More About Dog Rescue

Today was horribly windy, grey and dreary, just so November. We had no relief from the greyness until sunset, when a sliver of sun shone through and glowed on the llamas on the hill. It lasted all of five minutes.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I rescued two dogs. The circumstances were these. I was driving down highway two, the old highway two that is a two lane highway up central Alberta. The "new" highway two is also called the queen's way or something (I refuse to use royal nomenclature since I believe the monarchy has no place in a democracy, but anyway). I was driving south on highway 2A when I saw ahead of me two dogs walking down the yellow line. People were slowing down slightly from 100 kms, but not much. Pickup trucks, semi-trailers and cars were zooming around these dogs.This kind of thing drives me bananas. I just can't stand to see animals loose near highways, it's an accident waiting to happen.

So I pulled over onto the shoulder, and when there was a lull in the traffic, I sprinted out and caught one of the dogs. They were together, I think mother and daughter. The mom came over to the passenger side, and the daughter scooted over to the ditch. The mom was easy to load, she just stood while I lifted her in. The puppy also came easily once she saw her mom was on the front seat.



Jesse



This was on the outskirts of a First Nations reserve, so these dogs are probably two of the many strays that live there, wandering around without homes. There are programs here that capture them and put them into rescue, i.e. into foster homes until they can be adopted. These rescue organizations are volunteer based, and advertise the successful fosters on the internet. I think they do great work.

The black dog looked like she had been captured and spayed, she had stitches in her tummy, and a paper collar around her neck. The puppy is very young, and isn't housebroken at all, so I can pretty safely assume she didn't have a home. I will check to see if anyone advertises for them, but I doubt anyone would claim them. There are unfortunately too many stray dogs and cats. Sometimes city people even drive out to the country and just abandon their animals, drop them off and drive away. I have a friend who lives on a very quiet road and she says they get about a dozen animals a year dropped off at their place.

Daisy

It will take a bit of training, but I think I can rehab these girls. I taught the little one "sit" and "come" today (she repeated them three times) so I know she's smart. The black girl is a bit older and loves to chase things so I'm assuming she's got some border collie in there. She will be a challenge to train, she has some wild habits that are pretty ingrained. For one thing, she won't come in the house easily, I have to lure her in. Another funny thing about her is that she is afraid of a camera. I've never seen that in a dog before. She's as bad as me for that. And both are very very competitive for food, you can see that they worry about their next meal all the time.