Pet Adoption Stories

[Jim]

I volunteer with an animal rescue group (shameless plug: http://www.friendsofleaguecityanimalshelter.com/ ) and help out at adoption events most Sundays. This past Sunday had an interesting sequence of events.

Mike, who fosters dogs, picked up a young male Shih Tzu Lhasa Apso last Tuesday. After Mike took the dog, Mr. Chuckles... Chuck, home, a couple came by the shelter looking for that dog (They'd seen him on PetFinder.). They were told we had it, so they called our president. She said they could see the dog at the Sunday event at a local pet supply store.

The couple arrived early and cornered Mike before he even got through the front door. They liked the dog and wanted him. But, Mike wasn't ready to let him go; he wanted to keep Chuck a few more days to be sure he was healthy and healed from his Wednesday neutering. So they filled out the adoption papers with a promise that by week's end Chuck should be good to go.

That dog drew crowds. Several folks were interested, but backed off when told someone had an application filed already. But one woman liked Chuck enough to be put second in line. She called her adult son to come see him, since the son would be partly responsible for the dog's care. Son liked Chuck, but he wasn't completely sold.

As Mom filled out the adoption forms, a long time volunteer came by. She had a problem. Her daughter and son-in-law had adopted a young dog from another shelter... sweet dog, but they had two and one didn't get along with the newcomer, a Corgi-Lab-Golden-Shepherd mix (a guess) named Pixie. Could she foster Pixie while the Friends got her adopted?

As we discussed how that was very doable, Son spotted Pixie.

Yeah, you guessed it. Son fell in love with Pixie. Mom liked her, too. And she was available right then.

So Pixie found a new home within minutes of arrival, and Chuck will likely go to the couple who sought him out in the first place.

What's neat is that Mom and Son would never have seen Pixie had Mike not decided to keep Chuck for a few more days.

[Fazor]

It's those kinds of things that are examples of why we should never get too caught up with things don't initially go our way (a lesson that I personally fail more often than not.)

For what it's worth, both our dogs are "adopted"; one was part of a group of puppies that had been abandoned in the woods. A co-worker had a dog who also just had puppies, and one day they went off into the woods and came back with some surprise friends. Being a small community, they asked all the neighbors if they had any dogs that had gone missing. None had (or had admitted to it) so I volunteered to give one a home. Ten years later and she's still a faithful friend.

Soon after Tara moved in with me, she decided that Charlie (the first dog) needed a friend. So we went to the local shelter and found an adorable puppy to take home with us. The two got along fairly well from the onset (though they do fight every now and then, which has resulted in a few annoyingly expensive emergency vet bills since Charlie's skin tears like paper due to some health issues.)

Rooka has now been with us for seven years. Occasionally, Tara expresses interest in getting a third dog, but we really wouldn't be able to manage with our tiny home and limited income.

[Gillianren]

A couple of friends were living out in the boonies eight years ago. They started seeing this feral cat who was obviously pregnant. They went on vacation, and when they came back, they saw no longer pregnant feral cat squished in the road. They wondered what had happened to the kittens. They went back toward the carport (which had no room for cars, being filled with junk), and there was a very small kitten who announced on no uncertain terms that he was hungry and cold and wanted someone to take care of him. Now. His brother, they had to go looking for and dig out from under the woodpile. But they took the boys in, bottlefed them, and named them for an Eddie Izzard sketch--Don Miguel and El Diablo. Later, they moved back into Olympia and started acquiring cats like it was going out of style; they had six, I believe. One of them expressed her displeasure at the situation by refusing to use the litter box, and one of my friends announced that he was sick of it and was going to give the lot of them to the pound. Don Miguel disappeared at about this time--we think their downstairs neighbours took him in after he'd gotten out--and I took in El Diablo to ease the situation. Four cats were easier than six after all. And so that is how and why I acquired my dear, dumb D.

[BigDon]

Oh I have a good one.

Happened to a friend of mine who loves cats. Has three indoor cats that are officially his and a modest sized glare that show up to eat in the evenings, but stay outside and aloof.

A classic case of roommate's girlfriend dumping an "ugly baby" on him, because he made the mistake of expressing sympathy for it.

Right off the bat, the critter is stone ugly. The living embodiment of Bill The Cat. My friend named him Booger, after the Revenge of The Nerds character of the same name.

Where to begin?

First off and a major issue in its lovability factor. A genetic defect I have never heard of before. The cat was born without any papilae on his tongue. Boy, that seems like such a minor detail in cat physiology. Except without them the cat cannot clean itself. He feels greasy and is positively revolting to pick up. Like a ferret without the guard hairs. You have an immediate desire to go wash your hands after doing so.

