A Blog within a Blog with in a blog . . . .

On June 6th, I embarked on a new adventure, and brought home my first foster cats: a mom and her two tiny 3-week old kittens. Today is the 100th day of my adventure.

I am finding this work richly rewarding. It’s not a huge, overwhelming kind of emotion, but it goes deep, deep into my heart. To see the kittens eat their first solid meal, and learn to clean themselves; to see mama cat finally regain her appetite and eat; to see Charlie’s first tentative playful jumps and Bravo’s bravery at climbing anything and everything: it all makes me feel like I’m really making a difference, and doing some incontrovertible good in this world. It’s worth all the trouble, all the messes to clean up, all the worry and inconvenience, the schedule disruptions… all that melts away in the pure joy of helping a little creature who needs your love. Please consider fostering pets. You won’t regret it, and it’s food for your soul.

It was difficult coming to terms with the reality that these guys really go to their forever homes. It’s a heartwarming and heartbreaking moment for sure. I just have to keep reminding myself: I’m not ready for pet ownership myself right now, and when I let these guys go, that will make room for me to help my next set of fosters—and that, along with doing the Hokey Pokey, is what it’s all about.
Wherever my fosters end up, my love will follow them for all of their days. May they be long, prosperous, and full of joy.

If not you - WHO?

Why Not Me?
The best way to describe why I volunteer is to borrow the lyrics to the Judds’ song Why Not Me:
Why not me on a rainy day
Why not me to love all your cares away
Why not me
Why not me when the nights get cold
Why not me when you’re going old
Why not me 
Why not me?

I have room in my heart and my schedule to provide the companionship that these “pets-in-progress” are craving. I have a voice that can speak out to share with others the animals' history, attributes and what makes them deserving of a forever home. So, why not me?

 I encourage others to ask the same question. Become involved. VOLUNTEER TODAY!!

How to Volunteer!

April Thedford, 6 years and counting as a volunteer at TLAC

TLAC Volunteer AND Foster Mom - DOUBLE the FUN!

On February 14, 1995 I left the East Valley Shelter in Los Angeles with what turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made – adopting Murphy a 2 year old Border Collie mix.  Murphy was the best dog I’ve ever had and was loved by everyone who met him.  In February 2006, he made the big move with me to Austin along with Tess, the Papillon and Josie the pussycat (yes, you can move out of state and take your pets…just saying)!  At the age of 17, he left me to cross the Rainbow Bridge and my heart was broken. 

Murphy and Tess

I wondered what I might do to honor Murphy and I decided to become a TLAC volunteer to help other shelter dogs like Murphy find their furever homes.  Shortly after completing orientation I received an email from someone named Sarah.  She told the story of Trixie, a terrier mix that had come into the shelter as a stray on September 11, 2010 and gave birth to 7 puppies on September 12^th. Sarah said these puppies need to get outta here!  I thought, I have a spare room, I can do this.  So the next thing you know I’ve got a momma and seven pups riding home in the car.



Trixie, Momma to my forst foster litter

Since then, I’ve had a Chi-mix and her tiny baby, 2 shepherd pups, a litter of 9 shepherd mixes and 4 Kittens – just to change things up a bit. I currently am fostering Gus, a 10 year old Basset Hound.  He’s available if anyone is looking for some adorableness to add to their lives.

PUPPIES!

Kitten!

Puppies!!

Louie the Chi Puppy!

In between litters, I walk the dogs at the shelter and help customers find their new family members.  I recently had the opportunity to work with Rafael (along with many other awesome volunteers) a terrified Rottweiler.  Because of the dedicated work of the volunteers and the TLAC staff, Rafael is now in a wonderful home with a female Rottie as his new best friend.

I can’t think of a better way to honor the life of one very special shelter dog.  Rest in Peace my friend.

Project GIzmo

Don't look me in the eye. Don't make loud noises. Don't move too fast. All of those things still frighten me but I've come a long way since I arrived at Town Lake Animal Center in August of 2010. I was found in a ditch, virtually comatose, covered in burrs.  Those first days were a blur but I liked the mornings the best, the lights would go up and the bustle of the day would start. I started to recognize some people, who came to see me every day.  To please them, I would try to lick at the canned food they put in front of me, it seemed to make them happy. They would examine me daily, poking, prodding, running their hands over my limbs, across my ribs, looking for some injury that was causing me such weakness.  After four or five days of this, towards the end of the day one of the doctors came to look at me again, for the third time that day. Her brow was furrowed and she wore a frown instead of the usual open sweet face she usually shared. 

"I'm sorry buddy, but I don't know what else we can do for you. I hoped someone would come looking for you, or you would show some improvement. But it doesn't make any sense to keep you here when you aren't really getting any better. There so many more animals we can help, ones we can fix. But since I don't know what happened you you, I don't know how to help you."

