

I cherished every moment with Lassie. I took her to Pictures With Santa, the rescue’s annual fundraiser. I took her on picnics. I daydreamed about her being my dog. But I knew it wouldn’t happen.

Snapshot: It’s a winter day and there’s ice on the pond. I’m walking Lassie up in the wood lands behind the kennel. It is our last walk together; she has an adoption appointment. I am memorizing her: her brown eyes, the silver fur mixed in the brown along the ridge of her back, the little floppy pitbull ears, her high curved tail. She is enjoying the walk, doesn’t know why I keep crying. She looks at me with concern; she was like that, very focused, always looking at me for approval or direction. Or wanting to show me things: an insect in the grass, the wonder of ice, her pleasure in the sun and fresh air. Sometimes when we walked together she would take my fingers in her mouth and we would walk “holding hands”.

Then I took her back to the kennel and walked away.

I didn’t forget Lassie. About a week later I got an email from Danielle, her adopter. She said Lassie was a “daddy’s girl” and hung out with the man of the family. Then a week or so later I heard that Danielle and her husband were having trouble with Lassie: she loved them so much that she had become aggressive to other people. She lunged at people when they were taking her for walks. The kennelmaster made some recommendations for them. I emailed Danielle and got a confident response from her: she was sure she could teach Lassie good leash behavior.

I didn’t hear anything after that. I did not email Danielle; Lassie was her dog now, and not my business. But I didn’t forget. I had recurrent fantasies that someday Lassie would be my dog. Someday Blackie find peace across the Rainbow Bridge and I would go down the rescue kennel and Lassie would be there because something came up and her family couldn’t keep her.  And she would remember me. And she would come to live with me and my husband and go for walks on the beach, ride in the car on trips, sleep on the couch, be my dog, the dog of my heart.

Three years later Blackie died of congestive heart failure. He died at home in my arms. I did love him, but this isn’t his story. This is a story about Lassie and I became obsessed with the email address I had saved for all of those years.

Snapshot: I’m sitting at my computer, my fingers hovering over the keys. I don’t have much hope; I’m not expecting Danielle to write back an offer to give Lassie to me. I’m not going to ask for Lassie, only ask about her. How is she? Is she happy? Is she still “Daddy’s girl”?

So why am I feeling this vague dread? Please don’t tell me how the story ends.

Lassie was dead. She had been dead for years. Danielle had returned her to the rescue about a month after adopting her and the kennelmaster took her straight to the vet and euthanized her. For three years I had been hoping to see her again and she was dead.

I have stop now. I can’t write anything more.

 

 

 

Okay. I’m supposed to be a Buddhist. I try. I wrote a letter to the kennelmaster and told her that I knew of Lassie’s death. I told her that I knew she had saved many, many dogs--about three hundred a year—but that I could not understand why she had killed Lassie.  She wrote back that she knew she had erred and that she had cried herself to sleep many times. She is religious and she said that she had prayed to Jesus and to Lassie for forgiveness.  She asked for my forgiveness.

I knew she was sincere so…I do forgive her, but I still grieve for the dog of my heart. I would have quit volunteering except that by then I had sort of adopted a little neurotic black puppy that was so fearful he would attack male volunteers. By “adopted” I mean he was my project at the kennel; I went to see him every day, took him for walks, took him to the drive-in, tried to teach him that life didn’t have to be scary.

And I went on to rescue more dogs: twenty-three last count. I am always picking up strays and separating neglected dogs from owners. Here are their names:

Pogo

George

Moochie and Joey

Sylvia

Charlie

Chewy

Rose

Chloe

Tawny

Jake

Wanda

Mollie

Twinkie

Bambi

Chica

Henry

Speck

Speck’s puppies

Billy Boots, Nipper, and Runt

Teddy Bear, Mercy, Billy, and Cody

Lassie isn’t on the list.

Her name is on memorial stone I bought for Stray Rescue of Saint Louis. I made donations in her name to a pitbull rescue for a couple of years. This is the first time I have been able to write her story.

 

 

Sarah McLaughlin: I Will Remember You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TYDnb1i1BA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Sustaining Hope

     It's said that dogs live in the moment, and often they do. But anyone who has ever lived with an abused dog knows that memory can trigger reactions in the now, and anyone who has ever visited a dog shelter knows that dogs can beg in the hope of a better future. What we don't know is how much the memory of a good person can sustain a dog through bad times. This is the story of Cream and Shari, who gave him hope.



