We adopted Pete! Pete was our foster dog (of course), and we really liked him. He was adopted out to a family, but he didn’t do well in their home — he would bark all day long while they were at work. We never had this problem when he was at our house, so we’re assuming it was because he was alone there, but had Max here to keep him company. In any case, he was returned to the rescue, and we staked our claim.

Pete’s about two years old, and is a smallish Chocolate Lab. He’s small, but still pretty heavy — 75 pounds or so. While he is generally pretty mellow, we have noticed that he seems to have some minor issues needing work. When we first had him, we thought he was a dominant dog, but now we think he’s somewhat submissive, but wants to be dominant… so he tries to act dominant whenever he can (kind of a bully). I’m sure we’ll work out his issues over time.

One embarrassing event with Pete was two weeks ago at the Reston Dog Park, when he lifted up his leg and peed on the leg of a man at the park. Kathie was the closest and apologized profusely; fortunately the man was very friendly and understanding. We’re not sure if Pete was marking his “property”, or was just aiming for some spot on the ground and didn’t care who was in his way, but we’ve been keeping a close eye on him at the park since then!

Kathie has written about Pete on her blog as well, of course!

News coverage has been excessive, and a piece on CNN’s Anderson Cooper was very one-sided and made the volunteers at the rescue sound stupid and cold-hearted for doing such a thing. The rescue has been receiving many threats of violence over this.

Since we’ve volunteered for an animal rescue for many years, and we have the same policy about giving away dogs, I felt I had to write to Anderson Cooper after seeing his video.

Mr. Cooper,

After watching your comments with Erica Hill about the Ellen DeGeneres dog adoption situation, I felt I needed to give you some perspective on the other side of the story.

I volunteer for a dog rescue in Virginia. Our rescue, and many in the country (if not most) have the same policy – if you can no longer care for the dog, it must be returned to the rescue. The reason is simple: once we take in a dog to one of our foster homes, we are responsible for ensuring the welfare of that dog. Before a family can adopt from us, we do background checks, house checks, and interviews. We want to ensure that the adopting family will be responsible dog owners and treat our dogs the way we would.

If a family gives away a dog, the rescue has no idea if that family adheres to the same philosophy as the rescue. Perhaps they plan to install an invisible “shock” fence, or to build a dog house and keep the dog outside rather than inside. Both of these situations, and many more, would not be acceptable dog treatment by most rescues. Most rescues do make provisions so that if there is another family you wish your dog to go to when you pass away, are called for military service, etc., we will hold the dog and ask the new family to apply so that we can do our background checks.

Looking at it from a more personal perspective might help: Let’s say you have a dog named Danny, who you love dearly, but for one reason or another have no choice but to give him up. You have a friend who you know and trust, and give Danny him, knowing Danny will have a good home. You say “let me know if there are any problems, since I have another friend who can take care of Danny instead.” Two weeks later, you ask your friend how Danny is doing, and your friend says “It wasn’t working out so I gave him away.” I think — I hope — that you would be upset by this, and would make an effort to get your dog back so that you could give it to your other friend. This is exactly what the rescue has done in Iggy’s case.

Volunteers at dog rescues work very hard to rescue, rehabilitate, and find new homes for abused, runaway, and unwanted dogs. We see terrible cases of abuse and neglect, and it is our mission to ensure that these dogs never go through that again. The dogs live in our foster homes with our families and other dogs, and are treated as part of our family until they are adopted out. We receive threats — even death threats — from people when we do not approve their applications.

I hope this gives you some additional perspective on how animal rescue organizations work, and why dogs need to return to the rescue rather than be given away.

Thanks for listening,

Michael Fischer

Winston was part of a military family who also owned an older Dalmatian mix and when they had to pack up and move, they had no room in the car for the dogs, so they were taken to the shelter and the shelter called us to pick him up. When Winston first came into LRR, he was so overweight that the director said he looked like a walking coffee table: “large, brown, and square”. Due to his extra weight, lack of activity, and probability that he spent a lot of time laying on very hard surfaces; he had calluses on his elbows and any other part of the body that would regularly rest on the ground. Unfortunately they became infected, so he was on antibiotics for a while.

We received Winston just after his time at the “fat farm” (one of the foster homes specializes in weight loss for new chubby fosters) and had lost almost 40 lbs. While Winston loved to play fetch, he still didn’t have much energy and was clumsy on his feet because of the lack of exercise at his previous home. Winston has a rather endearing/disgusting habit of spitting tennis balls at you. What made it disgusting was that he would chew, chew, chew on that ball until it became slippery enough to spit straight at you, often with bulls-eye accuracy! So we started taking a small towel out with us when we would play with him. During his first stay, he was still building up his energy, so when he chased balls, he would sometimes overshoot the ball, or else slip and fall when trying to turn, but that wouldn’t stop him from playing until he was panting as loud as a train. Then we’d go inside, and he’d flop down on the couch right on top of us. He loved to be on couches, beds, pillows, anything soft and he loved cuddling right next to us. Unfortunately Winston loved being on the bed with us, and while three dogs and two humans on a bed is a tight fit, we squeezed him in – until he started to snore. Not dog snores, but real, live, shake-the-wall snores! It was so bad the first night for me (since I’m a light sleeper), that I picked up my pillow and went into the guest room to catch some sleep. After that, we tried to make Winston sleep on the dog bed next to the floor. Unfortunately Winston knew I was such a weak-willed dog lover, that he started whining at 3am regularly to be let up on the bed. Since I didn’t want Winston to wake up Mike, I would often let him right up on the bed and the snoring would start.

