Bluebonnet Animal Rescue Network

10/20/2025

This is a wonderful memorial.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BE4ytsSGT/?mibextid=wwXIfr

10/20/2025

We said goodbye this weekend to one of our long-time sanctuary dogs - Seamus, an Akbash dog originally known as Baby when we pulled him from the shelter in Austin. We're not sure where he came from originally, but his first owner thought they had a "white Lab" and they were surprised that he didn't act like a Lab. 🙄 They didn't get him neutered and apparently didn't invest any time or energy in training, because they dumped him at the shelter when he was about 2 years old, saying that he had resource guarding issues. The shelter neutered him and had experienced staff and volunteers evaluate him. They said he was friendly and easy to work with, so they gave the greenlight to put him in their adoption program.

"Baby" was a big handsome dog, so it didn't take long before someone was interested, but the timing turned out to be disastrous. The adopter took him to a holiday gathering soon after adoption, and no surprise -- the stimulation was too much and his resource guarding issues turned into a bite when an extended family member tried to take food away from him.

Resource guarding is something that requires work and training and consistency, and in some cases, it means always putting a dog in a crate or a separate room for HIS meals AND for the family's meals as well. Resource guarding can usually be managed, and when it's not done properly (or at all, as in this case), bad things can happen.

Baby was returned to the shelter, and this time, with a bite history, his options were limited. Because he was in a no-kill shelter, staff and volunteers worked to find a rescue with the experience to manage a dog of his breed and size, with resource guarding issues. One of the volunteers who had been spending time with Baby every week contacted us and asked if we could help. I read the notes in his file and had a long conversation with a member of the staff, who believed that he was a good dog who just had not had the right adopter. Experienced volunteers and staff felt like his problems could all be attributed to human error. So in March of 2018, Baby came to live at Windsong Ranch.

First order of business was to give him a new name, representative of his new start. We liked "Seamus" because it's a strong name with the long A sound that would help ease the transition from Baby to Seamus. Ironically, to the very end, I often called him Baby Seamus. 💚🤍🧡

I worked on his resource guarding, starting with the simple WAIT command. Seamus was always respectful of me, learned quickly, and responded well to commands. He enjoyed play time with other dogs, but would always leave the dogs to seek me out and get a few head scratches before going back to play.

After a few months, we felt like we knew Seamus well enough that we could make a good placement, so we put him on our adoption website. There are always more dogs available than there are adopters, so it was more than a year and a half before we had any applications for him. People sometimes accuse us (and rescues in general) of being too picky about who adopts our dogs, and we're always trying to find the happy middle, where we are cautious but don't rule out a good prospect out of a concern that might not be well-founded. In this case, we went against our instincts and allowed Seamus to go to a home with cats. We knew Seamus had shown a propensity for getting excited when he saw one of the feral cats on our place, but there was always a fence between Seamus and any of our cats. The interested adopter had years of experience with Akbash dogs, including one they adopted from us previously. We met in a park with one of their other Akbash dogs, and the meet-up went well. They assured us they could manage Seamus to be sure he didn't have access to their cats, so Seamus went home with them. Unfortunately, within 24 hours, their management plan failed, and he tried to attack one of their cats. As they tried to protect the cat, they got bitten, so they returned Seamus to us.

We made him a sanctuary dog so he could live out his days with people who loved him and knew how to manage him to avoid any problems. Remember -- Seamus had lived with us for more than a year and a half with zero incidents, so again, we felt like the problem was less about him and more about the failure to manage him properly. And sure, there are plenty of dogs who are easy and don't need any special management. That doesn't mean that the challenging dogs are any less deserving of our care.

Seamus loved playtime, whether with me or with other dogs. He especially loved having plenty of room to stretch his legs, but would check back in with me frequently because he enjoyed head/ear scratches as much as he enjoyed his zoomies. He also really liked our handyman Steve, who frequently shared his sausage biscuit with Seamus and Lindsey, a female Great Pyrenees mix with whom Seamus shared living quarters for the last few years. I always thought it was interesting that Steve never had any trouble with Seamus even though he was sharing human food with two dogs in close proximity. That reinforced the belief I have always had that Seamus was a good dog, but just needed the right people in his life.

