Dakota

In every dog person's life, there are animals who steal your heart forever. If you are lucky, sometimes those dogs are your own, a match of soul mates. Sometimes they're not - they are the dog of a friend, a co-worker, a shelter dog you fall for but cannot, for whatever reason, take home with you. There may be many of these dogs throughout one's lifetime, or only a precious few.

For me, one of these dogs was Dakota, a large Malamute who arrived in my area of Best Friends when I was a caregiver there. We knew little about him other than that he had come from a hoarding case, and when he arrived at Best Friends he would not eat any significant amount for weeks. It's not uncommon for dogs in a new place to turn up their nose at food for a little while, but Dakota took this to new heights. He was unsure of his new environment, uneasy.

We had to get food into him, so we laid out an elaborate selection of temptations to get something into him - not just different dog foods but deli meats, cheeses, hot dogs. None thrilled him. We eventually found just one particular brand of canned food that he would eat, most of the time, and I went out once a week to load up on it for him.

He slowly settled into his routine in my area - he was paired up with a very playful dog and she would not let him rest or wallow in his sorrows. If he would not play, she'd nip him in the butt and make him chase her, just to get him going. He began to respond to us as well - he went on overnights to my house and hung out with me and my dogs and began to love his routine, his walks, his caregivers. He was 70 lbs and nearly six feet tall when he stood on his hind legs, and when he really liked someone he would put rear up and put his paws on their shoulders so he could lick their face. As he settled in, his appetite slowly came back and we transitioned him to our regular food over the course of several weeks.

Originally a red collar (restricted to staff only) for guarding behavior, he began to show improvements there as well. As he got to know and trust us he was no longer concerned about what we might take away from him, for our presence brought good things. He graduated to working with volunteers and went to the Human Resources office one day every week to act as their greeter and get a day of special attention.

Near the end of last year, Dakota damaged a cruciate ligament in his leg and needed surgery - a not uncommon injury. Given the difficulty of the surgery on a dog of his size and his long recovery period, all of his caregivers were afraid that he might regress from the happy, playful and affectionate boy we now knew him to be.

I tried to take him home to foster him through his surgical recovery period, but I had a new dog settling into the family and he and Dakota hated each other from the moment they met in a way that I thought was too unsafe to work with - both were large, powerful males and the chemistry between them was downright awful. I was incredibly upset the day I brought Dakota back to work with me. I felt that I had failed him.

Soon after coming back, Dakota was transferred to another area along with his runmate - and two people who were there volunteering fell in love with him, and he with them. They adopted Dakota, and he now travels the country with them in their RV. They rave about him. He's now been with them three months and he has the best life I could possibly imagine for him - he just looks overjoyed in every picture. I am so grateful that they came along and gave him a true home.

Some of the dogs who steal your heart forever steal many hearts. At Best Friends, Dakota was beloved by all who knew him and everyone follows the updates on his new life from his post-surgical hydrotherapist to his caregivers to his trainer. I will likely never see him again, and the pictures make me miss him so much - but buddy, I'm so happy you got everything I ever wanted for you.

I want the next one to have dogs AND treadmills

Jim Gorant's "The Lost Dogs"

I just finished Jim Gorant's book The Lost Dogs, about the investigation of Michael Vick and the rehabilitation of his dogs. It's a great read and incredibly engrossing, an exploration not only of how the case against Vick was built but of the emotional roller coaster of those involved in the case and of the dogs themselves.

Perhaps most importantly, Gorant lays out for a mass audience the clearest and most coherent explanation I have yet read of Why This Matters, and why it should matter - to everyone. Even people who are not "into" dogs are bound to be touched by this work.

Gorant gets so much so right about the nature of dogs, of pit bulls, of bust dogs. I see in his descriptions echoes of dogs I have worked with and of my own pit bull, Oliver - the arrested development, the hopeful nature, the dorkiness, the resiliency, the incredible capacity for joy and forgiveness. Best of all he illustrates how an outpouring of abject and depraved cruelty from just a few men brought out the best in so many people across the country, people who stepped up and gave everything they could of themselves to help. Ultimately it is a story of the very best in human nature.

