Doggie Blog…Stevenson Style No. 5 by Gabrielle Stevenson
No. 5: Operation Rescue
Dog rescues in the Stevenson family have never been simple. They have been more like fully planned rescue operations than anything else.
People have told me for years about how they stumbled upon a stray and VOILA! They have a new furry family member! It has almost never been that easy for the Stevenson’s. Perhaps it has been the neighborhoods that we’ve lived in – they didn’t lend themselves much to strays – or the fact that we have always had an intimidating and full house of dogs and cats. Whatever it was, we’ve always found new ways of swooping in for the rescue, but never really without a plan.
Brother Tim didn’t find a stray cat outside of his work. Heathcliff, no more than two or three days old, made sure Tim found him. He meowed/cried/insisted Tim find him and before long, Brother Tim was rushing to the pet store to learn how to feed his fragile friend with a dropper. Brother Tim and his wife just had their first baby, so surely the kitten care and feeding was great practice!
Mama Lucia has a particular brand of rescuing that we’ve all become accustomed to over time. It’s the “Oh, Ron, just put them in the car” approach.
Pinky the Great Dane must have seen this coming a mile away – no small feat for a blind, 185-pound brindle.
Mama Lucia had wanted a Great Dane since she was a small child. To say she had a complicated and distressed childhood would be like saying a 12-car pileup on a highway is normal. Needless to say, she never got the Great Dane of her dreams.
We aren’t sure how it happened, but somehow, my parents had just one dog at the time until my mom found out about The Great Dane Society rescue group in San Jose, Calif.
(Brief bird walk: the one dog they had was Wyatt. Mama Lucia did the “Oh, Ron, just put him in the car thing” on this mission. Wyatt was a cattle dog living on a ranch but was penned up in a transport kennel most every day. My parents knew the “farmer” and mom was so outraged she TOLD him she was taking the dog after she TOLD him he was unfit to care for dogs. She gave him THE LOOK – made popular by mob movies, but created and perfected by Italian mothers everywhere – as they walked back to the car. Dad opened the door, Wyatt jumped and remained Mama’s best friend and amazing family companion for more than 14 years.)
Mama Lucia can be a cautious person at times and after she learned about the Great Dane Society, she began speaking with one of the volunteers on a regular basis. This went on for a while before she told us there was a dog in need. The dog in need had some sight/vision problems but a “minor” surgery could likely fix the issue.
She had been abandoned with a sight problem? This was right in my mother’s wheelhouse. Still, she said she wanted to go and just meet the dog. Absolutely no way would we bring the dog home. Not yet, anyway. Let’s just meet her and see what kind of situation is at hand. Oh, OK!
We’re aren’t suckers, so The Great American Ron and I decided to take two cars. I took my dog, Malibu, in my car and they brought Wyatt in their sedan. Dad and I both knew that Wyatt would be with Malibu and I on the two-hour drive home and their back seat would be filled with a Great Dane.
We knew that, and the instant they brought Pinky out to meet our dogs and us, Pinky knew it too. My mother was truly the only one with any delusion about this giant dog not riding home with us.
I realized a few other things instantly as well – Mama Lucia’s love for Pinky was immediate, Pinky would be the leader of the Stevenson dog pack and she was a gentle giant that would sit on your lap if you let her.
After a while, Mama Lucia went into the office to “see her file” or some such nonsense to make us believe she was still not sure about the rescue. As she walked into the shelter, dad and I opened the car doors to start getting ready for the trip home. Pinky was first. The blind dog knew what she wanted. She wanted to get in that back seat and never again deal with loss or abandonment.
When my mom came back out to check on us, Malibu and Wyatt were in my car and I was reading. The Great American Ron was “meditating” with Pinky in their car. Oddly enough, both of them snored when they were “in session.” At that point, Mama Lucia turned right back around, filled out the paperwork, paid the fee with the money my dad had no doubt picked up on the way, and we were all home in time for dinner.
Pinky didn’t just have a vision problem – she had glass eyes – a fact we learned AFTER buying her loads of white dog toys because we were told she could still see white. Ummmm…. OK! (Fine, we ARE suckers.) Mom saved up to have surgery to fix an infection with the glass eyes. She was also diabetic and needed insulin shots twice daily. Pinky also preferred warm, clean sheets on her very own twin bed that was on the floor besides my parent’s bed. “CLEAN, CLEAN for Pinky!”
Even with her health problems, Pinky was a most incredible being that lived a spoiled and happy nine more years after we rescued her that day. She opened doors with her mouth, she ran down hallways without ever bumping into anything and it was her ears and heart that led her to run away, down by the creek, several hundred yards away, to rescue a newborn kitten stuck in tumbleweed.
Surely we would like to believe that we rescued Pinky. But we all know, even after she has passed, that each and every furry friend we bring into the Stevenson household has rescued us. Say “Pinky” in our house, and we still all break out in smiles and compete to tell our favorite stories first.