| . . . the story of Blizzard. (as
Nancy tells us)
I moved from NYC to MI
in August, and decided to take a break from fostering cats for a little
while. In December, I was on my way home from getting cat food (good
thing, too, cause I needed it for "bait") when I saw an
adolescent Dobie-X wandering loose at the end of my street. She had no
collar or tags and she was pretty scrawny - it was obvious that she was
a stray. I stopped the car and managed to coax her over to me by
throwing cat kibble at her, a little closer to me each toss. She was
leery of coming close, but once I put my hands on her she just gave in
and wanted to cuddle. I picked her up, tucked her in the car, and
brought her home, then started calling every rescue group in the area.
One group finally called me back, told me what I needed to do before I
could legally claim her and turn her over to them, and then came the
next day to evaluate her temperament to see if they could accept her.
They did, I did what was necessary and, after 10 days, I signed her over
to the rescue group. But I fostered her for 3 1/2 weeks, until we found
her a new home. I'd fallen in love with the little girl and it was VERY
hard to give her up. As I was standing here in tears, watching her pull
away with her new family, the phone rang - it was someone from the
rescue group asking me to foster a "5-month old deaf, white male boxer"
that had just been found wandering in the middle of the street, in a
snowstorm. I swear, Vixen hadn't been out my front door longer than 3
minutes when I got that call. Of course, the male boxer turned out to be
Blizzard.
The person who'd taken her off the street dropped her off at the
rescue's vet the following morning; that afternoon, a rescue group board
member (Amy) and I went to check her out. Both vets, both techs, and Amy
all thought Blizzard was a pit bull. Around here, that's a death
sentence. (Apparently there are some fighting dog rings/breeders in this
area.) Any pit bull found wandering loose without ID tags is taken to
Animal Control and immediately euthanized. The HS won't accept pits. The
rescue groups won't accept pits. The only ones that get
"rescued" end up living at a local veterinary school for a couple of years, donating blood. Then *they're* PTS.
Something kept nagging at me - I just knew Blizz wasn't a pit, but I
couldn't put my finger on it. Then that pic of the deaf Dogo pup from
the Deafdogs
Webring graphic flashed into my head, and I knew. I blurted
out "She's a DOGO!!!" and immediately Amy said "That's
it! That's what she is!" and agreed to accept her into rescue.
Otherwise, she'd have gone directly to AC and been PTS, regardless of
the fact that she was the friendliest little thing you've ever seen. She
was wearing a choke chain that was too small to come off over her head;
we had to cut it off with bolt cutters, and she just sat there licking
our faces. (Amy said that was a good enough temperament test for her!)
If I hadn't rescued Vixen (the dobie), I never would have hooked up
with that rescue group. They wouldn't have known that there was someone
in the area with one deaf dog who could foster/teach a rescue deafie.
And if I'd decided to keep Vixen, I wouldn't have had room for Blizzard,
I wouldn't have gone with Amy to see Blizzard at the rescue vet, and
Blizzard would have been destroyed because they thought she was a pit. I
*told* ya there was a whole long series of "coincidences" that
brought Blizzard to me! But I don't believe in coincidence - Blizzard
was meant to be here. Once I realized that, I adopted her. =)
Nancy
a.k.a. Noofies, (and the new sister setter Penny & kitties @
Noofies' Zoo 8-) Blizzard's new family . . .
Thanks Noofies, for sharing Ms. Blizzard's story with the world!
More photos of Blizzard
can be seen in the Member's Photo Gallery
and on Noofies'
Zoo Web Site |
Dogo Argentino Club of America/dogo.org 1995