As he aged, Seamus slowed down, but he and his best friend Lindsey (also a sanctuary dog) still played together regularly. At his last vet appointment, we had X-rays done, and we worried that at some point, we would have to make the hard decision to help him cross the Rainbow Bridge because of significant joint issues. But on Friday, Seamus made that trip on his own. We think he must have had a stroke, because he had been fine earlier in the day, but rigor mortis was already starting to set in by the time I went to give him supper. As sad as it is for ME that I wasn't with him, I'm glad that Lindsey was with him. Although she is grieving, I think it helped her to be there to understand that Seamus had passed.

Seamus had recently turned 10 years old, and he lived 7.5 of those years here with us. When we pulled him from the shelter, we didn't expect to him to live here for so long. But this is the commitment we make to each dog we rescue. Some big white dogs live up to the name they're often called -- "gentle giants." Other dogs are like Seamus and present a few more challenges. But they still deserve love and the best care that we can give them, for as long as they live.

Farewell, Seamus. We hope you're having fun, running zoomies with no more joint pain. I hope you've met up with Crockett and Gabriel and Smokey and others you played with through the years. Remind them that we love them all, and look forward to a wonderful reunion over the 🌈 Bridge some day.

10/19/2025

This event was rescheduled to next Saturday 10/25 from 10 AM - 1 PM. Our friends/adopters/fosters Judy & Mike of Bark Busters Home Dog Training North Dallas will be there with a few of our adoptable dogs. Hopefully the weather cooperates this time!

COPIED FROM THE MONARCH VETERINARY PAGE:

🐾Saturday morning UPDATE: we have decided to reschedule this event to next Saturday from 10-1! We hope to see you there!👻🐾

UPDATE - PLEASE NOTE!

Monarch Vet has updated their page to say that with rain in the forecast, they aren't sure whether the event will happen. They promise to update their page tomorrow morning at 9 AM. Once we know their decision, we'll update our page as well.

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

Monarch Veterinary Hospital in Celina TX is having a Trunk or Treat event tomorrow and a few Bluebonnet dogs will be there to join in the fun! Here are the details:

Saturday, October 18th from 11 AM - 2 PM
Monarch Veterinary Hospital parking lot
2730 S. Preston Road, Suite 100
Celina, TX 75009

Bring the whole family, including your well-behaved and leashed pets!

🍬 Treats for both kids & pets
🧛‍♂️ Costume contest for kids & pets
📷 Photo Booth
🎃 Games

🩺 Please note that the clinic will not be open, so medical care will not be available during this event.

We look forward to seeing you there!

10/19/2025

Candy Cane didn’t think the little sprinkle of rain we got was enough to go inside the barn. And it really wasn’t. I continued with my p**p-scooping and barely even got damp. We really need some rain — I know some areas around us got a lot, but for the most part, our ground is still dry and dusty. We haven’t had a good rain in 6 weeks, and that last storm had more wind than rain. We lost several big trees in early September, but didn’t get much rain out of that storm. I hope the next storm spends a little time hovering over our place to give us a good soaking. Of course, at some point we’ll get so much rain that we’ll be tired of it. Isn’t that the way it always goes —drought or deluge, no happy middle.

10/17/2025

COPIED FROM THE MONARCH VETERINARY PAGE:

🐾Saturday morning UPDATE: we have decided to reschedule this event to next Saturday from 10-1! We hope to see you there!👻🐾

UPDATE - PLEASE NOTE!

Monarch Vet has updated their page to say that with rain in the forecast, they aren't sure whether the event will happen. They promise to update their page tomorrow morning at 9 AM. Once we know their decision, we'll update our page as well.

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

Monarch Veterinary Hospital in Celina TX is having a Trunk or Treat event tomorrow and a few Bluebonnet dogs will be there to join in the fun! Here are the details:

Saturday, October 18th from 11 AM - 2 PM
Monarch Veterinary Hospital parking lot
2730 S. Preston Road, Suite 100
Celina, TX 75009

Bring the whole family, including your well-behaved and leashed pets!

🍬 Treats for both kids & pets
🧛‍♂️ Costume contest for kids & pets
📷 Photo Booth
🎃 Games

🩺 Please note that the clinic will not be open, so medical care will not be available during this event.

