This is the story of "Helen". A little girl in need of a loving, forever-home, with a family that would accept, even welcome her and all of her special needs/disabilities into their lives.
Sometimes things happen at the most unlikely of times in our lives. Could it be fate? Coincidence? Something else? By the time you get done reading this (actually, probably long before then) you're going to think John & I have completely lost our minds.
As most of you know by now, we lost our beloved Bootsy in mid-June, after being diagnosed with bone cancer back in March. Her passing left a sadness in our hearts, yet at the same time, I was kinda looking forward to a little less chaos in our lives/home... fewer dogs to clean up after, fewer vet bills, smaller feed bill, less dog hair, etc., etc. That may sound cold and callous, but if you only knew what kind of chaos we lived in. Don't get me wrong, it was a chaos that gave us joy and was filled with love, but none the less, it was chaos. So when John whispered to me a couple days after her passing: are we going to get another puppy if anything happens to Eliott?, I reacted loudly and without thinking: Hell no!!
Was he out of his mind? Bootsy had only been gone a couple of days! The last thing in this world I wanted to think about was a new mouth to feed, new responsibilities, adding to our chaos, etc. etc. I simply wasn't ready!! Of course I had failed to really understand what he had asked: ...if something happened to Eliott... Eliott is healthy, still playful as a pup at times, barring any unforeseen accidents, we should have him around for at least a couple more years (hopefully longer), so there was no need to even discuss getting another dog for a long time to come. Right?
Yeah, well, that's what I was thinking at that time. Then a little over a week later, Eliott was out in the backyard and I stuck my head out to call him back in. He started up the steps of the deck, only to fall back down them. He didn't get hurt, but it broke my heart just the same to watch him pick himself up and make his way around to the other set of steps and in to the house. Eliott has always had an awkward gait. His rear end is weak, the vet said it was probably neurological. When he was younger, it didn't seem to hinder him much, just made him look kind of funny when he walked. Now that he's getting older, it's making getting around difficult for him. His hind legs often get tangled with one another and he sometimes has trouble standing up. On more than one occasion I've had to use a towel to form a sling and help him stand up. We tried taking him and Olivia for a walk on their leash right after Bootsy's passing, but it was so difficult for him to walk at our pace in an orderly fashion that we had to cut the walk short and take him back home. He's definitely better left to run/shuffle around the back yard at his own pace. After watching him fall down the steps, I now wondered: just how long would we have him in our lives?
With that sad thought in my head, I went to work at my secondary office located in Westport Village that day. It was Tuesday, June 28th.
All day long, I kept thinking about Eliott and about what John had asked me. I still really didn't want a little puppy at this point in our lives, because they are sooo much work and we are sooo busy most of the time it seems. Things were quiet at work, so I had some free-time and decided to go to the Great Dane rescue site and fill out an application. I still wasn't ready for a new dog, but decided I'd get the paperwork taken care of and explain to them that perhaps in a few months we'd be ready and if so, then they could already have done their home-inspection and checked our references, blah, blah, blah. I started filling out the application , but couldn't answer all the questions off the top of my head, so I decided to come back and finish it later. In the mean time, I decided to take a look at what they had available... not that I was interested mind you, but I was bored.
Of all the danes on their site, only one even piqued my interest, but it stated that she wasn't good with children or other pets. Well, that automatically disqualified her right there. Of course one website lead to another and before I knew it, I found myself at the Kentucky Humane Society's site. As I put in my search criteria, I really didn't have any expectations of finding anything of interest (or for that matter, really didn't WANT to find anything of interest... again, I was bored).
So imagine how I sharply I inhaled when this came up on the screen:
For the briefest of moments, I thought I was looking at one of Olivia's puppy pictures.
Nope, nope, don't even go there! I didn't even read the dog's bio or name, I just quickly exited out of the website and went to find something else to do.
But a couple of hours later, I found myself looking at that sweet face once again. I just had to know... I called the number on the site which connected me with the main office. I asked the girl that answered if "Helen" was still available. I held my breath as I waited for the answer, part of me hoping that she'd already been adopted to a nice family thus making the whole conversation moot, and another part of me holding my breath and hoping that she was still available.
She was!
The girl on the other end started telling me all about Helen and her special needs. Somehow, I'd completely missed reading her bio on the website, but as it turned out, Helen had more in common with Olivia than just her sweet, white face and gray spot in front of her left ear. Helen too is deaf and partially blind. But where as Olivia has vision problems in both eyes, Helen is only blind in her left eye, and sees very well from her right.
The whole time I was thinking to myself, "I've got to go and see this dog! Ugh, but I'm so busy this week, I don't think I can make it 'til Sunday afternoon."
Then the girl hesitated and said, "oh, well, Helen is located at our east campus."
I nearly fell out of my chair as I inhaled sharply. Had I misunderstood her? "Do you mean the one on Lyndon Lane?"
"Yes, that's the one."
I couldn't freaking believe it! I knew exactly where that location was, I could practically look out my office window and see it.
I nearly shouted at the girl, "I'm at the other end of that shopping center!"
