Sad updates on Sweetheart and Remmy

So many calls for help, or donations, or adoption seem to be one-offs. I've done it myself, I know, and I hope to remedy that (and when I do, I sincerely hope that it'll be with happy endings)

Sweetheart  is no longer with us. A couple of days ago, she stopped wanting to eat, and it was very difficult to entice her. They tested her for Addison's Disease, and that came back negative. Whatever the cause, Sweetheart was in "complete and irreversible renal failure", and her foster folks were not going to make her suffer anymore. I'm glad she was loved, and not alone, and had that life for however short a time.

And on to Remmy.

(Picture from DOBER,inc Facebook page)

I didn't mean to be prophetic on Monday when I posted about "It's All in How You Raise Them" and how not all dogs can be saved. Definitely a time I would love to be wrong, in fact. But, earlier in the week, and out of the blue, Remmy lashed out and injured his foster mom. Dreaming of Better Endings Rescue, inc. and a very experienced trainer put their heads together, and decided that with unknown triggers and unstable reactions like that (especially in contrast with his usual sweet, brilliant, and biddable personality), Remmy could not safely be adopted out. It was a very, very hard decision, but Remmy has been euthanized. Best wishes to his foster mom and her swift recovery (I don't know details on her injury, nor would I feel right posting them here).

Also from their Facebook page (a direct quote):

We do understand that for a number of reasons, most rescues do not make these types of announcements to the public, but we feel very strongly that NO dog deserves to disappear quietly as if he never existed. Every life is precious and we want to honor that. Honesty is something that we have always felt was so important because you, our supporters, deserve it. For these reasons, we felt it only fair to let all of you know what happened.

And I respect this decision, which is one reason I'm updating here as well. Sad as it is, "What happened to Remmy?" is a question that, on the face of it at least, I know the answer to. 

So hold your loved ones close, and remember these dogs who have passed. They knew love and life without fear for the time they had in good hands.

Abbey looking for a forever home!

On August 17, I posted about Abbey, a young female Doberman (mix?) who was sedated and on the euthanization table, but given a last minute second chance. I guess Last Hope Dobermans is the most perfect name for the Texas rescue organization!

That fragment of the Abbey story is a sad one, but the heroics of her pull from the table, and her transport to safety in Oklahoma for foster, is a lovely one. Her initial picture, the only view we had of her, was a sad one as well.

Click to see happy Abbey after the jump!

Dre, Pit Bull in Danger in Colorado

Remember Lennox?

Well, in Brighton, Colorado on July 31, an interesting thing happened. A run of the mill thing, really. Two dogs got loose, a pit bull and a Doberman. They were kind of freaked, and ran around for awhile, and were chased by people who were trying to catch them. They barked at people, and a lot of those people were scared and called the police. Once the dogs were finally caught, the owners were called. The Doberman went home. The pit bull is in danger of being euthanized for being "dangerous".

Not a single stranger was touched in this frightening barking spree. Nobody was jumped on. Not a paw or tooth was laid on a single person, by either dog.

I learned on Doggies and Stuff that there is a ChipIn to help Dre's family with the legal costs.  Dogster has run the story as well. There is a petition to save Dre, where you can add your voice (the petition page is where the above photo of Dre and Machomotto is from). The goal is 100,000 signatures. Currently, they're at 55, 095. My understanding is that Dre's next hearing has been postponed until August 21; at that point, let's hope that the DA looks at the FACTS rather than emotional opinions. A barking dog is not a biting dog. A biting dog is a biting dog.

I'm sorry, Lennox

Lennox, the Belfast "pit bull type" dog, is to be put down. He's an American Bull Dog/Labrador Retriever cross. But, he "looks" like a "pit bull", and his measurements are like a pit bull. So, too bad. He's been impounded for two years. His family has fought for him for two years. Frankly, I wondered if he had been euthanized long before now, but the bureaucracy kept rolling. They didn't even let the family say goodbye. That may have been a blessing; a dog kept in a shelter environment for two years may not be the dog that he was when he went in.

The Lennox case perplexed me. I tried, very hard, to find another side. I wanted to find editorials about how Lennox had been a terror to the neighborhood, a menace, running about off leash taking shots at people. Granted, it's hard to find the story at all. One account says that the animal warden showed up to the family's house, unannounced, measured Lennox's muzzle and body with a measuring tape, and said he was a pit bull and must be euthanized.  I mentioned in the final Heidi the Doberman post that Lennox had knocked down a dog warden, but I'm hard pressed to find articles that say that now. It's hard for me to find a dog guilty based on knocking somebody down, of course; he could have jumped up in play, to smell her face, any number of things. I'd like to say "blame the deed, not the breed", but there was no bite here.

Without witnessing an event, it's hard to say what happened, and even then, it isn't always cut and dry. A Huffington Post article does relate that two separate animal behaviorists examined Lennox and thought that he was just fine, behaviorally speaking. Not an aggressive threat.

There have been petitions and boycotts and letters written. People have petitioned that Belfast be skipped along the torch passing route for the summer olympics. The torch was scheduled to pass through on June 6; I don't doubt that it did. Lennox is only a dog, right? I'm sure any number of people outside of Northern Ireland would have been poised to adopt him, whisk him away to a theoretically safer location, where just having a big square head wasn't a death sentence. I wonder if people rethink Labrador ownership?

Lennox had been legally owned and legally registered in Belfast until then; they had even done a DNA test to prove that he was an American Bull Dog (not a banned breed) and a Labrador Retriever (another not banned breed). Since his removal, he was evidently kept in what amounts to a concrete box with sawdust on the floor, seen in photographs that his keepers released. One might assume, since he was a BigScaryMeanDog, that he had no human contact, no play, no toys. For a human, solitary confinement of that sort, for that length of time, might be considered questionable. But Lennox is only a dog, right? One whose fate was pretty much sealed from the moment he left his owner's custody.

For a dog that never bit anybody to be euthanized makes no sense. For a dog who is not suffering from a terminal disease, an irreparable injury, uncontrollable aggression, or neurological condition to be euthanized is sinful. It's a failure of humanity. It makes me sad and sick and I wonder...well, I wonder too much. And it seems that nobody gets answers.