Shari's story:

     "Cream and I met right before Christmas 2009. His owner, a drug dealer who taught him to act aggressive, was arrested, and the guy gave custody of Cream to his girlfriend. The girlfriend stashed Cream in her Grandmother's garage. The Grandmother supposedly never went to the garage for six long weeks. Then she opened the garage door and Cream came charging out. He didn't harm her, but was running loose on the property. Animal Control was called, and after two hours trying to catch him and a heated fight with the granddaughter, the police were called. Animal Control locked Cream into their truck and brought him to the shelter.
     I evaluated him there on 12/23/09. He had some anxiety, hand shyness, possessive aggression and aggression towards people he didn't know. When I stopped him from lunging at someone, he would redirect and bite me. Through all of that I knew this dog had a sweet soul and was very special.
     The shelter agreed to have me work with him and within three months we had him walking with volunteers and laying in people's laps! Unfortunately being one of many pit bulls he sat at the shelter and languished. He had some set backs and it was decided that he was not adoptable.
     In February 2012 it was decided that he would go to OAS. The shelter had been sending dogs there since 2009. I didn't want Cream euthanized, so I agreed it was better than euthanasia.
     I found out last year in June. 2013 that I was very wrong and euthanasia would have been a Godsend compared to living at OAS. I convinced the shelter to get back not only Cream but the others that had been sent. Markwell only sent back three of the five, but sent four other dogs he had for a total of seven.
     I arranged to adopt Cream. We got him on his feet physically and after three weeks we started seeing evidence of PTSD and intense anxiety and the aggression that I had resolved returned and more intense than ever before. Being a canine behaviorist I was able to utilize medication and a year of behavior modification working with Cream on a daily basis. I am happy to say that Cream has learned to not act aggressively, his PTSD us greatly reduced, and he is loved and happy. Not only that but he has become one of my canine helpers with other dogs that have issues. We love him so much and are so glad he is enjoying the life he always deserved."

Cream says, "Thank you, Shari."

A Quiet Gentle Dog

A quiet gentle dog had been left abandoned in a kennel.

She was scared. She knew that she had been abandoned; familiar faces had been replaced with strange ones: indifferent, impatient, annoyed. She was not wanted. She worried from day to day that she would not be fed. She was afraid at night of strange noises in the darkness. The days passed in dreary boredom. People who didn't care about her made short business-like trips past her kennel.

Then one day a large man entered her fenced yard. He did not speak to her or smile. He stood with his arms held out from his sides to make his already massive shape appear wider. She rushed frantically back and forth along the fence, barking.

Behind him, outside the fence, strangers watched the man stalk her, shifting his ground, blocking her in, herding her toward a corner. She didn't know what the big man wanted, but he did not seem friendly.  She dodged about in panic, broke past the man, and ran into the side kennel adjacent to her fenced yard.

That was a mistake; now she was trapped.

The big man followed her. He was as wide as a wall and loomed over her. When she tried to dodge around him, he shifted his weight, blocking her escape. Fight or flight? She couldn’t flee and didn’t have any fight in her. Jinx hunched her back and dropped her tail, submitting herself to his mercy.

A hand the size of a frying pan swung toward her face.  Jinx cowered, but all he did was snap a leash on to her collar. He was going to take her away.  A small hope flickered in her heart; maybe she would be taken to a better place. She had been living alone in the enclosure for a long time, miserably cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and always lonely.  She trotted along beside the man, away from the enclosure, off to his truck.

 She didn’t know that a video of her “capture” was going to be used by a charlatan to promote himself as an expert in dealing with difficult dogs. She didn’t know that she had been labeled a biter. She didn’t know that she was going to be incarcerated in a dark filthy warehouse, trapped in a travel crate for years.

The man was Steve Markwell of the Olympic Animal Sanctuary and he had been contacted about a Jindo dog abandoned at a kennel. He used the opportunity of “rescuing” Jinx to have a video made of his self-proclaimed skill at “capturing” frightened dogs with bite histories. Here’s the video entitled "Low Stress Rescue in a High Stress Environment". The video is intended to be instructional; supposedly it is a demonstration of how to capture, without causing undo stress, a frightened dog that might bite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP6yPnlSPiE

Of course, anyone one watching this video can see that Jinx was badly frightened by Markwell, but could have easily been leashed up by any friendly person who refrained from intimidating her.

Here’s Jinx in the Olympic Animal Sanctuary:

Jinx is the dog in the bottom crate. She arrived at OAS in 2011, and was liberated about two years later. During those tow years she lived in an environment of enormous stress: noise, confusion, hunger, aggression. She was not spayed and was confined near unneutered male dogs.

But Jinx survived all of that--abandonment, exploitation, incarceration—as a gentle, quiet dog. She has forgotten that long ago leash training, but is learning new skills in her foster home. One of those skills is the art of lounging gracefully on the carpet! For a dog that has never experienced normal happy family life, she is doing very well!

