So I am a sucker for a sob story
As many may have figured out by the fact that Jason and I have rescued four cats, a snake, a chinchilla, and of course our beloved shiba is a rescue as well.
A girlfriend of mine works at animal control here in Providence. She contacted me today and said I have this dog here, who has been here since July. No one is adopting her because she is a huge pit bull. She gets along with every dog at the shelter, loves small animals and is the sweetest gentlest dog she has ever met, and she is getting put down in two weeks. My evil friend then emails me the petfinder link to her. My girlfriend couldn't adopt her because the town she lives in has a 3 dog limit for homes and she already has three (*note to brad- no moving to cranston ri for your pack
*) I took one look and emailed it to Jason (assuming that he would shoot me down, and tell me to call a couple of my foster buddies). 5 minutes later he emails me and says, "lets go get her". Wholly moley I wasn't expecting that!
Apparently she was used as a puppy mill. She has bred many litters and just wants to love on everything. We are bringing Moto to meet her on Saturday. Assuming they love each other, he will have an adoptive Mom.
This is Belle .
That means next spring we will have 3 dogs when Himiko arrives. And since Jason and I apparently have completely lost our marbles, we are now talking about driving out to go get her. Yup, driving 3282 miles one way. We are psyched.
Comments
Oh - *sniff* - That's great you are helping her. Poor thing. I hope everything goes well with Moto and she has a forever home with you guys. You guys are great people.
As for the number of dogs, we checked at every place we looked at moving too. In Taos there is an 8 dog limit, so we still have room to "grow". Having said that, sometimes I think I'm a bad person for not adopting all the dogs we have. There are so many in need and we keep buying these spoiled dogs...
Keep us posted!
BTW - I drove to Katja's for Ahi, it is an amazing drive! VC Island is REALLY cool!
Oh, she's so cute!
I've met quite a few love-bug Pitts before. Sweeties. I hope Moto loves her and vice-versa.
So, who's Himiko?
Doing volunteer dog walking at our local shelter, I see pitts all of the time, and I always fall in love with them if they are around long enough. They are just the sweetest most loveable dogs. There is one that came in recently all torn up, ears ripped, neck raw and torn up, bite marks all over, and somehow she is still the sweetest most loving dog ever. They are saying she got attacked by a racoon, if she was considered to be used for dog fighting she would be marked un-adoptable. It was obvious she was bait, she wouldn't hurt anything.
If pits were allowed in my apartment, and I wasn't at my animal limit I am sure I would have taken one home by now. The young ones are crazy and energetic, much like a Shiba, but once they are older they are chilled out. They just love to run and play. I would never take one to a dog park (just to avoid the stigma and glares).
Thank you for taking her in. You and Jason are awesome people. You could always consider it a foster situation and try to find her another home. However if she and Moto get along she will be hard to let go of, there are a lot of good pit rescues around to work with though. But with a puppy coming in next year, is an older dog going to want to deal with that?
So unfortunate what HUMANS have done to this wonderful breed of dogs. I swear if I walk one 3 or 4 times, they become so loyal so fast, and put a smile on your face with their crazy tail wags and butt wiggles.
This will be a quick one as I am on my way for x-rays (more on that in a sec)...
Michelle-Himiko is the name we have chosen for the shikoku puppy we are waiting to be born. We sent our deposit to Katja, and are jaust waiting for the next available female.
Brandon-I have a huge soft spot for pits. I have friends who run pit specific rescues, and I have had as many as 6 at once. We are taking her in as foster with the intention of keeping her. My first mission is to prevent her from getting put down. Then assuming I can keep everyone in the house civil (I have a good feeling)she stays. There is no way I could give up a good dog. The good news is the "breakfast club" (the same 6people I see every morning at the dog park) all saw Belles picture and were excited to meet her. We have a huge pit population in Providence and most people understand that they are good dogs with bad reps. The other ones will just have to learn. I think her living with a cute fluffy shiba will help soften her appearance to strangers,
now x-rays...in an ironic turn of events, as I was telling everyone about this "unadoptable" huge pit bull I'm adopting, a giant (100lbs+) chocolate lab jumps up to get my sweatshirt, gets my whole arm, and may have broken my wrist. I am not the first victim of this guy jumping and grabbing. Just all his previous victims were clothes, not body parts.
Ha! Injured by the "all american" dog. I'll post what is up with the injury when I get back.
Preach it Brandon!
I take Sasha to the park to help educate people. Of course most are stuck in thier ways and dont want to hear anything. PUNKS!!!! My mother in law said a horrid comment about pits and my husband got so angry cause we have half pitt.
One time at the park I was a stuck shoe in the drit away from a blown out knee by a golden retriever. The thing was just running and playing and not paying attention and I couldn't get out of the way. It plowed right into my knee sideways, luckily my shoe did not stick in the dirt and allowed my leg to give way. As the dog was plowing into me I thought to myself "How the hell do I catch Nemo and get him home with a knee that no longer has ligaments connected to it?"