We found Winston to be so endearing that we asked the director to move him to a different home since we had become so attached to him. The day before the move, we noticed his hind leg had swollen up, and there was a large red area. So he was taken to the vet where they found he had bruised himself (probably slipping in the snow fetching) and the blood had begun pooling into his leg. The vet went in surgically and cleaned the area out, and also found a mass of cellulitis which she removed (apparently happens to overweight dogs sometimes). He spent the time recovering and worming his way into the affections of another foster home during this time.

After a month, Mike and I seriously discussed adopting Winston since he was such an amazing dog, so we got to get Winston back for a two week “try and buy” period. When we got Winston back, he gained more energy and would play outside without stopping. When inside, he continued to play as long as he could find anything that could be thrown (kongs, stuffed animals, balls) until we would put everything into the dog bin; then he learned how to open the bin, so we would have to start putting the bin into the closet. Winston’s favorite toy inside ended up being a huge novelty tennis ball we had received as a housewarming gift. Winston would get his jaws into the ball and would bring it to us to throw. Sometimes he would have to open his jaws so wide to carry the toy that it would get stuck and we’d have to pull it out for him! He was just as cute as we remembered from before, but he wouldn’t cuddle quite as much as he used to, because he always wanted to play; up until bedtime where he would get on the bed and sleep right next to us (often snoring right into our ears). After our two weeks were up, Mike and I discussed the pros and cons of getting a third dog and decided that although Winston is a great dog, he wasn’t the perfect dog for the family (didn’t interact with Sheba and Quinn at all), and we’d miss fostering other great dogs that would come through LRR. So Winston then became available for adoption to the public, but the good thing was that we were allowed to keep fostering him until the perfect home was found for him. It was tough to give him up when Winston found his perfect family, but we knew he was going to a great home, so it made it easier.

Gabby is very submissive to a stern voice. A “NO!” will have her crouching on the floor and smiling at you. She’s still growing and has a very healthy appetite. She doesn’t generally go on furniture, but will jump onto the bed for a few minutes when she wants some attention or affection. Speaking of affection, she’s like most labs, and can’t get enough! She’ll roll on her back for her belly-rubs, and complain if she doesn’t get enough. You may be wondering how she got her name – it turns out Gabby is also a “talker”. She doesn’t usually bark, but she talks in a calm, quiet voice. Sometimes it sounds like she’s honking like a goose, which can be really funny!

We’ve noticed that she seems to want to move up in our family pack hierarchy. She keeps trying to dominate Sheba and she’s marked a couple of times in the house, but crating her during the day seems to have fixed the problem. Sophie is such a silly girl and is definitely a velcro dog. She’ll stick close to whoever is at home. She climbs (not a good jumper) onto any couch or bed you’re on to lays right next to you for security. Whenever we’re petting a different dog, Sophie will come right to us and butt her way in for her share of attention. She loves to sleep on the bed, but due to the alpha issue with Sheba, we make her sleep on the floor. It is a bit of a struggle. I’ll get on the floor and coax her off the bed. As soon as I get off the floor she’ll use that time to jump right into the bed. It usually takes about three tries before I can hop into bed without her jumping in first.

Sophie has definitely given us a couple of humorous stories. One time she was crawling under our bed to probably get a dog toy and got stuck halfway! Mike had to lift up the bed while I pulled her out. She was just fine, but it was a bit ridiculous. Then a couple weeks late, we woke up in the middle of the night to Sophie whining and moaning. I wasn’t sure what the problem was, so I got off the bed to see what happened. Apparently during the night, she had wiggled around the blankets and wedged herself half under the bed again (back end this time)! So I pulled her out gently and she went right back to sleep…silly thing. She also seems to have no problems with water. I was in the hottub on the far side and Sophie came up to the tub. She saw me and jumped right into the water! I grabbed her and lifted her out of the tub, but she didn’t seem to mind her dunking at all. Actually, when I moved back to the other side, she looked like she was getting ready to jump back in again!

When Sophie came to us, she was a bit timid and so I think she attached herself to me pretty quickly. I love giving tons of attention to our dogs, so she probably loved all the petting and kissing she got. But it got to the point where if she couldn’t find me in the house she would become frantic. She wouldn’t leave my side even if someone was pulling pretty firmly on her leash or collar. Since she got so attached, we thought it was a good idea to move her to a new foster home. So we moved her on Sunday and got our next foster dog.

Looks like Sophie is going to get adopted this week by an elderly couple. They came to visit her at our house and really liked her size and personality. They seem like really nice people and I’m sure Sophie will love the attention she’ll get as the only dog in their house.