It's Dixie's Turn!

After four long months, all eight of Dixie's puppies have now found homes, hooray! Now we just need to find a place for Dixie! She deserves her own family to love.

I got some cute pictures of her yesterday playing with some new toys -

Dixie!

We've been trying to encourage Dixie's fetching skills. She will do it occasionally but she has to be in the right mood. Apparently the stars aligned this afternoon and she and Matt had a great game of fetch while I took pictures...

Only one puppy left!

Coco got adopted this week, so we're down to just one puppy left to be adopted - cute little Zoey!

Moving Along

I finally pried this photo from the cold dead grip of my dead-batteried camera - it's Maya with her new mom and dad - isn't she just the cutest with her little tongue? :-)


I've found homes for six puppies so far, with two left (plus Dixie). The two remaining puppies are each in a foster home now, so they can get more one-on-one attention and training.

Here's Zoey, who is being fostered by Diann in Fortuna (Diann also happens to operate a wonderful dog walking and pet sitting business called Walk That Dog, which I highly recommend) -


And here's Coco, who just went to a foster home in McKinleyville this morning -


I would love to get both of these girls into permanent homes as soon as possible so if you know anyone looking to add to their family, by all means please send them my way!

So we're puppy-less today here at my house for the first time in over three months. I miss their adorable exuberant puppy energy, but it's also a relief knowing that this project is coming to a close. It's been a fun challenge in some ways, and kind of a huge pain in other ways (mostly just in terms of the time it took away from my family and business - I feel like I have a *lot* of catching up to do).

And that brings me to my final task - finding a home for Dixie! She really deserves to find a place of her own after all she's been through. Unfortunately, at our house she isn't able to be fully integrated into family life because my two crotchety 12-year-old dogs don't care for her. She spends part of her days in the studio with me, part in the back yard with our younger dog Lupe (who gets along great with Dixie), and part kenneled. She really doesn't like being in the kennel now that there aren't any puppies to keep her company. Poor girl...

Puppy Update

Well, I had hoped to keep this blog updated with pics of puppies and their new families as they get adopted, but I have forgotten my camera too many times to mention, and the one time I remembered to snap a photo, my camera battery died and I can't find the charger so the photos are being held hostage until I can find that #%$* charger.

BUT - the good news is, pictures or no pictures, I've found homes for four more puppies since the first adoption I posted about more than a month ago. They are all doing well in their new homes and I'm so happy to be down to only three more puppies to go (plus Dixie). Of the three remaining puppies, two seemed to have a bit more of an alpha sassiness than I care to see, which was difficult for me to do much about since I can't really integrate them into my indoor family life because my two 12-year-old dogs are grumpy and don't like silly puppies bothering them, so I found some wonderful foster families and those two puppies are now in homes, where they are learning some manners in preparation for finding their permanent placements.

The eighth and final puppy has had quite a roller coaster journey this past week. She's my favorite one - very mellow and people-focused, not a jumper, just an all-around sweet girl. About a week ago, I found a fantastic foster home for her as well, then I took her to Petco on Saturday for an adoption event, and a family really liked her and wanted to take her home for a trial visit, which I allowed. Ultimately though, after two days, they decided that a young puppy really wasn't the right fit for their family, so they brought her back to me. I had a couple of promising leads on other homes, which I've diligently been pursuing for the past 24 hours, but those seem to have fizzled as well, so now I have to decide whether to put her back in her foster home or keep her here. I really wish she would just get adopted right away so she can stop getting juggled around so much - she's SO sweet, I know she's going to make some family really, really happy.

Here are some pictures of Juniper (that's the name her foster family gave her when they had her last week) - not great quality pics because I'm using my backup (crappy) camera and they were taken in our icky garage, but she's still so cute.

See her back there snuggled behind her mama?

Juniper is three months old and around 20 pounds. If you know anyone who might be interested in adopting her, please send them my way!

New Puppy Pics!

Tell me honestly - are these not the cutest, most photogenic puppies you have ever seen???










And I just noticed the other day what a dramatic color change they have undergone since they were newborns - they are SO much redder now, and they used to have black stripes down their backs - those are gone now, and some of them even kind of look like the black on their tails is fading. Isn't nature weird?

Dixie's puppies - soon after birth and now

Dixie Before & After

Dixie within days of giving birth, and Dixie today - hard to believe it's the same dog! Even her face has filled out so much...

One Down, Eight to Go!

