Mr G and I adopted 2 basset hounds from BHRG...Flossie who was not with us very long due to CHF and Suki who is wonderfully saucy and spoiled...and has a little spotted cow belly...
BHRG does an outstanding job of placing basset hounds who have been "turned in"...what are they? checked out library pets?...at shelters...or just found wandering the streets in poor condition...not uncommonly pregnant with little mix-parentage puppies (I swear if you want a little mix puppy, basset hound mixes and corgi mixes make some of the most adorable adult dogs you'll ever want to see)...
BHRG appears to have a core group of committed volunteers who are able to Make Things Happen and have kept their group afloat where many well-intended rescue groups go the way of the Passenger Pigeon...due to underfunding, lack of community co-operation and too few volunteers available for too many homeless animals...
so many animal welfare rescue workers/volunteers end up with their own homes stuffed to the gills with animals waiting for adopting families, taxing their own bank accounts and their neighbors' patience while tryin' to help out those who can't ask for help for themselves...
been there, got the Crappy T-Shirt...
Mr G and I worked several years with a rescue group in Savannah...and then we burned out like so many others...our small home contained not just our small family of 3, but my maternal grandmother and one of my brothers...and his dog...along with our collection of dogs and cats...I think our house was somewhere between 1400 SF and 1600 SF...3 bedrooms, 2 baths...
we had reached maximum capacity...physically, emotionally and financially...
a strong spiritual backbone is required to work rescue...it does not matter how good of a week your group has...if that 3-legged dog finally, after months and months of attending adoptions where person after person walked on by and after you (tryin' as hard as you could not to) came to love that dog with all your heart, got a wonderful home...and 5 cats were adopted...along with allllll of those black lab mix puppies who went to good homes...there are always more little furry faces waiting to be pulled from Kill Shelters...and picked up off the streets...and taken from non-caring owners who kept them chained in the backyard regardless of the weather...
Sigh...
Mr G gets angry when he sees yet another pitiful creature in need of a good home...he can't understand why people toss animals away without any thought...like yesterday's trash...
I ask Mr G how can he expect a society where so many children and old people are cast aside like old worn-out shoes to care about four-legged ones...ones without voices...and fewer laws to protect them...
anyhoo...back to my point...yes, I'm Southern and yes, Digression is My Middle Name...Wednesday morning, I got a ring from BHRG's Rosemary...seems there was a basset in the county pound and Rosemary (the BHRG rescue coordinator?) asked me to run over to verify that this little girl was a basset hound (BHRG has taken basset)...if she was a basset to pull her for rescue...
now, another digression...there is a Very Real Reason why all the years Mr G and I worked rescue that I was never tagged to make the trips to pull from the pound...I simply am not strong enough for those little faces behind the wire to not just rip my heart out...I expect those faces rip every one's hearts out, but some of us are better equipped to keep that boxed up so it doesn't affect the good work ongoing...
but I would have been consistently draggin' the Worst Case Scenarios out of the pound...
so if there had been anyway to gracefully refuse, I would have...I knew what it would cost me emotionally to walk down by those cages, with all those eyes focused on, tails wagging...
you know, there really are good reasons to evict people from the Gene Pool...those faces are right up there on the Top of My List...
the good news? the dog in question is a Basset...so I pulled her on Wednesday afternoon, drove her to our vet where she began treatment for skin wounds, bad tick infestation [shudder] and got on the roster for a bath that afternoon...because Basset Girl was one stinky customer...phew...man...we're heading off in a few minutes to pick up Basset Girl for transporting up to Atlanta where she will go into the BHRG adoption pool...and, knock on wood, get a wonderful family and a new home...
We got to pick Basset Girl's new name...
We choose "Liberty"
1 comment:
How would these animals fare without wonderful people like you? All my animals ,apart from two, have been rescue dogs. Bilbo Baggins, who appears a lot on my blog, was 8 months old when I got him from the RSPCA - at least he now has a pretty good life after the awful start he had. One dog I took in had been so badly beaten that he was terrified of all humans and it took the rescue people 6 months even to get him to the stage where he could be offered for adoption. We went to see another dog that had been already been taken by the time we got there and they asked if we would look at Blue instead. He came home with us and his new Scottie brother that day and lived with us for another 12 years but it took a full 12 months before he started to gain any confidence. I can't even begin to fathom the minds of people who mistreat animals. I hope Liberty finds a wonderful new home and a family who love her to bits.
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