Eyes Love & Water (Factors In Sanctuary Book 1)

Factors In Sanctuary Series

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It was really beautiful here. I'd lived in Esperanza since eighth grade and had seen the fountain hundreds of times, and yet I had never quite noticed it the way I had that night. Blue lights twinkled inside the water, bouncing off synthetic lily pads and giving the water an unnaturally blue glow. Carnival de Los Santos was being advertised on the face of the fountain in glittery red letters. All around me, there were half constructed carnival rides, unpainted tables set under rainbow colored umbrellas, and empty booths set up, promising peppers, chorizo, and other Esperanzan delicatessens that made my stomach rumble over the roar of the waterfall rushing behind my head.

I had just started to enjoy the haunting, ghost-town-during-Marti-Gras feeling when I heard them: And they were coming toward me with astounding speed. At first, I just stood there, too stunned by the fact that this was actually happening to register a need to get the heck out of there. But then my survival instincts kicked in, and I turned sharply to the left, sprinting between tilt-a-whirls and carousels in an effort to throw off my assailant.

His footsteps—I could only assume that they were of the male variety based on their heaviness—kept up pace with mine. And on a completely disturbing side note, the heavy breathing that I heard? Yeah, totally all mine.

While his, I noticed, were calm, deadly quiet, and steady enough to jump the chain link fence that separated the rides and booths from the eating area adjacent to it. Many of us have furbabies that make up a large part of our family, and we love to talk to each other about them. I receive dozens of emails and messages each week from people that want to share their experiences with their dogs. But I have also been in the company of some people who roll their eyes a bit when I begin to talk about my vast family of fur babies. Whether we are talking about their funny traits, their illnesses, their devotion, or the incredible loss when they cross the bridge, some people just do not understand.

So we gather together on social media, and we all talk about our little ones with a passion that is well understood by our peers. I spend many hours each week talking about my babies online. Most of my conversations center around adoptions, new babies, vet treatments, transports, and the joy of watching a new baby learn to love and live again. Often I feel as if I miss out on the joy of talking about the little things that make us love our babies.

There is, after all, only so much time in a day. That conversation can be quite complicated with the large number of babies we care for. Those individual traits, along with the similarities we all see, are what roll around in my head at night when I lay down to rest. I often wonder how could I ever completely educate someone about our babies. How could I make another person understand the needs and particular desires of each of these special little souls?

Of course, the answer is that I could never truly educate another person about our babies. You have to live with them each day, love them each day, feed them each day, and revel in their joys each day to know them well. So today I have done the next best thing; the thing that we all love to do. I wish you could all stand at my bathroom door and watch Lady Bug bark at herself in our full length mirror.

I wish you could watch Rowdy lay down on a pile of paper towels after he has shredded them and gotten caught. I wish you could all watch Higgins chase the shadows of birds across our lawn and throw his head back and howl when the shadow crosses the fence. I wish you could all feel the joy when Waco manages to get his arthritic back legs out the doggie door. I wish you could all watch our barn dogs waiting for their turn to jump in the water trough just after it has been filled with fresh cool water.

Gibbs all the way to the bathroom door where Mr. Gibbs eats his eggs at night.

I wish you could all see Lexi stand so very patiently at night for me to find her an empty bed and cover her up with a fresh blanket. I wish you could all watch Ziggy scratch at the bottom of the crate when he is waiting on his lunch. I wish you could all watch Trooper stand between my ankles when I cook or clean in my kitchen. I wish you could all watch Pumpkin claim the big bed directly in front of the wood stove in the Doggie Room on a cold night.

I wish you could watch Christy stand on the edge of my bed and bark and fuss at Gena who is laying on the floor with half of her big body tucked up under the bed. I wish you could watch Delilah fly off the bed, only touching one of the stairs there for her benefit, when she hears Rick come thru the front door. I wish you could see Beth stand on top of a cart filled with pounds of horse feed as Rick pushes it to the check out at the feed store. I wish you could watch Gilbert growl while he leans into Rick to get more lovin.

I wish you could see how high Winston can jump when Rick throws a little snack of kibble to the Kitchen pack. I wish you could see Dexter get the zoomies right before I feed him his dinner. I wish you could watch Maddie maneuver a balled up blanket into a perfectly placed cover over her entire body. I wish you could walk thru the sanctuary with me at 1am when I make my final walk thru to cover up the babies. Last week while listening to a local radio broadcast of the news the announcer very casually mentioned that our local animal shelter euthanizes dogs every day!!

I turned off the radio to let my mind absorb what I had just heard. I reached for a calulator and multiplied 52 weeks in a year, 5 work days per week, and an average of 25 dogs per day, and the number made me cry. We have a population of just over , people that is growing every day as the oil field booms. I read comments every day from people who say every shelter should be No Kill.

