(This post is replicated in the blogs for each of our fosters – our “Hopkinsville Three” – and can be found on Penny’s blog at www.ibrpenelope.blogspot.com and Wilbur’s blog at www.ibrwilbur.blogspot.com as well)
A homeless dog rescued from a shelter often has secrets in its past, and as we begin to develop an understanding of these dogs as their adoptive or foster families, we feel a reflexive need to create a history for the dog based on the little clues we’ve been given. Sometimes the histories are accurate; unfortunately, I think they’re often kinder than the realities these dogs faced before coming into our home.
We know a little of the history of some of the dogs we’ve adopted; Sam, the loyal and loving yellow Lab, was taken to a high-kill shelter as a stray with heartworms, torn and bloody feet, and lacerations from barbed wire. When his “owners” came to pick him up and learned the shelter was requiring them to pay for his heartworm treatment and neuter, they turned on their heels and left Sam behind. Our Bluetick Coonhound, Lila, was similarly taken as a stray to a shelter, and her owner, once he learned she had been spayed while at the shelter, determined she was no longer of any use to him and only wanted his expensive tracking collar back but not Lila. Our simultaneously dignified and goofy elderly Black and Tan Coonhoud, Stella, was owned by a man notorious for hanging his dogs from trees by their collars and beating them for not hunting well. Her damaged trachea and worn front teeth attest to a terrible early life. But each proves to us every day the unmatched qualities of the love an abused or neglected dog has for those who saved it.
The three young Pointers we’ve been fostering for the last week came with their own clues, and I can’t help but imagine what their lives were like before they turned up in a rural animal shelter in January with seemingly bleak prospects for the future.
Wilbur, the adorable and sweet liver and white boy, has birdshot in the very inside bottom of one of his ears. Ironically, giving him the attention he loves most – an ear rub – revealed the healed-over birdshot. Found just after the first of the year – and just after the end of hunting season in an unlikely coincidence – on a farm playing with the farm’s dogs, sweet Wilbur likely didn’t meet his owner’s standards as a hunting dog and was thrown away. At only about a year old, Wilbur may have been given one chance – one season – to prove himself in the field. Had he been as successful as his owner hoped, his owner would have likely come for him. Once Wilbur enters your heart, it’s easy to imagine how confused the affectionate Wilbur must have been when he realized his owner wasn’t coming for him and that he was on his own.
Handsome and stocky Radar, the epitome of the classic-style Pointer, was taken to the shelter as a stray and with a fairly fresh bullet wound in his side. The deep-chested, athletic Radar appears on the outside to be a tough cookie, but within a minute or two of meeting him, it becomes apparent how deeply affectionate, sensitive, and kind he is. I can only imagine Radar, like Wilbur, fell short of someone’s expectations in the hunting field and was taken out to be dumped. When loyal and loving Radar refused to leave his owner deep in the woods or a field somewhere, his owner may have shot him to either kill him or make him run away. Though the wound is healed and new hair covers the wound, a faint scar remains as a reminder of Radar’s near-tragedy.
And then there’s Penelope, the sensitive, sweet, shy girl who may have been too timid to make it as a gundog. Her brief shelter notes indicate she was found – cold, starving, and scared - in a ditch along a busy highway with facial and dental injuries. Was she hit by a car? Was she thrown out of one by her owner? Though her physical injuries are healed, her diminishing but lingering timidity indicates someone injured her far more deeply.
Within the past month or two, these three dogs were abandoned, either shot or hit by or thrown out of a car, living as strays in the middle of winter, and taken to a loud, crowded animal shelter where an average of ten dogs are euthanized every day. In the last week, they were picked up by a stranger, driven nearly three hundred miles, vetted (and neutered in the case of the boys) and asked to live in a house for the first time in their lives – and with six large resident dogs.
And yet, barely more than a week after they arrived at our house, Wilbur, Radar, and Penny have made great strides in their adaptation to becoming beloved house pets. They go to the door when they need to go potty, they are learning how to walk on a leash, they are adapting to regimens, and they have almost figured out the rules of the house.
But more remarkably, they have proven themselves to be beacons of love and forgiveness. After everything they’ve been through in their short lives, they are still unfailingly affectionate, loving, responsive, sensitive, eager to please, and kind. These three young Pointers have proven themselves capable of greater levels of humanity and forgiveness than much of humanity itself.
One mystery remains for Wilbur, Radar, and Penny – who will complete their histories by giving them their forever homes, and who will be fortunate enough to know the love of a dog that has known the worst in people and will be thankful every day for the best in us? Will it be you?
