Rescue pets, part 2: Wonderdog

Anne Wheaton has inspired me to write my pets' adoption stories. Yesterday I wrote about Cat. You can check out Anne's tumblr, Rescue Pets Are Awesome, and you can donate to the Pasadena Humane Society through the Team Wheaton Page.

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Our sweet Darwin (pictured during a walk for BARC, where we adopted both him and Henrietta) Passed away less suddenly in 2010 after a long decline. When he passed, I was relieved that his suffering was at an end, but I missed having a dog terribly. I missed him specifically, but I also missed

the routines of having a dog--walks, giving a biscuit when you walk out the door, having someone sleep on your feet while you watch TV. It wasn't like Henrietta's death, where I was so devastated that I couldn't imagine having another pet. I needed another pet.

I thought I'd start researching on Petfinder and give myself a few weeks to find the perfect dog. See, I had found out a year or so before Darwin passed that I'm mildly allergic to dogs and majorly allergic to dust mites, so we thought it would be good to get a dog that doesn't shed. Poodles and Doodles are popular, which means both that they're hard to get from rescues and always present at rescues. 

But just a few days into my search I happened upon a litter of puppies at a foster care in Westchester, NY who appeared to be partially wirehair. There were eight of them, and I liked the idea of choosing a puppy from a litter so that I could choose the friendliest and calmest pup. However, we couldn't get to the rescue fair that weekend, and by the time our application was processed by the rescue organization, there were only two puppies left. I took a chance and called the foster.

This was the perfect foster mom, because she specialized in puppies. She had had about a hundred litters go through her house over the years, sometimes whelping the puppies there, sometimes taking in pups that were rescued elsewhere. These pups, she said, were unusually smart, already taking to house training at only eleven or twelve weeks old. And one of the two pups left, she said, was the friendliest and most laid back of the litter. Pretzel was the kind of pup you could do anything to. He didn't care as long as he was getting attention.

That sounded good to me, so we made an appointment to meet them. The rescue was over an hour from home, so we decided we'd all go. When we got there, I watched the pups play and I thought they were too energetic and aggressive. The foster dad said they were puppies. Hopper didn't see a problem. Boo said, "Please can we take one home?!" (Never bring your kid to look at puppies. Just don't do it.) 

Sure enough, Pretzel came home with us. 

Don't get me wrong, I love Wonderdog to death. He's just as smart and sweet as the foster lady said he was. And it's because of him that I've gotten into Obedience and joined a dog club. But he's just as assertive and energetic as I thought he was, and he's not the dog we wanted. Too bouncy by far. Very much a terrier. 

But he couldn't be sweeter and we love having him around. I've never really bonded with a dog the way I've bonded with him. He's my buddy who would follow me everywhere if he could. 

Rescue pets are awesome. 

Wonderdog took first in his category, got a Companion Dog title, and was Highest Scoring Mixed Breed. Cat is unimpressed.

Rescue pets, part 1: Cat

I've been really enjoying the new Tumblr by Anne Wheaton called Rescue Pets are Awesome. (If you keep your eyes peeled you might get to see Cat and Wonderdog one of these days.) It's inspired me to share my pets' adoption stories here. Cat gets to go first, because she's older.

It was the spring of 2006 and with the thaw came mice. As it turns out, this happens every year--the mice migrate or something and they appear for a couple of weeks and then move outside. But this was our first year without a cat in the house, so we were noticing it for the first time. My beloved Henrietta had died rather suddenly of liver cancer a year before, and although we briefly had a foster cat named Gary, the idea of adopting a new cat hadn't even entered my mind.

We tried everything humane that we could find. A live trap that I would set every night and Hopper would check every morning. If there were mice, he'd wake me up and I'd drive them to a nearby park and release them. One day we caught four! But after a while, the mice learned to avoid it, or we had caught all the dumb ones, or all the mice that liked oatmeal mixed with peanut butter.

We tried a sonar emitter, and that did nothing. One night, Hopper saw a mouse standing on the kitchen counter right in front of the device, not bothered at all. We didn't want to use poison because Boo was only three and we were afraid she'd get into it. I won't use kill traps, and those sticky traps give me the heebie-jeebies. We were at our wits' end.

