Foxy 

Back in the fall of 2008, a Rawhide Rescue volunteer was picking up a dog in the Plainfield, NJ shelter, saw Foxy and couldn’t leave her behind. She was known as Dolly by the shelter and was quickly renamed Foxy by Ingela, appropriately so. Ellen was her special foster mom who introduced her to her labs. No wonder why Foxy always gravitated towards bigger dogs. I discovered Foxy on Petfinder.com while living in Manhattan. I submitted my application, pictures of my neighborhood and two references. I went to meet Foxy at PetSmart in Bridgewater, NJ on October 25th, 2008. We all thought she was 1 1/2 years old but later found out from the vet she was more likely 3 years old. I was lucky enough to take this sweet baby girl home with me that day! We had two wonderful years living in the city before we moved to the suburbs of Chatham, NJ. Foxy adapted to city life so well, that the sound of buses and trucks never phased her. I took her everywhere with me, to our shore house where she loved to lick the sand, only once in the ocean as she wasn’t a water dog, on our annual Christmas 10 hour car trip to Charlotte, NC to visit family, on long walks, on nightly pack walks with the neighbors and their dogs……everywhere. We were inseparable. Over the 8 years we were together, Foxy had many health problems that we overcame with the help of pet insurance. Her neurologist said after looking at her MRI taken because of her seizures, “Foxy has the most beautiful brain”. He never could figure out why the random seizures occurred, only offered that she could be 5 years older and have vestibular events known in older dogs. I kept her age the same as when I rescued her. 🙂

In 2013 she was having her teeth cleaned and after a routine cardiac test, they found out Foxy had a leaky heart valve and so began our fight against chronic heart disease (Mitral Valve Disease). Foxy was put on several medicines and had routine echo tests to make sure we were keeping up with her heart that kept getting larger. The past few months were a rollercoaster for us and I swear she had nine lives. What a fighter she was with her heart disease. After adjusting her medicines, she was doing well and then wasn’t. Everyone kept telling me you’ll know when it’s time. Well, Foxy looked at me and I knew. I took her to the vet to say goodbye and told her what a great dog she was and how she was going to feel better and how much I loved her. I told her to look for her cousin Pepper-oni when she got to heaven. Thank you Rawhide Rescue for connecting me with my first dog. She had a positive impact on everyone she met. Foxy was one in a million and I was lucky enough to be a part of her life.

We were not seriously looking for a dog when, in February 2007, we were told of one being fostered for Rawhide Rescue that we might like – a 9 year old YorkiePoo in need of a home, by the name of Tricksie.  Her family had outgrown their interest in having a pet and she had been surrendered.  We wondered whether we would like an older dog, especially one who had lost weight and looked like a “sad sack” when she came to our home.  But she needed us and we soon found out how lucky we were.

 

Tricksie quickly got her appetite and spirit back and was the best dog that we could imagine.  We loved walking her and enjoying each others company, including having her join us in bed (as shown in the picture) and sleeping on her down pillow.  She was there for us when we suffered some tragic family losses.  When she could no longer safely jump, we got her stairs for her to scamper up into bed.  We couldn’t resist the occasional table scraps – a “no-no” – but which also meant that she joined us at mealtime.  When we returned from being out she would race around the house with joy at seeing us and yowl with happiness.  Tricksie was a cherished friend that we were blessed to have for over 8 years.  May she rest in peace and one day be waiting for us at Rainbow Bridge.

Emma was a puppy mill breeder that Ingela took under her wing about eight years ago.  Ingela asked me to foster Emma and I refused — Emma barely moved, just drooled with no expression on her face and no life in her eyes.  I never saw a dog I wanted to foster less.

But, being Ingela, she finally convinced me to take Emma.  I took her into my home where she continued to drool, refused to walk, play or even look me in the eye,  No one ever inquired about adopting Emma.

But, after a few months, Emma began to come out of her shell.  The spark that only Ingela could see emerged over a period of years.  After seven years of love and joy, Emma slipped away from me, in my arms, at home, of her own volition (as she did everything).

I will always love and remember both Ingela and Emma, the love of my life.  – Karen.

Woody, who was known to you as Buddy, a yellow lab mixed with, maybe, Vizsla , Weimaraner, and/or Ridgeback, and a big dose of crazy as well.

We adopted him sometime in early 2002, and we figured he was about a year old at the time. He died on Saturday. He was his goofy self at 10:30 a.m. and gone at 11 a.m. He just sort of lay down and died, with no noise or anything. A nice way to go for him, pretty tough on us. The vet speculated a heart arrhythmia or an undiagnosed tumor that burst.

We managed to get him through puppy school. He flunked the first time, but when he went back, he was way ahead of everybody else and took great pride in showing all the new kids what was expected. He was very good at sitting and staying, and he usually came when you called, but sometimes he would just run off. The longest he was gone was about 75 minutes, and we were on tenterhooks.

Woody was one of the sweetest dogs that ever lived. We decided that he would have been better off if he knew how strong he was and that he could bite if he had to. But he was always anxious, and for the first couple of years he would quake in fear frequently. Apparently, you rescued him from the Staten Island pound, where he was one day from euthanasia because, even though he was very beautiful, he just cowered in the back of his cage and shook and drooled. But when we ran into him at the adoption day at the pet shop on the Summerville Circle, he had figured out how to attract the crowd. Everybody seemed to want Woody, and Kathy was worried you would give him to this guy who kept going around telling everybody he was a physician. As Woody aged, he became more comfortable in his skin. We decided his previous family was probably very caring toward him but just couldn’t put up with his anxiety in that urban environment. He was happier out here in the country. Woody loved to go in the car. He was crazy to go in the car. He learned that “ready” often meant we were getting ready to go out, and whenever he heard that word, as he did Saturday morning, he would jump up and frequently start whining, even if we were only talking about getting ready to watch a TV show.

We miss him a lot. We’ll bury his ashes out in the special place in the garden with Jake the Dog and Abby the Cat, both of whom died years ago.