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Summer,
1992:
The day I picked her up at the airport I gave her a toy, but she didn't understand what to
do with it. The leash confused her; she tried to run from it and cracked her little face
into a plate glass door. I took her ten months to really respond to her name. You see,
breeder dogs in puppy mills don't have names. They also don't have toys or walks or treats
or love or any of the things we give our pampered companions.
Our biggest obstacle was house training, but it was never hard to be patient with her when
remembering how she had lived. It's sort of difficult to crate train a dog who has lived
in nothing but a cage all her life. Where else is she supposed to poop? I was never much
on leaving her in a cage anyway. After being accustomed to being out of one, she shook
uncontrollably when locked inside.
Lady's original cage was in a stack in a puppy mill where the waste of the dogs above fell
on her. When she arrived, she still had some skin lesions and abscesses on her feet from
walking on dirty, rusty wire. She was obese from a lack of exercise, and her belly almost
drug the ground -- from being stretched so many times, I suppose. Lady was lucky; these
were the only problems she had. At least she wasn't blind like a lot of the Shih Tzu
coming out of puppy mills. Her rescuers had already given her a few weeks of attention and
medical care before she came to us. Oh! -- and they gave her a name.
It was so rewarding to watch her progress. Her first three months were spent mainly under
the bed. The next three months, she started sticking her head out just enough so the dust
ruffle framed a cute little bonnet around her face. After a year, she sleeps on the rug
beside the bed and romps and frolics with her "brother " Tzu, Gizmo, every
morning.
Lady tolerates her adopted mom's grooming experiments and sports the wildest Tzu hairdo in
town. She loves riding in the car, as long as the trip involves getting strawberry yogurt.
She earns her keep these days by modeling doggie bandannas and bows at Gizmo's gift shop
(which means she gets all dressed up and snores on the counter.) She went to the beach
last spring and took to it like a pro: prancing through the edge of the waves and barking
at the gulls, she created quite a stir in her Hawaiian-flowered shirt and gold dog bone
necklace. But we learned she still had to conquer some of the finer points of civilization
when she walked into the sliding glass door of the condo!
I still cry sometimes when I look at her and wonder how anyone could treat such a gentle,
undemanding, grateful Lady that way. I wonder if she remembers? No, that's no way to treat
a Lady, a dog or any other living creature.
March,1999
Seven years later, she's still here. She's probably fourteen or fifteen now. She's old,
for sure. The eyes are cloudy and the ears don't work too good either. The old ticker's
not what it used to be, and some strange and sudden liver and kidney malfunction almost
got her a couple of years ago. But it left just as quickly as it came, and once again that
Energizer Bunny bounced back. She always does .... so far. It's hard to believe that there
are still some people out there who don't know what a puppy mill is and ask why she needed
rescuing. Why so much effort and expense over one little old, unsocialized, overbred, worn
out dog? Aside from the fact that she returns the live a million times over, the following
anonymous writing is the best answer I've found, and it's the little flame of
encouragement that keeps lots of rescue people going -- when their pain is almost too much
to bear.
"As the old man walked along the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him
picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally, catching up with the youth,
he asked him why he was doing this. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if
left until the morning sun. "But the beach goes on for miles, and there are millions
of starfish," countered the other. "How can your effort make any
difference?" The young man looked at the starfish in his hand. Tossing it to the
safety of the waves, he replied, "It makes a difference to this one."
I'm so blessed to have been able to make a difference for this special one. If you think
you could do it, just browse under "puppy mill." You'll find someone who needs
you desperately, and if you're not in a position to take one right now, just learn all you
can and tell someone else, and ask them to tell someone else, and them to tell someone
else, and them to tell someone else.............. Please, for Lady's sake.
Vicki
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