And I'm not ashamed to say it made me cry twice.

Highly recommended.

The 5%

The goal of the No Kill movement in the United States is to achieve a time when no healthy or treatable animal is killed in a shelter, and the definition of animals that are healthy or treatable does not currently extend to vicious or violent animals who may be a threat to their communities. It is estimated that in most communities a save rate of around 95% is achievable, the remaining 5% consisting of animals with massive behavioral problems and animals who are severely sick or injured with a very poor prognosis for recovery for whom euthanasia is an appropriate and merciful choice. As the practice of animal hospice gains traction, even those animals who are terminally ill are beginning to have a place to go as well as volunteers step up to take them into their homes and provide palliative care for animals in the last stages of their lives, when their condition is terminal but euthanasia is not yet an appropriate choice.

I have no doubt that No Kill will one day - soon - become the norm in American animal sheltering. Even now, as the word spreads about what is possible and what has been done in cities across the US, animal lovers everywhere are demanding changes in their local shelters and that change is beginning to happen. As No Kill communities pop up around the US, more shelters stuck in the antiquated mode of catch-and-kill will be hounded by their constituencies to change and evolve, to get with the times, to step up their game. I believe the change to be not only inevitable, I think that it will come much sooner than most believe to be possible.

Which has me looking to the future and to the 5%, to the animals that no one that I know of has yet found a solution for: the animals, nearly all dogs, with behavioral problems severe enough to prevent their release into the community. As it was once the norm to kill all but the most perfect (the "adopt the best, kill the rest" model), as it is even now common practice - but changing quickly - to kill the old and the sick, even when No Kill comes to fruition it will still be the norm to kill these animals who are healthy and capable of happy lives, and my hope is that one day that too will change.

Most of my background is not in traditional shelters but in sanctuaries, and it has been my pleasure to meet, work with, and care for many dogs whom even I could not support adopting out - but I love them and care for them and try to give them the best lives possible in the sanctuaries in which they live. Given a stable and predictable environment, nearly all are capable of leading happy lives and can be worked with by many dog-savvy people who are willing to take the time to get to know them. Even most dogs who have done terrible things in the past, animals with long and storied bite records, can be handled safely and mostly normally in the right environment with people who are accustomed to reading their body language - and most of these dogs will improve by leaps and bounds, given the chance, as they build positive relationships with people.

In a traditional, relatively high-volume shelter these animals would take the most resources. They need specialized and flexible environments, more skilled personnel to care for them, careful risk management. It is because of this that they are the last in line and because of this that resources must be used to save the more savable first.

I have yet to hear a practical solution for these animals, but I'm going to keep looking - it's wonderful to envision a Best Friends-style sanctuary setup operating in partnership with every shelter but I'm not sure that is feasible. In cities that setup would need to be quite large; my guesstimate is that a sanctuary in a community the size of Washoe County NV would require the capacity to house 1500 - 2000 animals.

No Kill was once thought to be impossible; this too is a solvable problem. What's your idea?

Ok, it's an ad, but still...

Thanks, Clarice!

Had such a beautiful moment with Ollie today

Ollie really enjoys himself here in the Bronx. We had a wonderful moment today - even in a neighborhood where pit bulls aren't unusual, some people cross the street when they see you coming. I don't blame them, if I were raised on a steady diet of New York City tabloids... well, I might too.

A woman and her kids were approaching us coming the opposite way down the sidewalk, and I could see her steering away to give herself a wide berth. Ollie, of course, wagged his tail furiously and grinned at the approaching strangers - he loves people. As they were about to pass us her little boy, maybe 6 years old, broke away from his mom, ran up to Ollie, and hugged him by his head. You've never seen a happier boy or a happier pit bull.

No, I'm not advocating that kids go running up to strange dogs on the street and grab them. But he read Ollie's intentions beautifully. So sweet.

We Are

A protest I can get behind

11 Foot 8

Maybe the ones who don't run screaming...

Dante Goes On Vacation

Click to enlarge.

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A new product for your nuptials...

Want to include your beloved dog in your upcoming wedding? You're going to need this ring-bearer harness!

Thanks, Laura!