Miss Peaches. Where to start with Miss Peaches, the Katrina pit bull mix?
To start at the beginning, I first met Miss Peaches at Lamar-Dixon Shelter. She was filthy, skinny - only weighed about 20 pounds - and was too terrified to come out of her crate.
When I coaxed her to emerge, it was obvious that I was looking at a dog who was in bad shape long before Hurricane Katrina. Her spine jutted... under a dirty coat, and she had no fur left under her filthy collar. It was also obvious that her awful ear crop was the result of a backyard hack job. Standing there, coated in flood scum and dried dog poop, she shook and trembled ceaselessly. I stroked her gently, and she flinched under my hand, clearly expecting violence.
As I continued to stroke her, speaking softly all the time, the look on her face changed to one of confusion. It seemed that she was too familiar with harsh treatment from people, but had never experienced kindness, and didn't know how to react to it.
She broke my heart.
While I was at Lamar-Dixon, I tried to find ten or fifteen minutes every day to spend a little time with her. By the time I had to leave, she would wag her tail in greeting, and willing come out of her crate for me. But as I left, I knew that her future was extremely uncertain.
Most, if not all, of the pit bull rescue groups choose dogs that are immediately adoptable. Clearly, this dog would never get picked. Her socialization skills were minimal, at best. She was fearful and tense, and although she demonstrated no aggressive tendencies, she did not present well. She needed patience, love, rehabilitation, and most of all, time. And time was the one thing she was least likely to get. I knew that the chances were that she would go from shelter to shelter until the Katrina deadline for owners to claim their dogs had passed. Then she would be euthanized.
And there didn't seem to be much I could do about it right then.
When I got home, I immediately began contacting pit bull rescues and asking them to consider taking her. None of them could promise that they would take her, and when I looked at their criteria for taking a dog, my heart sank. I knew that these groups would see so many pit bulls that were so much better candidates for adoption than my little pitty. I knew she didn't stand a chance. And so I tried to put her out of my mind, reminding myself that "You can't save them all."
Except that I couldn't forget her. She haunted me.
I contacted a local person I had worked with at Lamar-Dixon, and asked her to keep track of this pit bill. My plan was to foster her as soon as HSUS opened up the adoption/foster process. As the next hurricane rolled in, she was still logged in at Lamar-Dixon. When the huricane left, she had disappeared. No one seemed to know where.
I hit the phones and began calling every shelter listed as having accepted Katrina animals. On the third day, I found her at the Dixon Correctional Institute, where she had been transferred to their inmate program.
I flew back to Louisiana, picked her up and brought her home, and named her Miss Peaches, for her soft little peach-fuzz head.
Miss Peaches (or The Peaches-Smeeches) is a wonderful, loving, and lovable dog. She is dog-friendly to a fault and is finally beginning to relax around new people. She trust me without reservation, and the fact that she is willing to trust anyone after her early experiences sometimes makes me choke up. We're going to start a training class in a couple of weeks, to try to get her even more socialized around other people.
Until then, I'll continue to try to wear her out with chasing snowballs (it hasn't worked yet - she has more energy than everybody in my house combined!) and long hill climbs.
And lots and lots of Peaches-Smeeches lovin'...
[dog photos]
[dogs]
No comments:
Post a Comment