I thanked her and hung up, paced around the office a few times, went up and down the stairs a few times, paced some more. I couldn't stand it, I simply HAD to go and see her. I excused myself for a few minutes and drove to the other end of the center. The whole way there I kept telling myself I was nuts to be doing this. Hadn't I just chastised John a few days ago for even suggesting we get a new puppy? I walked in to the Humane Society and someone shouted from the back that they'd be with me in a moment. I stood in the middle of the reception area, slowly looking around the room until my eyes locked onto a sweet white face looking back at me from across the room. I froze in place and held my breath as Helen and I sized each other up. She was in the "get acquainted room", lying on a counter top and staring out the window at me, her head cocked to the side. Tears started to pool in my eyes as I watched her. Why was she in there? What are the odds that the very dog I had come to see would be right there as soon as I walk into the place? It was as if she had been waiting for me to come and get her.
Then, to my horror, two young girls and a woman came in to view and Helen went back to playing with them. What were they doing playing with my dog!??!?!?!?! By the time the clerk came out of the back room, the tears had spilled down my face and my nose was running. I snivelled that I wanted to see that dog and pointed to Helen. I hated to ask, but had to: was that family interested in adopting her? I was assured they weren't and a weight was lifted from my heart as I was shown in to the room that Helen occupied.
It was explained that she stayed in that room. It was beyond love at first sight for me. Helen is an absolute LOVER with boundless energy. She offered up wet kisses to my face and I just knew that somehow, she would become a part of our family.
I spent about 5 minutes with her and went back to the office where I printed off her bio from the website. Before heading to riding lessons that evening, I stopped by the house and left it on the dining room table where I knew John would see it when he got home and wrote on it: "I want to come and live with you!"
I felt sure that there would be a voice mail waiting for me when my lessons were over, with John telling me I'd lost my mind, but there wasn't. When I arrived home, he'd already gone to the firehouse. I found Helen's bio right where I'd left it and stuck to it was a post-it note with the question: When do we go get her?
John was ready to bring her home that evening. Of course the KHS had already closed for the day and they closed early on Wednesday, so the soonest we could get her would be Thursday. But I gave it some thought, decided to take a weeks vacation in conjunction with the holiday weekend and made up my mind to be there when the doors opened Friday morning at 10am, and I was.
First thing Wednesday morning, I called the KHS and asked if I could put a deposit down to hold her until Friday. They agreed and I breathed a sigh of relief that no one could come in and snatch her away from us before we even got her. John went to visit her that afternoon and I went Thursday at lunchtime, taking my mother with me. Then John and I went back again that evening. Friday morning wasn't going to get here soon enough!
We both agreed from the get-go that her name would not remain Helen. She just wasn't a Helen. Helen conjured up images of a feeble old woman (no offense to anyone out there named Helen). Many names were tossed around and finally we decided on "Phoebe".
After I filled out all the paperwork on Phoebe and was given her medical history and other life story, I was amazed at the time lines that paralleled our last few months with Bootsy.
Phoebe was picked up as a stray in March, right around the same time that Bootsy was diagnosed with cancer. A few weeks later she was adopted by a family that ended up bringing her back a couple of months later because they couldn't "deal with her". She was returned in June, just days before we lost our Bootsy. And then here we were, bringing her into our family exactly two weeks later. It was almost as if it was meant for Helen/Phoebe to come and live with us right from the start. She just had a rough journey in life 'til she found her forever-home with us.
Part of me would like to meet her former, temporary owners and ask them why it was they couldn't handle her. But then again, it's probably just as well that I don't know who they are. Phoebe reacts frequently as if she's been beaten. Often when we walk into the room or stand up from a chair, she'll suddenly either cower down to the ground or run to her crate as if she's afraid she's done something wrong. I don't know it they beat her or perhaps the person that owned Phoebe's mother beat her, or perhaps even both.
All I know is that they are the fools to have ever let this sweet fur-child go. She is the absolute lovingest, sweetest dog. She wants to meet everyone she sees, human or canine, and she gets along with out cat too. Phoebe is quite rambunctious, especially compared to Olivia, but I keep telling myself it's because she's still a pup. But in reality, I think she is just a very active, high-energy dog.
She has fit right in from the get-go with our family. I had worried that Olivia might be upset at the newest member, but if anything, she seems most delighted to have a new playmate that actually engages her in playtime. If anything, Eliott is the one that gets a little cranky with her at times when her play gets a bit too enthusiastic and she knocks him down, but he still accepts her and allows her to cuddle with him.
It took us a few days to get the new dog crate, but it's now in place next to the other one and our house is now filled with chaos once again, but would we really have it any other way?
Phoebe is learning to walk (somewhat quietly) on a gentle-leader at my side instead of trying to drag me down the street, and she's quickly learned that she doesn't get fed anything unless she's either sitting or lying down. I had hoped to get her into obedience school last week, but we're having to wait until August 3, so that gives me some extra time to work with her and hopefully she'll be a star-pupil by graduation time.
Do I dare hope that some day she'll become a therapy pet like Olivia? Only time will tell if she has what it takes. She certainly has the personality for it, but it may be a couple of years 'til she calms down enough.
This past Saturday, I took her to a 5k event out in Westport, KY. Despite a few equipment malfunctions along the way, she did very well and made friends with everyone she met. Of course most of the regulars thought it was Olivia when they first saw her, but Phoebe will soon have her own following of loyal fans about town, of that I have no doubt.
Here are a few pix of our newest family member:
Visiting day at the KHS
First meeting between Phoebe and Olivia.
Liv has more spots and a black nose, so for now, they are easy to tell apart, but if Phoebe develops more spots and her nose changes like Olivia's did, it will become difficult for others to tell them apart.
Eliott isn't too sure about this new addition...