I completed my first adoption today! One of the two male puppies - now named Marlo - went home with Zach and Cate. Aren't they cute? :-)

And here are some pre-adoption pictures of Marlo looking adorable while getting acclimated to his crate -

Puppies!

Some puppy videos to brighten your day.









That last video shows the puppies with our permanent dog, Lupe (not their mom) - I can't believe how patient and sweet she is with them!

Jumping Back In With Both Feet

Around ten years ago, I was heavily involved in the local animal rescue scene; I volunteered for a while at one shelter, then co-founded another rescue group. My husband and I fostered a lot of dogs (around ten, I think, not all at once, but sequentially). As sometimes happens, I burned out. Inter-personal crap got in the way of what started as a pure desire to help animals, and the right thing for my sanity was to drift away for a while. I busied myself with other things - important things like building a home, becoming a parent, growing a business - and I found new ways to fulfill my need to help animals - I became a strong vegan advocate and helped start a local vegetarian society, and I donated to many animal-related charitable causes.

Years passed, and I was happy. But I missed that hands-on, intimate connection with animals - the fulfillment that comes from knowing you made a difference in a specific animal's life. So a few years ago we started adopting poultry - first a couple of ducks, then some chickens, turkeys, and some more chickens. All were rescues, mostly from Animal Place and Farm Sanctuary. I reveled in the process of becoming acquainted with species that had not formerly been familiar to me. I enjoyed their quirks and I mourned the injustices that were inflicted on their bodies and their souls in the name of cheap food (many of my chickens are 'broiler' breeds, genetically programed to grow large very quickly so as to yield maximum meat when slaughtered at a very young age; when allowed to live a normal life, this causes a myriad of health problems - others are 'spent' laying hens from factory farms). But still I wanted more. I missed fostering dogs.

I am not even sure how exactly I became aware of Dixie - some ongoing conversation with a dedicated worker at the local county animal shelter (Stacie) I guess. I learned that Dixie, a pregnant pit bull mix, was at risk of euthanasia at the shelter because she had growled at someone when they came in her kennel. She was terribly underweight, hugely pregnant, suffering a broken pelvis from being hit by a car, and had been enduring the kennel environment for more than a month already, so who could blame her for growling? Anyways, she needed emergency foster care, and somehow I managed to convince my husband to (very reluctantly) agree to let me foster her and her soon-to-be-born puppies.

So not only was I returning to the foster scene, but I was doing it in a pretty huge way - not one dog, but nine were on their way to my humble abode. I had zero experience with nursing mothers or newborn puppies, but I built a whelping box, did a little reading, and followed Dixie's lead. This bedraggled mom and her brood arrived at my house the day after the birth (which required a c-section due to several of the pups being breech), on January 2nd of this year.



The last two months have been a crazy adventure. Lots of food, lots of puppy playtime, and holy cow, LOTS of poop. But I've learned a lot and had a good time, and we're all still alive and thriving. The puppies will be able to be adopted into new homes in about a week, and I've already started showing them to potential adopters, so that's exciting.




I imagine it won't be too hard to find the puppies good homes; I just hope I can find the right placement for Dixie. She's a sweet girl who really deserves to have the rest of her life be better than what she's experienced so far.

Here We Go Again

Here I am, embarking on my seventh blog. Yes, seven. What can I say - I have many interests and I like to compartmentalize. This little bloglet will be dedicated to chronicling my family's adventures with our numerous rescued critters - some permanent and others temporary - but all loved.

I'm guessing that most of my visitors will be people who already know me, but in case not, perhaps a brief intro is warranted... I am a self-employed jewelry artist, married with a five-year-old son, and living in far-Northern California on the coast (Humboldt County). I'm an animal loving vegan, passionately dedicated to making the world a better place both for people and animals in whatever small ways that I can. We currently have three permanent dogs (Hazel, 12; Otis, 12; and Lupe, 2), four turkeys, three ducks, and about a dozen chickens. We're also currently fostering a canine family of nine (more on that in my next post).

Marji & Cally

Constance & Marianne

Lupe (lover of all people and all dogs)

Otis (lovable high strung wierdo)

Hazel (don't let that innocent look fool you)

Some of my other interests besides jewelry making and hanging out with my animals include vegan cooking and juicing/smoothie-ing, fair trade advocacy (and shopping), renovating our previously scuzzy house (the location and yard redeem the house), and yoga.

So... that's me. :-)