We look forward to seeing you there!

10/17/2025

As National Veterinary Technician Week draws to a close, we send a big THANK YOU to vet techs everywhere, but most especially to the team at All Heart Veterinary Center. The staff at All Heart puts up with a LOT from us and our dogs, who can be more difficult than the average pet they see from most of their clients. Whether it's an 80 lb feral dog that has to be carried from my van to the exam room in a crate, or a dog who could win a gold medal if drooling was an Olympic sport, or dogs who manage to p*e, p**p, or just emit the most noxious gas during the exam -- whatever the case, the good folks at All Heart always treat our animals with kindness and compassion, and they do their best to make the visits as easy for ME as possible. THANK YOU!

10/17/2025

Whitewright TX
Simon is venturing further from the house each day, so I can only hope that means he’s feeling stronger and more confident after his long recovery from TPLO surgery on his one back leg. If you have followed us for very long, you may recall from previous posts that Simon landed in the shelter after being shot. We were hoping that with time, his wounds would heal and no surgery would be necessary. But the back leg that had the most shrapnel continued to give him pain, so we eventually had to amputate. He’s a big dog, so it’s not surprising that over time, the stress on his remaining back leg resulted in a CCL tear. He had TPLO surgery on 7/31 and his recovery has seemed slower than I was expecting. But seeing him go almost a quarter-mile up our driveway is reassuring. Also, in case you’re nervous seeing him in the middle of what looks like a country road, I should mention— that’s our driveway, inside our fully fenced property. So Simon is not at risk. Yesterday, he walked all the way to our front gate just to get a change of scenery. But with 5’ tall pipe plus no-climb woven wire perimeter fencing and a 7’ tall wrought iron gate, our place is pretty secure.

Simon is estimated to be just under 3 years old and weighs about 115 lbs. He has good manners in the house but also enjoys time in the yard. He gets along with other dogs, including our little senior Yorkie and our energetic Jack Russell terriers. But Simon doesn’t act like he *needs* another dog to be happy. He needs people to love him, a cushy dog bed, and preferably a yard and home free of stairs. You can apply to adopt on our website- link in our page bio and LinkTree.

10/17/2025

Marjory (left) and Matilda are two of the feral dogs from the Central Texas ranch. Most nights, the last thing I do is pick up p**p in their yard, and when I finish, each girl goes to a specific spot and waits for me to bring them a treat. They won’t take the treat from my hand — I have to put it on the ground in front of them. They don’t eat the treat until I leave their area, but it’s clear that they expect their treat and head scratches. Routines/consistency are really important to feral dogs— it helps them feel safer about having to be in close proximity to humans if they know what to expect. It’s hard to know whether these girls will ever get chosen by an adopter, but regardless, they are safe here, and every day, I’ll work to earn their trust. When a puppy isn’t properly socialized in the first weeks of life it can be almost impossible to catch up, but it IS possible to build a relationship with a feral dog — you just have to meet the dog where they are and not have unrealistic expectations about the pace at which the dog comes around.

10/16/2025

As always, Vader was a complete sweetheart at the vet today for his annual checkup and vaccinations. This handsome boy is having a spa day tomorrow so the next round of photos might make your eyes pop!

Vader and Margarita and Genny are scheduled to be at the Trunk or Treat this Saturday at Monarch Veterinary Hospital in Celina TX. So if you want to meet a big beautiful white dog, that will be an excellent opportunity. All three have excellent house manners, get along well with other dogs, and are even good with our chickens!

I’ll make a separate post tomorrow with more info about the event, including the address.

10/15/2025

10/15/2025

Charlie Brown has obviously decided to take advantage of all the niceties of living in the house! Now instead of sleeping in the barn, he has not just a soft bed but also a separate pillow for his head! I think he might be getting spoiled! 💕

If you would like to meet this sweet boy, he will be at the 🎃 Trunk or Treat this Saturday at Monarch Veterinary Hospital in Celina TX from 11 AM -2 PM. A few other Bluebonnet dogs will also be there to celebrate — we’ll make another post when we know for sure which dogs will be going.