Jinx is available for adoption and will soon go to a good home. Her story is testimony to the resilience of innate personality: No matter what bad experiences life dealt her, Jinx remained a  sweet dog. And now she is safe and ready to be loved.

 

 Keep smiling, Jinx! Life is only going to get better from now on!http://twodogfarms.com/Adoptable_Jindos.php

The Eskies: Rceovering Slowly but Surely

The Eskies: Recovering Slowly but Surely

Just wanted to give you an update of the OAS dogs our rescue received from the AZ location on Jan 4th.  We saved the 4 American Eskimo/pommie mixes that came from Kennewick Puppy Mill in WA in May 2009 (Jackson, Joseph, Frances, Chester) plus one ??eskie/papillion?? mix named Goofy.

We have a facebook page set up for the 5 survivors we picked up, and my region has one of them (though still keeping his exact foster location private for obvious safety concerns).  https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Arizona-5/1445778852301768

These pics are of one of the dogs with urgent medical needs.  He had a large cyst hanging from his rear end.  First picture was taken in AZ at RUFFF.  The next one is of his bottom the next day during a bath and after some "Extreme Makeover Rescue Edition".  The next week, we had that cyst removed, dental (with one extraction), and his eyes looked at.  He is the dog in the OAS warehouse pics of him looking at a huge chunk of meat in his cage.

He can now walk really well on a leash and only occasionally eats his fecal matter (hurray for the baby steps)!  He only releases his glands sometimes when I pick him up, so that is a big improvement too!  His vision is poor but able to see most shapes and shadows.  Loves to play with other foster dogs, and is very fond of one that is just 10 lbs who has been showing him how to play with toys.  Still not adoptable yet but he's coming around.  Several years at the puppy mill and 4 years at the warehouse won't go away in just 5 months.  He is making strides, thanks to your efforts.  He and his 4 buddies are making great improvements.

  

  

  

T

Angel Merritt
West Coast Regional Director

  

Eskie Rescuers United, 501(3)c
http://eru.rescuegroups.org/info/adoption










This is Goofy, an Eskie mix.

Seriously impressed

This blog site is very good.  The articles written so far show just how dedicated the rescue/activist community is.  Very impressed with Laura's article, and hope to see many many more, despite the fact that I don't seem to be able to comment directly on them.

A Dog Named Pixie: a Survival Story

Way out on the far side of the Olympic Peninsula is a town named Forks, and in that town there is a dilapidated warehouse once called the Olympic Animal Sanctuary. In that warehouse dog crates were once stacked up row on row, dozens of them, pee-stained and filthy. In one of those crates lived a dog named Pixie.

She wasn’t the only dog to spend time crated in the reeking darkness of the warehouse. For many years the warehouse was packed with dogs, over a hundred of them, crouching in cramped misery, unable to stretch their legs, unable to escape their waste, unable to do anything all day long and all night long except endure.

A few of the dogs were confined to small kennels lined with straw. For three years, before she was crated, Pixie had lived in one of the kennels. The manager of the “sanctuary”, Steve Markwell, modified her kennel by barricading it with plywood walls, leaving only a crack for light. That was his response to her aggressiveness toward other dogs: isolation. Sensory deprivation. Confinement in black hole.

The warehouse was supposed to be a paradise for unadoptable dogs. The website for the “sanctuary” promised exercise in compatible playgroups, homecooked meals, veterinary services, and rehabilitation for behavior problems. Some of the dogs confined there did have serious bite histories.  However, most were like Pixie: not perfect dogs, but adoptable to the right home.  Pixie’s problem was kennel-craziness.  She was over-active, demanding, puppyish. She was desperate for love and attention.

Pixie had experienced very little love in her life. She had been picked up as a stray and turned in to a Midwestern city shelter, just another pitbull, one of the millions of pitbulls turned in to shelters each year. And, like so many shelter pits, she came to the shelter young, untrained, undersocialized to dogs and pathetically, desperately needy.

 Pixie couldn’t handle life in a kennel. She lunged at the kennel door, barked too much, grabbed at people with her mouth. There was a young girl she loved who came to visit her, and some of the adult volunteers liked her, but no one adopted Pixie.  As the days passed she grew more stressed and anxious and needy.

Then time ran out for her. Her anxious neediness led to a bite incident and she was deemed unadoptable. That meant euthanasia unless an alternative placement could be found. And one was: the Olympic Animal Sanctuary.

Steve Markwell drove all the way out to the Midwest to pick Pixie up. He acted like he was doing everyone a giant favor, but Pixie was sent to him with a substantial donation. Her friends at the shelter threw Pixie a good-by party. They outfitted Pixie in a pretty pick sweater for her new life.They invested their faith in OAS to take care of their girl.

