This is Irene, who was the second dog who arrived on Sunday evening along with blind Owen. She came to us from Kentucky, where she had been turned into a rural shelter on a Friday in early September. The shelter staff saw that this little Shih Tzu/Peke mix was suffering from terrible problems in both eyes and was in a lot of pain, so they took her to a vet clinic for the weekend.
A couple of days later I received an email from Suzy C., a volunteer for the shelter, who had taken the dog to the clinic that Friday. She was writing to ask if we could help. Suzy wrote, "It is a young dog, very sweet, loves to be cuddled, but on pain meds waiting to see its fate. If we take it back to the shelter, it will be put to sleep. It needs surgery." She ended her note by saying, "We are desperate to give this dog a chance!"
We agreed to take the dog and pay for whatever medical care she needed. The veterinarian ended up having to remove one of her eyes and was trying to save the second eye, which had developed a corneal ulcer. In a subsquent update on the dog's medical condition, the shelter director emailed me to say, "We are so grateful for your help! Going back to the shelter would be a death sentence and none of us wanted to see that happen."
As it turned out, this little dog arrived at the vet clinic the same week that Hurricane Irene was working its way up the East Coast, so the clinic staff named her Irene. She weighed all of 8 pounds. We hadn't even seen what she looked like until the clinic emailed us some photos of her after her surgery. Irene stayed at the clinic for a few weeks until our transport could pick her up; the shelter was unable to find a foster home for her for that time, but given the medical care and observation required for her remaining eye, it was just as well that she stayed there. She can see from that eye, though the corneal scarring does seem to hinder her vision somewhat.
But the minute we let her out of her crate in the transport van Sunday night, we realized a veritable "Hurricane Irene" — the furry 8 lb variety — had just arrived. While blind Owen was wrapping his paws around Alayne's neck and quietly cuddling like a teddy bear, Irene was jumping up and down on me, offering lots of little kisses, and twirling and bouncing as she ran about at the end of a leash. Talk about a ball of energy! By Monday morning we were already calling her "Pistol," though "Hurricane" would have been just as appropriate.
She has a bulging eye, squashed face, wild hair and an underbite, which doesn't make for a very photogenic girl.
But she asks, "Who says I'm not pretty?":
(Click on photo for larger image.)
She spent her first few days here happily rushing up to and greeting the other dogs, and trying to get some of them to play. Yesterday evening Alayne saw Irene repeatedly working on blind Avery, who sat motionless, ignoring the fluffy thing whirling around him:
Of course, she probably didn't realize Avery was blind and couldn't see her play bows, but after awhile she must have begun to wonder whether this was actually a Beagle statue decorating the front hallway:
She finally gave up on Avery (Avery: "Good grief, what was that?!?") and moved on in search of other pursuits.
Here's a rare sight — the "sitting still Irene":
And something even more rare, the "sleeping Irene":
Apparently she can go for 16 hours without a battery recharge.
We call her "motor mouth" because she makes lots of interesting, hard-to-define sounds, mostly with her mouth closed. Many different small motors in there somewhere.
You can't get anywhere near her without getting several kisses, and whether you bend down to her level or pick her up, either way you're going to get smooched. She is the happiest little thing, always thrilled to see us again — even if it's only been 45 seconds since we were last in the room.
And there you have it — please welcome Little Miss Hurricane Pistol Irene!
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Another Shelter Challenge begins — and No. 3 again already!
The new Shelter Challenge started October 3rd and ends at midnight on December 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories … please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Please note: Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up. [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]
Because of your votes, we just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in this round of the Shelter Challenge. Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!
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