"We should get a python," I said one evening. This has been a long-standing theory of mine. I think all offices should have pythons. They can fit in the walls, people aren't allergic to them, and they're not poisonous. They could humanely keep the rodent population down without using any kind of pollutant.

But Hopper pointed out that his mother is terrified of snakes, and he didn't really want to live with a loose python anyway. I stood in my kitchen and tried to think of another animal that eats mice. I thought and I thought.

When it finally occurred to me that cats make nice pets, I was shocked to realize what my brain had done to protect me from my grief over the loss of Henrietta. She had been my pet from the time I graduated college, and my bond with her was deep. For a long time, she was my immediate family, and getting over her death was hard. But surely it was ridiculous to let my house be infested with mice when the answer to the problem was so obvious.

So I proposed that we get a cat, and began to do my research.

This was a tricky problem, because we had a three year old child and a dog (Darwin) who was afraid of cats. Darwin had come to us from my parents because when they rescued him, they found that their cat wouldn't let him into their house. Hopper and I were planning to get a dog anyway and Henrietta loved dogs so we took Darwin in. But not every cat is as wise in the ways of dogs as Henrietta was. Henrietta had lived in a pet store and learned a great deal about dealing with dogs.

So it was important that I find a good foster rescue that would know their animals well. I found Angels of Animals and had several long e-mail exchanges with their director. She advised me to adopt a kitten, but I had sworn never to do that, so she found an adult cat that I could come visit.

When I got there, the cat in question hid under a cat tree. I sat down on the floor to wait her out, and a black kitten climbed into my lap. This kitten was so happy to see me, and so friendly, I couldn't believe it.

But, true to my word, I made arrangements to foster the older cat to see if she'd fit in at our house.

In the middle of the night, I woke Hopper up.

"I think we should adopt that kitten," I said. He was confused. "She's so friendly, she's just a mush. And that other cat will take a lot of work. I just don't have it in my heart right now. I need a cat that's going to MAKE me love her."

So we went and picked up the black kitten. She had lived in the foster home with a four year old boy, so she was undaunted by Boo. She was terrified of Darwin at first, and he of her. They lived parallel lives for the first few months: Cat on top of the bed, Darwin under it.

Eventually, they made peace with each other and even seemed to enjoy one another's company.

It took me a while to stop resenting Cat for not being Henrietta, but I got over it. Now, she's still a mush, loving human contact above all else, riding on our shoulders, sleeping on our bellies, and even tolerating Boo's magic tricks and costumes and whatever else she dreams up.

Anne Wheaton is right: rescue pets ARE awesome!

Circles and more circles

This morning I saw this on Facebook, from my friend Erin who is raising money to help Barbara Garcia, who is the woman who found her dog in the rubble of her house in Moore, OK.

Erin DeRuggiero

If anyone knows how I can reach John Barrowman, I'd love to join forces. He's trying to help Barbara as well, and is not answering tweets or emails. https://twitter.com/Team_Barrowman

Like ·  · 12 hours ago via GoFundMe · 


So I Google John Barrowman and decide I don't care who he is. He's some actor and then it turns out he's helping Erin raise money, so that's a good thing.

Then this afternoon I check in on the Wheatons on Twitter and I see this:

Wil Wheaton ‏@wilw3h

Also, John Barrowman held my hand on the way back into the building because we were using the Buddy System and it was magical.

Anne Wheaton ‏@AnneWheaton2h

The best part about evacuating convention center is Wil dropping my hand like a hot potato to hold @Team_Barrowman's hand walking back in.

John Barrowman News ‏@Team_Barrowman2h

. @AnneWheaton and I'm with him now... pic.twitter.com/wZC7DI7UuC

So I Google John Barrowman and I'm all, "Didn't I already Google John Barrowman today?" And I totally did. Only THIS time, I'm all, "Why is he at ComicCon?" So I look more closely and find out he's Captain Jack from Doctor Who, which is actually quite cool indeed.

And THEN we were watching Doctor Who on Netflix, and The Doctor makes a Back to the Future reference, and I've just watched ALL THREE of those movies in the past week with Boo. And John Barrowman wasn't even in the episode.

It's getting freaky around here. Freaky, I tell you.