Why was she so sad? It worried me. She stepped away from me, toward the room to the left where I’d seen cats and dogs go in but not come out. I heard metal cabinets open, the vacuum suck of a needle going into a vial.  She came back in front of my cage, she looked so tortured it made my heart hurt. In her hand, she held a syringe with a blue liquid in it. She said she was sorry again, as she opened my kennel door. I didn't want her to be sad, so I raised up my head and licked her hand. As weak as I was, I managed to wag my tail which I had not done in so long. 

The blue syringe went from posed at my arm to fall to her side and she smiled - I'd done it! She shook her head and said "OK Eskimo Dog, let's hold off on this for now."

The next day a lady came to look at me. She had a clip board and a camera and seemed nice. She talked to the vet a little bit about me and then said she would take me home “just to see what we are dealing with”. I was still very weak and had to be carried to the car where I shook mightily all the way to her house. Things looked promising so when she opened the car door, I hopped out and followed her to the front door. Inside I was immediately greeted by a big yellow lab who said hello and welcomed me into the living room. 

A couple of cats came in to check me out and the lady who had brought me home looked really nervous as the black one came right up to me and rubbed on my chest. But I didn’t mind, things were starting to look up for me.

I tried to be good, I didn’t make any noise and I never left the living room. I just don’t like close spaces  and the hallway was scary. Sometimes I forgot to go potty outside but it was hard for me to talk to these new people. Things were still kind of fuzzy in my head. 

My front left leg never woke up like the rest of me and after a few weeks I went back to the shelter and had it removed. I was really glad it was gone, it had been getting in the way. I recovered really well and my fake mom said it was time to find me a forever home. Whatever that was supposed to mean. I went to offsite adoption events (stress!) and even a TV station to try to find a new home. Gizmo as Pet of the Week

I even had my own Facebook Page! Project Gizmo You can "like" it, I am still very active on Facebook!

Fast forward a little over a year. I tried living in 3 different places but I didn’t like any of them as much as that first house I lived in. I was sad and scared anywhere but there and each time my fake mom would come get me and bring me home.  After the third time, when I hopped out of the car and ran excitedly to the front door, tail wagging and face open and happy, they finally decided that I WAS home and my fake mom is now my real mom. Took her long enough.

A Very Rewarding TLAC Volunteer Moment - Jerry Garcia is adopted!!

For those that don’t know Jerry Garcia, he is over 8 years old and is a handsome pit bull mix with a great disposition. He’d been at TLAC for a little over a month.

I was at TLAC Thursday evening and a customer was walking Jerry Garcia back to his kennel. I greeted the customer and Jerry Garcia. I told the customer that Jerry was one of my favorite dogs and described some of his wonderful traits. The customer indicated he was looking for a male pit bull that he could take to his office to keep him company.

I told him that I thought Jerry was an excellent fit and that Jerry also liked to plan fetch – he said great!

I knew he was interested in Jerry and had hope for Jerry getting his forever home. A while later, I was with another dog in pen #3 on the street side. A van approached leaving TLAC it was the customer interested in Jerry. He stopped and said, “I have Jerry” – he adopted Jerry!  The next thing I saw was Jerry popping his head out of the passenger side window with a huge happy pit bull smile. I was so excited for Jerry. I will miss seeing Jerry at TLAC but I’m very happy the he has found his forever home.

This is one of the many rewards we receive for all our efforts at TLAC.

Great job volunteers!

Meet Camilla!

Hi.  My name is Camilla.  My A number is A601007.  That might be important to someone out there.  You’ll see why in a minute.

I’m a foster cat, but not just any foster cat.  I’m a long-stay foster.  You see, most foster cats are cute little kittens that just need to get old enough to get adopted, and then they’re outta there.  But some of us need a little more help.  That’s like me. 

I came to TLAC on May 14 as a stray.  I don’t really like to talk about that, though, so nobody really knows anything about my life before then.  They guess I’m about 5 years old, but a lady never tells her age, so that’s a guess.  I hear that TLAC is a wonderful place that does great things for kitties, but I hated it!  I was so terrified that I stopped eating.  Everyone got scared for me, and a nice lady (now I call her Aunt Maggie) took me home for a month while I relaxed and started eating again. 

Once that happened, Aunt Maggie thought it would be better for me to live at TLAC so people could see me and I could get adopted faster.  But I was still so scared that I wouldn’t eat.  That’s when my current foster mom took me to live at her house.

