07/29/2024
This week is going to be such a hard week. As many of you know I have been working in animal rescue as a foster and as a rescue for over 15 years now. It has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my entire entire life. It has also been one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever done in my entire life.
I just got off the phone with the vet and made an appointment for later this week to euthanize three of our dogs here at home. So indulge me I’d like to tell you a little bit about them.
The first one is cheddar cheese, German shepherd mix that I rescued 13 years ago. She was about a year old then and was being attacked by a bunch of coyotes. I chased off the coyotes and was trying to get her into my car. She was terrified. I happen to have some groceries in the car, including some cheddar cheese. I tried to blackmail her to get her in the car with the cheese and she ended up eating all the cheese and still not getting in the car. I happen to be friendly with the mayor of Buckeye at the time and I gave him a call and he called the police department and sent over a couple officers to help me get her into the car. She is one of the sweetest and smartest dogs I’ve ever had. I’m going to miss her terribly.
We also have Tramp who is now about 15 years old. He and his brother gypsy were dumped near our house and they ran into one of the drainage pipes that help to irrigate the farm fields next to us. We called them the pipe babies. Tramp has cancer and he’s been on medication for a while, but the tumors have started to grow again and I’m worried that he’s in pain. Tramp is a dog that loved to swim in the pool! He would just glide around the pool and push the play ball from one end of the pool to the other, wagging his tail while he was swimming!
And finally, we have Angel. Angel is about 16 We’ve had her for about six or seven years now. Got a call one day from a young man who had been evicted from his apartment and he didn’t want to take his dog to the pound. One of his friends shared one of my Facebook posts with him, and so he reached out to me to see if I would temporarily take his dog while he found a new place to live. We lived in West Buckeye at the time and he lived in Apache Junction, which is literally 100 miles one way. Greg drove over to get the dog and we brought Angel home for the first several months we emailed and texted back-and-forth and I let him know how Angel was doing taking pictures for him and then all of a sudden one day he just disappeared. I tried for months to reach him and was unable to, I sent letters to his last known address they would be forwarded and I kept messaging him on Facebook and on the phone number that I had for him with no communication I tried again before we moved to New Mexico, and I still couldn’t reach him. Angel had a hard time adjusting it first she missed him terribly. he gave us a camouflage fishing hat off of his head the day that we took her from him and she still to this day has that hat and sleeps with it .
She is one of the sweetest dogs in the whole world, but her body is just giving out on her. She has a very hard time walking and she whimpers. She’s been taking arthritis medication for a while and that did help but I just think she’s developed a tolerance for it and she just doesn’t even wanna eat anymore so she’s telling me it’s time to go. The young man told us that she was seven years old when we took him, but I think she was older than that.
In any event, it’s the hardest part of working an animal rescue but on the other hand, I feel happy that we’ve been able to give them a really good life and a long life for dogs. It’s just gonna be a rough week.
I want to thank everyone who has supported our rescue over the years. There is so many of you that have collected blankets and towels for us so many of you who have ordered dog food and cat food and supplies from Amazon and shipped them our way and so many of you who have sent us cash donations: we are so very grateful you allow us to be able to do what we do and you make it just a little easier when we have weeks like this!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!