What do we as a society expect these shelters to do with 25 dogs over their capacity each and every day? One of our local shelters has just received the go ahead to built a new larger facility. How long will it take to fill up that new facility with 25 dogs a day coming in. Maybe a week if we are lucky. I was in this shelter last week picking up a 9 year old that had been turned in by her lifelong owner for having diarrhea. It took about 30 minutes to fill out all the paperwork for me to rescue this little doll.

A discussion about what can be done to curb this horrific situation almost always leads back to more government regulation. But from my experience those laws are almost futile. In Texas, commercial breeders are required to get a license. They are also required to open their doors to quarterly inspections. They cannot keep up with the demands on their time as it is.

“They are allowed to express themselves”

No way they can enforce more laws to prevent the over population of dogs. Ok maybe we need more rescuers. We have four layers of rescue in our society. The top layer is made up of organized rescues that vet their applications with strict standards. The next layer is also comprised of organized rescues that set up at Petsmart and other facilities and events for adoption days. Then we have the shelters and Humane Societies that adopt dogs from their facilities.

And last we have the dogs that are lucky enough to get pulled off the street by a caring individual. Shelter workers often take a beating in the public view. Would you do their job? Most of these people are there because of their love for the animals, but turnover in these jobs is tremendous, and I can certainly understand why. As many of you are aware we are currently caring for 58 dogs. In the last week we have had three adopted and four new ones came in. We are 18 dogs over our capacity and each day we struggle to get to the end of the chores.

We are desperately trying to raise the funds needed to build a separate facility on our land that will be able to handle dogs. During the month of May I have turned down 14 dogs that needed a soft spot to land. At that rate and considering the increase in our local population how long will it take us to fill up our new facility? Not long, not very long at all.

Last night Rick and I had a long conversation about the tiny, little dent we make in the problem. Our only saving grace is that as we look around at all the babies curled up beside us and in numerous dog beds all over the floor, we know that our efforts made a huge difference to those babies. And that knowledge is enough to make us get back up each morning and do the very best we can for the ones that depend on us.

So where does that leave us? There is only one solution that I can see. We must have an army that is huge, that is resolute, that is self-sacrificing, that is relentless. You are the only way this problem ever gets reduced. You must rescue one more than you think you can handle. You must encourage everyone you know to care for their babies for the entire life of that baby. You must encourage anyone you know that breeds their dogs even one time, to STOP! You must push the AKC to change their standards for show dogs that must be intact. You must volunteer at your local shelter or humane society.

You must pass on a kind word to the workers in your local shelter. You must make your social media posts about the positive things we can do and not about the horrible things that we all see everyday. You must not spend one ounce of your energy trashing the people who give up their dogs, because you will not change who they are.

You must stop giving animal abusers the spotlight as we all know they are there. You must raise your children to know that a pet is for life. You must show your neighbors that there are people who will help them if they are struggling to care for their pets. You must encourage the seniors among us to plan for the care of their babies if they become incapable of doing it for themselves.

You must stop valuing puppies over adult dogs, You must protest your local pet stores that sell puppies from puppy mills. You must transport for your local rescues. You must foster for your local rescues. You must walk thru your local shelter often enough to remember that those sad faces behind those fences have no options. You are their only option. You are their only advocate. You are their only chance to know the love of a human like they deserve. Ok so now my rant is over. I realize that no one can do everything on that list. But we must all do something more than what we are currently doing.

Because from my point of view that is the only hope for the millions of babies that will lose their lives this year to the tragedy that we as humans have created. Beauty is something we all crave. We want beautiful spouses, beautiful children, beautiful homes, beautiful cars, and beautiful clothes. We travel to see beautiful scenery. We pray for beautiful weather, and we are attracted to beautiful friends.

Everything around us promotes our desire for beauty. The movies, television, newspapers, magazines, and books that we consume revel in beauty. Ads for clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and even toothpaste tell us we need to strive for as much beauty as we can get. Our dictionaries define beauty as prime, choice, winning, advantage, strength, benefit, and fascinating.

Because of this accepted definition beautiful people are allowed many benefits in our society. They often get the best jobs, the preeminent opportunities, and the utmost recognition. Most of us would agree that this value system is both unfair and unfortunate. But we are programmed to accept it because it seems familiar and ironically justified. This yardstick also applies to our choice of pets. When we do rescue a beautiful, healthy dog our Facebook page explodes with hundreds of shares, hundreds of comments, and thousands of likes.

