Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life.
Well, there's no transport this week, but that's okay.
We've had a busy week so far anyways.
We got the momma dog of the L. Litter of Nine from the Star Wars Transport back in February
1st spade.
We took one of our adult fosters to Doggy Daycare to spend a few weeks.
We got some much needed work done at the dog house in Boonville, which included a billion
loads of laundry for the momma and nine newborn puppies that are staying there.
And most exciting of all, my eleven puppies turned two weeks old and opened their eyes.
They are so cute.
They've been living in my dining room since they were born.
Today we will be bagging up an entire trailer full of pine shavings that my father-in-law
got for free that he's donating to us.
We are so excited because the pine shavings we usually buy have gone up in price and we
use so many bags of it, it costs a fortune.
There's no downtime down here, even when there are no transports.
But because I don't have any transport stories to tell you this week, I thought I would tell
you about my all-time favorite poll, the one my husband actually drew our Rough Life podcast
cover art to look like.
Almost seven years ago, I was just starting out in Animal Rescue.
It was the summer before my senior year of college and I had just bought my first house,
which is now the dog house in Boonville.
I got tagged on Facebook in a post someone made about the most pitiful puppy I had ever
seen.
There was a house on her road with a bunch of dogs that were in just poor condition.
She would stop occasionally and dump out a bag of food for them because they were so
skinny and their owners didn't seem to ever feed them.
She noticed this time when she stopped to dump out some food, all of the dogs came running,
except for one.
A small 12-week-old puppy slowly stood up and struggled to hobble over to the food.
By the time he got there, all of the other dogs had eaten all the food.
He would scream any time another puppy came over and tried to play with him.
She could tell this puppy was in horrible shape, so she knocked on the door to tell
the owners.
They said, oh yeah, we know, we ran him over with our car a few weeks ago, we're just
waiting for him to get better.
I'm going to be honest with y'all here, I don't know if she asked if she could take
him or if she just took him.
She never told me and I never asked, I figured it's better if I don't know, but either way
I'm so grateful she did.
An hour after seeing her post, I was meeting her in a parking lot a few towns over to pick
him up.
I took him straight to my vet and his prognosis was so bad.
Both of his back legs were broken and had been broken for over a month.
That meant that they had already healed.
One of them healed somewhat correctly and one of them was just completely wrong.
He had both types of mange, he had a double ear infection, every type of intestinal worm
that you could have.
Anemia, ancoxidia, he was bald, he was sunburned, he was severely underweight, he was dying.
My veterinarian, whose expert opinion I trust and value tremendously, this is a man who
has more or less raised animals from the dead for me.
He solved medical mysteries that other vets couldn't, he's helped me in every crisis I've
come to him in and he advised me to euthanize this puppy right then.
He said if, if he wasn't good enough shape for the surgery, it would be over $2,000.
But because of the terrible health condition he was in, he thought it was best to just
put him out of his misery.
I'm almost certain this is the one and only time I did not take his advice in our entire
10 year working relationship.
I went to another vet and he said he wouldn't even consider doing the surgery and if he
did it would be well over $2,000.
I sent his x-rays to Dr. Burton, she agreed he needed to be euthanized.
I sent his x-rays to another vet, he told me there was no way he would do the surgery.
So I went back to my vet later that day with tears in my eyes.
This puppy had been run over, starved, and forgotten about at the hands of the people
who were supposed to love and care for him the most.
People had done nothing but let him down his entire short little life and I couldn't.
I wouldn't let him down too.
I begged him to just give me two weeks, let me fatten him up, get rid of his parasites,
clear up the ear infections, and give his body a chance to heal.
If in two weeks he was stable enough for the surgery, we try it.
If he was still too weak, we euthanize.
And he agreed.
But he said even if we give him time and even if we do the surgery, there's still a very
good chance we'll just have to euthanize him in the end anyways.
But I didn't care.
I needed to give this puppy the best two weeks of his life before we ended it.
I couldn't let his only experiences in life be pain and suffering.
So we went home and we worked around the clock on getting better.
We bought all the toys, we ate all the treats, we took all the medicines, we snuggled through
blankets because I did not want to catch his mange every day and the vet was amazed
when we came back two weeks later for surgery.
The surgery was going to be very intense.
They were going to have to completely break his back left leg in half and realign it
because it had healed in the shape of a capital letter T instead of a straight line.
They were going to hold it in place with pins and screws and it was a gamble if he was even
going to survive the surgery.
As they were taking him back, the vet said, sometimes you just got to do stuff you don't
want to do.
But I could tell how much it meant to you that we gave this puppy a fighting chance.
It's going to be a Hail Mary but we'll give it our best shot.
When I dropped the puppy off, they asked me for a name to put on his chart.
I knew he needed a strong name, a fighter's name, and this was just a few days after Muhammad
Ali had passed away so I knew that was the perfect name for him.
We named him Ali.
Typically, they would keep an animal like this overnight, sometimes even for a few days.
But they knew me well enough even back then and they know that I want all my babies home
with me so I can watch them 24-7.
Plus they know I'm not afraid to call them in the middle of the night and wake them up
if there's an emergency.
So that evening they called me and told me sweet baby Ali survived the surgery and was
ready to come home.
My mom actually had to come with me because Ali was so fragile I couldn't put him in
a crate on the way home or just set him in the back seat.
I had to hold him tight in my arms to keep him as still as possible as we drove down
gravel roads to get home.
