My whole household had a lousy night’s sleep last night, thanks to the chorus of wails emanating from the kitchen. One of our two new babies missed her brother.


Yesterday my husband took a day off work and we headed east into Missouri to check out this Rott/Swiss Mountain dog puppy. We met this delightful lady who essentially rescues animal on a private basis. We had exchanged emails and she knew about my work with kids because of my email signature. She said she didn’t know how I did that… Her grandson had given her a run for her money. I said I didn’t know how she handled the realities of working in an animal shelter. Her van was full of discarded puppy mill breeding dogs that had been “used up” and were abandoned. But there was one crate that demanded my attention. It contained “Sally” and “John” and their sister who had recently been pulled from beneath the church where the entire litter was abandoned. The sister cowered in the corner. Sally and Ben, having experienced less than a week of socialization, were confident without being assertive and would follow you anywhere. Needless to say, we left with Sally… soon to become Sofie or Gracie or Nina or who knows what.


From Warrensburg, Missouri we journeyed to Joplin to see Ann. It was eerie, as the shelter was SO similar to the one where we found Lexie in Wisconsin. We waited in this small, barren pen and soon this emaciated dog appeared. She listlessly picked up a stuffed animal toy that was in the yard, but there was absolutely no life in her eyes. She’s a bag of bones. There are definite questions in my mind as to whether her cough is Kennel cough or more ominously, heartworm disease. But there was no question of leaving her there. She most certainly had no future there, so whatever we did was better than nothing at all.

To be continued...