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These babies are not only adopted quickly but we generally have multiple approved applications to choose from. Just as it is in the human world, once in awhile we have a baby that prefers to live a more solitary life. The first one I can remember was a fat little silver dapple that came to us from a shelter years ago. She did not want to be touched and even seemed disgruntled when we spoke to her.

Cricket was the name I gave her, and she never wanted to be touched. It took weeks before I could easily pick her up to put her in a wire crate to eat her meals. She was always off to herself in the yard and by herself on a bed. I worried myself sick about her not being happy. But after many months I came to realize that she too deserved to choose her own way in this world. Who was I to try to change what made her happy?

That baby lived with us for four years before she passed in her sleep one night.

CHAPTER 10: Portia- Late February

I knew that we had done our best by her, and that she had lived the life that she wanted in spite of our wishes. Many babies over the years have come into our lives with their best friend by their side. Often they have just lost their human Mom or Dad and the four legged companion they curl up next to is all they have left in this world. We have always done everything in our power to hold these bonds sacred. Once in awhile, however, life gets in the way. Max and Ginger came to us a few years ago and they were mother and son. I was amazed at several things about this pair. The first thing I noticed is that they always slept side by side, and Max always had his head laying over his Mom as if he were protecting her.

The son was a big standard, and his Mom was a tiny little old lady. Old age took this Mom away from her son. He accepted his loss better than we feared, and Rick and I decided that he knew she had lost the quality of her life.

Max fought hard for his Mom and had the wounds to prove how brave he had been. Ginger, sadly did not survive the attack. For several weeks after his tragic loss Max could be found lying on the spot where his Mom took her last breath. He lost weight, ignored the rest of the pack, including Rick and I, and wanted nothing more than to have his Mom by his side again. Eventually, Max began to come out of his grief and now enjoys the companionship of Pete, one of our longest term residents.

They are always together on the same bed, and they cuddle closer together each night when I spread their blanket out over their heads. Max learned to move on with his life, and we feel Ginger would surely approve. Each day, I read and try to respond to multiple posts telling the Facebook community of the loss of a dear loved one.

All of these loses are heartbreaking, and a few are unexplainably tragic. Friends pour their hearts out to the people they know will understand their pain. Their great loss is something that we all experience multiple times in our lives. Those of us who have felt that loss commiserate with the incapacitation that seems so horribly permanent at the time.

We all pray for the broken spirits that someday, somehow, they will learn to live again. And we are so very thankful that most of us eventually find that new relationship, that new forever friend, that new cuddly baby to share our love with. I decided this morning to take a little time to assess the residents of the sanctuary.

So much of our time is devoted to the medical needs of our babies that I like to step back once in awhile and look at the other aspects of what makes our pack the unique group of babies that they truly are. Any assessment must include medical needs but there are so many other characteristics that provide the variety of babies we live with and love. The backgrounds can tell us so much about what our little guys need, and they can help us understand who they are. Currently there are 56 dogs residing here at the sanctuary. The reasons for these dogs being relinquished varies as much as the owners.

Only one of our current dogs came directly from a breeder, and one of our babies was a birthday gift for Rick years ago. That leaves 15 of our residents that came to us directly off the streets. Rick picked up quite a few of these babies himself over the years, and a few came from people who found a dog on the streets and brought them to us so they would not be exposed to a shelter.

We almost never know the entire background of any of our babies, but so often their behavior and their health status tells us what we really need to know.

Elephants unchained: 'The day has gone by when this was entertainment'

We concentrate our efforts here at the sanctuary on rescuing Dachshunds. But because our babies come from so many different situations we often find ourselves with babies that are not Dachshunds. Currently we have 29 Dachshunds, 4 German Shepherds, 9 Chihuahuas, and 14 mix breeds. Some of our mixed breeds have some Dachshund blood in their veins, and their attitudes will attest to that heritage.

The Chihuahua is one of the breeds that makes up a huge number of the dogs in need in our area, and many of our shelters have more Chihuahuas than any other breed. German Shepherd dogs were a huge part of my childhood and I have rescued all four of our shepherds myself. While we do not decide from the sex of a dog whether we can take them into our care, life has a way of balancing things out. We currently have 29 males living at our sanctuary, and 27 females. The one area where we do consider the sex of the dog is when we decide which pack they will do best in.

thepromisedlanddachshundsanctuary – The Promised Land Dachshund Sanctuary

All of our dogs are altered immediately but as we all know some males will forever remain more dominant. Bossy females are also part of our decision on where one of our babies will reside. And occasionally we are forced to rethink a decision in this area as we have underestimated the dominant or bossy traits of a particular dog.