He had 28 staples and I don't even know how many screws that were holding the pin in place.
One of my favorite memories from that night is how Ali would be laying in his bed totally
fine, completely calm, but anytime I left his site he would start screaming and crying
like something horrible was happening so that I would come running back to him.
My mom had to stay for a little while afterwards just to help me get things set up for the
night since I couldn't leave Ali's side.
It was definitely a rough first night.
Between the sedation wearing off and the awful pain he was in it was hard for him to get
comfortable.
I eventually figured out that he liked sitting straight up, flat on his booty, leaning against
me and the couch.
I will never forget the new season of Grey's Anatomy had just come out on Netflix that
week and I sat holding him propped up right next to me all night long.
Seriously, I think we watched the entire season in that first 24 hours we were even home.
But we made it through the first night.
I remember taking him outside to go potty that morning and seeing him realize for the
first time, even despite all the pain, that he could put his leg down and touch the ground
again.
I did the most pitiful, most rewarding little tail wag I have ever seen even to this day.
As the days went on, Ali got stronger and stronger.
At each checkup appointment, Arvet would always say, there's my little Hail Mary.
How's that miracle dog doing today?
He blew us all away with his progress.
He needed a ton of non-weight-bearing exercise to help the leg heal so we spent most of the
summer swimming together at our leg house.
By the end of the summer, his leg had healed perfectly.
Actually the vet even said, I couldn't have gotten those two bones lined up more perfectly
than if it had never been broken at all.
Ali was cleared for transport and it was time to send him to Virginia.
And here's the thing, I was okay with sending him.
I had been mentally preparing for it for three months.
I knew it was coming.
But he didn't.
He had no idea.
So when I thought about him spending those 14 hours in that van trying to figure out
what he did wrong to make me send him away from me, I completely broke down.
This puppy had been failed by every human he had ever met.
And he finally found someone he thought he could trust.
I couldn't let him down too.
There's a lot of dogs that just love people.
No one specific person, they're fine with whoever will scratch their belly for them.
And then there's some dogs who just love their person.
And I was Ali's person.
So I couldn't do it.
I foster failed.
We made it official and I changed the spelling of his name to Ali, O-L-L-I-E, Oliver when
he's in trouble.
And I wish I could say we lived happily ever after.
But unfortunately that is not where our story ended.
A few months later, right after Thanksgiving, Ali ran away from home.
For four days and five nights, I spent every second looking for him.
I left flyers on people's door.
I made Facebook post after Facebook post.
I combed the woods squeaking his favorite toy.
People would call me to report sightings, but it never failed.
I would jump in my car and race to wherever he was just seen, but he would already be
gone.
We got a call one day that he was spotted on a golf course a few miles from my house.
I called my mom and asked her to come meet me over there to look for him.
And she was in the middle of grocery shopping.
She left her buggy full of groceries in the aisle and sprinted to her car to meet me.
But no luck.
I got back home and actually got another call.
The girl said, yeah, I just saw your dog.
I jumped up and started putting on my shoes.
She said he's brown and white with a red collar.
No, Ollie was blonde with a blue collar on.
But she gave me the address.
I told her thank you and we hung up.
I sat back down as adrenaline was wearing off and I decided not to even go.
But I thought I do have a transport coming up and we could send this puppy if it ends
up being a stray.
So I went anyways.
I called my mom on the way who was back at Walmart using the same buggy full of groceries
she had just left.
I told her where this sighting was but that there was no way it was even him and she didn't
need to come.
I pulled up to the storage building and I saw the girl who had called me walking out
with the cutest, baddest, little blonde headed, scarred up, back leg, beagle mix I had ever
seen.
I jumped out of my car and then jumped back in my car because I completely forgot to put
it in park.
I ran faster than I have ever run in my life to him.
I think I actually ripped him out of her arms.
I don't even know what we said or how long we stood there.
I just remember absolutely sobbing and thanking God for bringing him back to me safely.
Something happens to dogs when they're out on their own.
It's like they go into survival mode and they turn into a feral dog almost.
Ollie did not recognize me and he did not respond to me at all at first.
It was like he was in shock.
We got back to the house and it took a good 15 minutes for him to finally realize he was
home and he was safe.
As soon as he did he ran around like crazy and squeaked all of his squeaky toys just
to make sure they still worked.
Ollie now wears a GPS tracker on his collar at all times because those 4 days took years
off of my life.
I never want to go through that again.
Also shout out to Whistle GPS and Health Tracker.
It is the best thing I have ever purchased in my entire life and if you're interested
I do have a code that can save you some money.
But seriously that tracker has saved us more than once unfortunately.
I will go without food before I get rid of that tracker.
So that's the story of my precious Ollie dolly boy.
I read something the other day that said, here's to the dogs we got in our 20s.
The ones that brought us such joy and comfort during the heartbreaks and also kept us young
at heart as we grew up.
The ones we told all our secrets to and were always there at our best and even at our very
worst when we didn't want anyone to see.
Ollie and I basically grew up together.
He watched me learn how to live alone for the first time in my life and figure out adulting.
I got to watch him learn how to walk again and discover that he can count on people.
We've traveled all over together and just recently figured out how to manage becoming
a family of three.
Ollie even walked me down the aisle at my wedding with a sign that said, I loved her first.
He is truly the best dog I've ever met.
Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I kept the best one here for myself and send y'all
all the others.
But I need him here to help train all the fosters for me.
It's a rough life but someone's got to do it.