My new situation is pretty sweet.  I have two foster siblings that keep me company, but leave me alone, which is what I like.  I don’t get in their business, and they don’t get in mine.  We’re all friends, but we’re not BFFS.  It’s quiet and calm (loud noises scare me), and my foster mom feeds me off a plate in the kitchen, which is perfect for a delicate cat like me.   At night I sit on the back of the sofa beside my foster mom, and she pets me when I give her headbutts.  

Once a month, I do have to go to something  at TLAC called http://www.desperatehousecats.info/, where long stay foster cats like me have a chance to be seen.   I don’t love it, but it’s the tradeoff I have to make to live at a nice, safe home.  So far, nobody has decided that I’m the right cat for them.  Aunt Maggie says it might be because I’m so unusual looking but my foster mom says that it’s okay that I’m different.  She says that it’s easy to be a brown tabby domestic shorthair, but it takes someone special to be an exotic Muppet-looking cat like me. 

I love my foster mom because she says I can live with her as long as it takes to find my forever home and I’ll never have to live at the loud, scary shelter again.  Without fosters who like to help long-stay cats, I don’t know what would have happened to me!  But I want to get out as soon as I can, because as long as I’m living here, there’s not room for another cat that also needs to live in foster, and there are always more cats than foster homes for them.  If you think I could live with you forever, talk to the nice staff at TLAC and tell them my A number (see, I told you it might be important!).   

Thanks for reading.

Love,

Camilla

I adopted my first dog from TLAC in 1978 - a black lab/chow mix who loved to sleep in window sills ... even though she weighed 45 lbs. She was black, sleek, and nimble like a cat ... I named her "Panther". She was with me through college, marriage and 2 children until she passed away in 1994 at the age of 17.

Panther was joined by Chelsea, a white shepherd who I adopted from TLAC in 1984. They were best friends ... and Chelsea lived a long happy life for a large dog ... 13 years.

After a few adoptions of one puppy and a variety of "grown" dogs from owners who could no longer keep them - a St. Bernard/chow/lab mix, a chow, 3 small Pyrenees and 2 huge Pyrenees (140 & 180 lbs) ... we returned to TLAC in 2006 and adopted "Henry".

  

Henry at the Shelter

Henry arrived at TLAC sometime after 4th of July in 2006 and was described as "wiggly, doesn't know his doggie boundaries, but very friendly." Henry was at TLAC for over 3 months and was the "dog who had been up for adoption the longest" when we arrived. Henry was about 60+ lbs and very excitable ... a boxer, ridgeback, hound mix. When he wouldn't let my daughter leave his kennel ... he grabbed her feet  with his feet and kept gnawing at her ankles. Henry soon joined our 3 Pyrenees and his name became "Vegas" ... because he was so lucky to leave TLAC. And by the way ... he is still wiggly and doesn't know his doggie boundaries ... but it works for us. He is also a big talker and always HAPPY!

When our huge Pyrenees (brother and sister) passed away at the age of 9.5 yrs in 2009, we needed someone else to join Dakota (our 85-lb Pyrenees) and Vegas.

Dirty Dakota

We went to TLAC again. After lots of looking ... we found the biggest dog up for adoption. His name was Colby. He is a golden retriever, St. Bernard mix ... and at that time he was weighing about 60 lbs at 9 months. He was shy and cowering in his corner and wanted nothing to do with socializing.

Reno at the Shelter

Funny ... you wouldn't know that now. Colby became "Reno" and he joined Dakota and Vegas in July 2009. Reno is the biggest baby and he loves to climb the fence (he's mastered a 4-ft chainlink  and once climbed a 10-ft chain link). He now weighs about 120 lbs ... and he is still able to climb a small fence. He doesn't escape ... he just hangs out in our gated front yard. Sometimes it's just a nice change of scenery.

In August 2009, I was browsing the TLAC website and found Montana. She was a 50 lb smooth collie mix with one upright pointy ear and one that "breaks" and never stands upright. She had the same colors as Reno, and matched the solid colors of Vegas (golden brown) and Dakota (white). So, I knew she would fit right in ... and she had the perfect name - what goes better with Reno and Vegas, than Dakota and Montana?

Montana at the shelter

We have 4 great dogs ... and 3 of them came from TLAC. They are the best of pals and entertain themselves so well ... we just love to watch them play tug-of-war, chase and tackle, and let's dig to China. They have 3 fenced acres to play in and lots of trees ... so they have a never-ending game of "let's go exploring and maybe chase some squirrels".

And ... Reno the Wonderdog is on Facebook! Reno's Facebook Page  is updated on a daily basis!
He shares stories about his daily thoughts and fun with his buddies Dakota (aka Boss Dog - and Mr. Thunderwuss), Vegas (Mr. Happy), and Montana (aka Lady Barks-a-lot).

TLAC ... thanks for all the memories you have created for me and my family since 1978. Best wishes for your new home in the near future!!

Ms. Marty Lax