Dog parks can sometimes be dangerous for people, and not because of bites, just over eager dogs.
Here is a conversation I had yesterday when I said I was adopting a pitbull.
Ignorant Person -I don't like pit bulls
Me-Why? How many do you know?
Ignorant Person- My uncle had one, it was mean, I didn't like him
Me-You realize that you are being a racist right?
Ignorant Person-No I am not!
Me- You are judging an entire breed by an experience with one. If I told you I met an asian guy and he was a jerk, so now I don't like asians, you would call me racist right?
IP-Well yeah that is racist!
Me-Same thing. You are a racist.
IP-Well they bite people.
Me-I have been bitten by a number of dogs (remember I used to work with abused dogs), and I have never been bitten by a pit. The worst bite I have ever gotten was from a pekingnese.
IP-Well...
Me- Wow, I thought you were a better person than that. Guess I was wrong. Maybe one day you will get a clue.
At which point this person (who works for me) had very little to say. I have this conversation often. I have found that generally when you point out to someone that if they were so quick to judge a group of humans as they have a breed of dog, they would have civil rights groups all over them. I admit, I kinda like the argument.
By the way, bruised bone, annoyed ulnar nerve but nothing is broken.
It always amazes me how fast a dog is ready to forgive humans for the horrible things they do to them.
I mean, in the case of that pit that was used as bait, she probably doesn't have the ability to logically connect people to her being used as bait - she probably just sees it as mean dogs attacking her, not people putting her in a situation to purposely get dogs to attack her.
My point is tho, there is so many animals you see that where abused by humans but will still turn to other humans for help and show just an amazing amount of love towards them. Their unconditional love for humans is pretty amazing.
As a note, the pit I described earlier, she is also great with other dogs (running on opposite sides of the fence anyhow, no interaction is allowed).
There was another pit we had out there recently (there are always pits, a few of them) was the sweetest dog ever, but she did not like to be left alone in one of the fenced yards. One day I was taking in a different dog, a mastiff/great Dane mix named "Mini" and I heard Angel (the pit) crying. I turn around and she is on top of the 6 foot chain link fences hanging over. This is at an intersection where three fences meet, and there are two doors. So I run over and kind of push her back down. I turn to go back in and BAM, about 1/100th of a second later she was at the top of the fence again. I try to figure out what I am going to do. I decide to try and take Angel in first, there is a gate out the backside of the fence, we aren't supposed to go that way, but I figure it is safer than having her climb the fence again, and getting in with another dog.
All of my concentration at this point is focused on keeping Angel in her area (she isn't aggressive, but she obviously wants out). So as I am going into her fenced area I let huge ass Mini slip past me. Mini also always seems dog aggressive, so I am freaked. And within seconds they are running together past me, I can't tell what is going on, LUCKILY they started to play. Still, I had to get them separated before anyone saw what was going on, as these are pre-adopt dogs that have not been cleared yet, and this is a fragile program that they let us volunteers take them out. So I am running after these two, jumping at the leashes, and finally snag Angel's leash after about 20 seconds that seemed like an eternity. I was able to get Angel out of that fenced area and into another, while keeping Mini where Angel had been. So after getting my heart rate back to normal, I took Angel inside and wrote on her sheet "Be careful as she will try to climb fences".
I didn't write it big enough apparently. A few days later another volunteer had her out, and she climbed a fence again. This time she literally stood on top of the fences. There are two fences that meet like a T, so she had her front feat out on what would be the top of the T and her two back legs on the other part of the T. I guess she was just standing up there hanging out when the lady went in to get another dog. Just standing on top of the six foot fence looking like "Hey Guys! What's up, I'm gonna jump down and play with someone, pet me now!" She was so athletic, agile and strong that it was crazy. She got moved up to adoptable, I hope she finds a home soon. Pit bulls are easily the most powerful and athletic dogs per pound that I have ever encountered.
And Brad you are right, the power of forgiveness that dogs posses is amazing. Not many other creatures that will lick the hand that beats them before they have had enough and try to bite back. I think Shibas might be some of the most sensitive dogs out there, as they truly get upset/disturbed for long periods of time over abuse. They can be so timid.
So she is asleep at my feet... But we couldn't keep her name as Belle. It just didn't fit. She is now PIGLET!!!!!
Pictures are not far, I promise.
Awww...who wouldn't fall inlove with a sweet face like that!
She's a little sweetie pie.
Congrats!
We always say that Shiba's remember slights like no other dogs. I think its a part of the breed itself. They hold grudges and are very reluctant to forgive and forget and generally aren't too tolerant of we stupid humans making mistakes.
I tell ya, those Shibas read The Book on what is proper and what is not in the doggie kingdom.