Then, whatever cruel deity it is that decides the fates of most cats thought, "How can I mess up this cat even more?"

So the cat was hit by a car, suffering the loss of its left eye and receiving an uncorrected depressed skull fracture.

This also crushed a sinus and as some of you well know, when two sides of a sinus that were formally apart come into contact, it can lead to a state of constant mucus production.

Like it did him.

And you want to know the very worst part?

Personality-wise the cat has every cute-cat gene they make.

He's affectionate, intelligent enough to know he gets treated differently than the other cats, and tries to make up for "whatever it was he did" and manages to look hurt when the other cats get petted by guests who then make less than friendly sounds after touching him. (He leaves stains on your hands.)

[PetersCreek]

Rufus was an orange tabby my wife had from a kitten. He became a portly old fellow in his later years, who seemed to hear voices is in his head and occasionally heed their counsel. A few years ago, he took to urinating on the guest room carpet...a lot...so much, that I replaced it with laminate flooring. We came to find out he was diabetic and from there his health deteriorated to the point of euthenasia. This was the first time my wife had to make this decision and it was hard on her.

But just a couple of weeks later, we were in a local pet supply shopping for our other pets and wouldn't you know it, it was cat adoption day. We poked out heads into that corner of the store and two cats immediately drew my attention: a young brother-and-sister pair of Maine Coon mixes, wide green eyes shining from the back of a crate. I'm not the real cat person in our house but I wanted those two. I realized, though, that the timing might not be right for my wife so I asked if we could place a short hold on them and we discussed it while as we walked around the store. She was very, very hesitant and eventually, we decided the time wasn't right. So, we went back to the adoption table and just as I was about to say that we wouldn't be taking them, my wife interjected and asked, "Can we bring them back if things don't work out?" They, Abigail and Jackson, went home with us of course and stayed.

[Trebuchet]

What does your avatar think about the new arrivals? Oh, and good for you!

[Gillianren]

A few years ago, he took to urinating on the guest room carpet...a lot...so much, that I replaced it with laminate flooring.

Apparently, my friends passed Tabitha on to someone else, and once she was an only cat, she started using the box again. In her case, it was purely displeasure with her living situation.

[Swift]

Our previous cat Samantha and our current two were all adopted by us as kittens from the local shelter and all have been great cats.

"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~ Immanual Kant

[jokergirl]

My cat (the one in the icon) is adopted from a friend of ours, who rescued them from a hayloft (haying season was coming around and they might have been crushed) and so suddenly had a litter of kittens plus their semi-feral mom on his hands.
We've been wanting a cat for a long time, but as we say, cats happen, you don't need to seek them out. And this was the perfect opportunity. Came there and the little one, shyest of his litter, just came straight out and sat himself in front of us, looking expectantly. He adopted us at that very second

[Swift]

He adopted us at that very second

A lot of animal rescue groups in the US have bumper stickers and pins and such with the expression "Who rescued who?". I've often wondered that myself.

[PetersCreek]

What does your avatar think about the new arrivals? Oh, and good for you!

Kroger just wants to be friends...and wear their butts on his nose. The cats took a while to adjust to him but nowadays, Jackson pays him little mind. Abigail tolerates his presence most of the time but still occasionally gives his nose a swat, which sounds like she's thumping a ripe melon.

[grapes]

A few years ago, our golden lab gained weight. Our vet was not concerned, so neither were we. A week after a clean bill of health, the dog could not walk, and we took him to a different vet. He started regular insulin shots, and thyroid pills. I had to carry the 120 pound dog up and down stairs several times a day, and we would "walk" him using a towel around his middle to support his weight for him. He almost got back to normal, and we even were able to quit the insulin. Our kids had grown up with him, and were very attached, so, when he finally died a couple years later, we resisted getting a new pet for years.

Three weeks ago my wife found a picture on the website of a local shelter, and we decided that was going to be our new dog--supposedly, a three month old black lab-German shepard mix, probably based on the appearance of her littermates, who did not look at all like her. At the shelter, we found that the litter had only two puppies left, and the one which looked like her was male. We were told she'd been put down that morning because of heart worms, which we thought was strange, but we could "interview" the male. My wife couldn't resist, and the rest is history. Turns out, during their prep for neutering, the female had been diagnosed with a heart murmur. He was still a little logy from the operation. His name is Chandler, after the wobble.