The shelter folks thought Pixie was going to heaven, but they sent her to hell. She, of course, had no idea why she was sentenced to a life of semi-starvation and close confinement in stink and noise of the warehouse. OAS became reality to her; the few good experiences given to her by the shelter workers receded in her mind, replaced by the daily experience of misery. Pixie endured for four years.

Four of the five years of her life were years of suffering.

 Then suddenly one night the manager and a few other men took the dogs out of the warehouse one by one. When it was Pixie’s turn, she got one quick lungful of fresh air outside the warehouse before finding herself once again confined to a small dark space: a wooden box. She, and all of the other dogs, were on a truck. The truck lurched into motion. The dogs barked their worries and questions as the truck rolled away.

Pixie didn’t know it, but once again people were concerned about her welfare. Not the driver of the truck; no, the dogs only mattered to him as props for his pose as a rescuer. The people who cared about Pixie were the thousands who had seen the photograph of her sad face in the darkness of her kennel. Her picture, and pictures taken by the Forks police of the warehouse interior, had been posted on Facebook, exposing OAS for what it really was: a hellhole. Thousands of people were writing, calling and emailing Forks authorities, trying to free the dogs so they could be placed in legitimate rescues. Protests had been held outside the warehouse. Lawsuits had been filed. Consumer fraud complaints had been lodged with the state Attorney General. Many of the rescues that had sent dogs to OAS desperately tried to get their dogs back. Among those were the volunteers who had sent Pixie to OAS.

The driver of the truck was running away from the protesters and rescuers. He knew he didn’t have the resources to feed the dogs.  He knew that sooner or later he was going to have a warehouse full of dead dogs, but he didn’t want to give the dogs to the people who were trying to rescue them. So he took the dogs and ran.

But he also knew that if he drove long enough, he would end up with a truck full of dead dogs. So after six hours on the road he agreed to turn the dogs over to a rescue, one that had not been involved in the lawsuits or protests.

The Guardians of Rescue, a New York group, agreed to help the dogs. Markwell insisted that the turnover site be far away from any cities and not in Washington. The Guardians found a place: RUFF House, a rescue in Golden Valley, Arizona.

It took Markwell four days to drive to Arizona. He stopped for food, water and potty breaks for himself, but not for the dogs. By the time they arrived at the rescue site, Pixie, like all of the dogs, had been laying her own waste for days, hungry, thirsty and terrified. Two of the dogs were nearly dead from dehydration and starvation.

Pixie did not know what was going to happen to her next. Since her life so far had been a progression from bad worse, her expectations were not good. A photo taken just after she was unloaded from the truck shows her bellycrawling on the ground.  But, within minutes, she found herself in a spacious clean outdoor kennel. She had a dog house. She had a bucket of fresh water. She had food. People gave her treats and spoke to her. She could see other dogs, see birds flying overhead, could smell the sagebrush and the grasses and the wind…

The explosion of sensory was overwhelming, but time heals and routine is comforting. Pixie learned that people would give her attention and be kind to her. She got food and water on a schedule. She grew familiar with the smells and sounds. She recognized her caretakers and grew to enjoy their visits. She was able to relax in the sun, just stretch out, breath deeply, feel the warmth, close her eyes and dream. For the first time in many years Pixie was able to feel a little happiness.

Meanwhile those volunteers who had worked to free Pixie from OAS searched for a sanctuary for her, a place for her to live for the rest of her life. And back in Washington state a woman who had never met Pixie made a commitment to rescue her. That woman raised money and birddogged the process tirelessly to see that Pixie got the OK to go to a new home.

Pixie’s story will have a happy ending.  She will be going to a rescue in Virginia where she will have a home as long as she needs one. This story will be updated when Pixie finally arrives in her new home.

Updates: Pixie is going to a small rescue in Virginia to join two other OAS dogs, Hercules and Rogue. Here's a picture of her in a crate, loaded for departure. The transporters were told of her love of Doritos and had a supply on hand for her.






After a long trip across country from Arizona to Virginia, Pixie arrived at the rescue and was introduced to her new home kennel. At first she was confused, tired, and a bit growly. By the next day, she was wagging her tail to greet people and sniffed noses with another dog, a potential friend. She takes treats nicely and knows "sit" and "down"--GOR's crew in AZ must have taught her that!This morning Pixie was so relaxed while chewing her pig's ear that she didn't even want to get off her bed! Over the next weeks Pixie will be introduced to other dogs, taken for walks, and otherwise introduced to new experiences.


She's come a long ways. From the Midwest to the Northwest to the Southwest to the East Coast. From loneliness, fear and sensory deprivation to a home with people who love her and dogs that could be her friends. From isolation and confinement to enrichment, choices and movement. Pixie, we love you. Thank you so much, Nikki, for giving this girl her happy ending.