Several other factors can be even more important when we decide which area of the sanctuary a new baby will join. We have 14 babies that have special needs, such as missing limbs, blindness, severe arthritis, dementia, etc. Many of these babies need lots of extra supervision and that determines where they will be placed. Only 2 of our babies have special dietary needs and it is obviously much easier for me for them to reside with the kitchen pack.

Daily medications are given to 15 dogs here at the sanctuary and these babies are spread out over the sanctuary as are their medicines. Another 13 of our residents are bonded with another resident here at the sanctuary and of course those babies are always placed in the same area as their bonded partner. Because our mission concentrates on the senior babies in need we have 23 dogs currently that are over ten years old. Dexter is the oldest baby here and he is 18 years old. Some of these babies are older than their years because of the hard life they have lived.

The babies of the sanctuary which are under five years only make up 6 of our pack. We have 3 dogs that are only two years old. Two of these babies are large mixed breeds that Rick pulled off the streets, and one is a Chihuahua who is on our adoptable list. Among our babies that need daily meds there is one statitistic that surprises me. We currently have 8 babies that take daily thyroid medications.

Currently in addition to the thyroid meds, we treat 2 dogs everyday for seizures, 1 for diabetes, 1 for severe acid reflux, 1 for recurring eye pain, 1 for IVDD, 1 for severe obsessive tendencies, and 1 for aggression.

Survivor (Sanctuary #1.5)

Some of our dogs that require medication fit into more than one category of medication, Trooper for example takes two daily shots of insulin for his diabetes but also requires thyroid medication. While these statistics are interesting for us to examine, Rick and I are well aware of the chances of these numbers changing before the week is out. Dogs will get adopted, dogs will join us here at the sanctuary, others will be diagnosed with new medical needs, and a few may overcome their need for medication. And sadly because of the nature of our pack we face a higher risk of one of our babies traveling over the Rainbow Bridge.

The things that remain constant from year to year is that there will always be more babies than we have room for. There will always be more vet work than we can afford to pay for in any given month. There will always be babies that would flourish in a home of their own, but those homes are sometimes hard to find because of the nature of these characteristics. Every day I receive a phone call or an email from someone who is looking for a Dachshund puppy. Every once in awhile I get an application for an older baby because someone fell in love with their little silver face, and that is reason for celebration.

Only twice in our almost 17 years of running our sanctuary have we received an application for bonded seniors. The commitment there is huge and very few people are in a position to make that leap. That reality is unfortunate but understandable. My days end at around 1am when I walk thru our sanctuary covering up babies, adding logs to the wood burning stove in the doggie room, and making certain that all babies are safe and sound for the night.

Each night we both pray for the strength and support to make it through tomorrow. Thankfully, that prayer is always answered. This is our life, and This Is Us. After 16 years rescuing Dachshunds, Rick and I have experienced some very unique personalities.

We have loved quiet dogs, loud dogs, playful dogs, grouchy dogs, lazy dogs, and over-achievers. Each and every one has left an indelible mark on our hearts and in our minds. But the ones that lived the remainder of their lives here with us, whether that was one year or ten years are so easily brought to the forefront of our minds. Dudley was one of the first five dogs we rescued when we opened our sanctuary in He was an older Dachshund gentleman that walked with his head high and his chest out.

His entire being exuded pride and a sense of order to life. Dudley soon became known as Deputy Dudley Doright as he was the keeper of the rules. Dudley was the judge of when some of the younger dogs were getting too rowdy, and he put a stop to it by charging into the fray and bouncing his big chest off the bodies of the ruffians in our pack.

Earlier this year we rescued a little guy named Gil. We lengthened his name to Gilbert because it just seemed to fit him. Last week while Rick and I sat on the bed loving on the babies, I watched Gilbert jump off his pillow, run to the middle of a wrestling match between three of our younger dogs, and growl until their fun moved to the other room. Gilbert is not a Dachshund. His coat is white and long. His nose is stubby and his body is short.

But for just a brief second our Deputy Dudley Doright was standing right in front of me. Rickashay came to us in from Houston. He was estimated to be about 16 years old, and his back legs were stiff with arthritis. His grey face and cloudy eyes masked the spunk that this old man had inside. He waddled across the yard with his nose to the ground, using the strongest sense he had left. Rickashay barked at me sometimes for hours.

I would help him get to the bed I thought he wanted just to watch him walk away as soon as I left him there. He barked at me until I helped him get up on the porch, and he immediately walked right back into the yard. He barked at me from the rug in the kitchen while I did the dishes, and his little front feet came off the ground as if he were putting an exclamation mark behind his demands. He often stood in front of the floor length mirror in the bathroom barking at the dog just out of his reach.

Rickashay was gentle and fragile, but you could not tell that from his bark. When Trooper arrived at the sanctuary in September of last year he immediately began to make himself heard.

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