I love pups. Mine is a rescue and so was my last one, may he RIP.

I had to put her down about six weeks ago due to the neglect of an assholes the first 2 - 3 years of her life. She was so sweet I had to name her Sweetie. She was an Old English Bull Dogge, cross between a Mastif and an English Bulldog.

That photo made me cry, poor puppies so scared.

People that abuse and abandon animals....

I'm so happy you found her and gave her the life she deserved after all the misery she had in her previous life. They burrow themselves so deep into your heart, don't they?

with my 5 yo grandson, when the grown ups would have considered biting him themselves! Just kidding, but he is a trying child.

24/7 almost constant companion for 2 great years. Because of her elbows, she had arthritis and did not want to walk. You took Sweetie for a 'drag' or let her roam with the leash. Most embarrassing dog walks ever.

I saw her run one time, bolted like she was in the Olympics I had her feeling so good. Sadly it was that run that eventually did her in, torn muscles, collapsing front end and bad pain. Nothing could be done... The vet and I both thought the cancer she developed on her leg would kill her. There was nothing we could do for the cancer either, then her run happened.

Thanks for the kind words, catbyte, and for letting me ramble on.

I miss her so much. Even traded my Soul (Kia that is) for a Bug so she could get in and out more easily. She loved rides!

Yes, people who abandon and abuse animals…
I just took in an 18 year old owner-surrendered foster cat and his 8 year old buddy. I hope there's another adopter as nice as the one who took in the dogs.
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getting pets that they are a commitment for the life of the pet. Period.

I have three Himalayan girls, ages 10 and 11, that came from a trailer with 48 cats, two dogs and three people living in it. A sad state, hoarders just don't seem to get that they cause so much more harm than good.

Beautiful kitties you have there, catrose! So glad they found you!

Last edited Sat Aug 1, 2015, 05:31 AM - Edit history (1)

and she has been living with us since 2009.

Can you believe this beautiful dog was going to be put down? The SC group is a German Shepherd
rescue group--and they went to get her based on the thought that she might be part white GS--
even though she clearly is not.

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I wish I could have dogs. Your pic really makes me want one again.

My pals... Samuel L. Catson, and Loki.

Here they are bug hunting. Both rescued.

pretty cats

He eats them. No fuss no muss. Sammy on the other hand will just play with them

do you have more pictures of (her?) that you can post?

Got him right after he turned 3.

He likes to hang out in the kitchen sink.


Sammy is the multi colored one. Unsure of his exact breed, but he has short little legs. He likes to hang out with me when I cook.


He also sucks at Scrabble.

In this picture I'm not sure I see it, but in the other one it looked like he has black tabby parts, white chest and some grey or beige spots. Which might mean male calico. Am I just imagining the grey/beige spots?

A calico is usually black/orange/white, or dilute calico which is grey(blue)/cream/white. I've never seen a black/grey/white mix before.

Also the black and orange can often have tabby stripes in it.

Maybe Sammy is just a black and white cat...but that first pic really seems to show a third color.

Edited to add this:

A surprising number of people mistake classic-tabby-and-white (especially lots of white, like the one shown here) for calicos and I have to disappoint them that they haven't found an elusive male calico.

I had good friends who wanted a puppy and they found one at the local humane society. Then somebody else adopted the puppy and so they bought a purebred from a breeder. I was so disgusted with them. I mean -- ! As if there weren't dozens and dozens of other dogs they could have been happy with. They KNEW better and still put money in the pocket of a person who intentionally breeds more animals while millions are killed in shelters. Honestly, I lost a lot of respect for these people and our friendship has suffered.

Breeders SUCK and so do breeder enablers!!!

We've also got the people who refuse to fix their pets to prevent them from having litter after litter. These people contribute to the millions killed in shelters as well. People need to stop supporting these kinds of people as well.

I sit here with my rescue dog and 3 rescue kitties and couldn't imagine my life without them. We have a theme with the cats all black or black and white. Our dog is a German Shepard mixed with only dog knows. They make our lives so much richer, sometimes I ask myself what we did to deserve so much love. Whenever I see someone with their designer dog whose cost would save so many lives I am torn because the pup needs love too but so many could have been helped with that vanity cost. The picture of the 2 sweet faces hurts my heart. I am soooo happy that they had a happy ending but so many more did not. One thing about DU the love of animals is the BEST! Keep sharing those pics!!!!

I have 3 rescue kittehs--Cranky Nigel, just turned 20, gray & white medium hair. A friend of my late husband rescued him from the mean streets when he was 6 months old & he's been a member of the family ever since. Sammy, 3, is a tiny little brown spotted & striped tabby. She weighs only 5 pounds, but eats like a little pig. A co-worker found her in the woods when she was 4 weeks old. Some creep had dropped her off to fend for herself. She came up to my co-worker, screaming, skinny, flea-bitten and filthy. The woman has a severe cat allergy, so she couldn't keep Sammy. I was the lucky one to take her. To this day I don't know how my little girl survived out in the woods all by herself without becoming a coyote snack! I found my baby, Otis, 2, on the electronic barter board at work. Someone had taken in 2 stray cats & after a couple of weeks, discovered that BOTH of them were pregnant. All of a sudden, instead of 2 kitties, the woman had 12. Otis & Sammy look like twins, except Otis is a huge boy at 20 pounds. They aren't related, though, because they were rescued about 70 miles from each other.

Thanks for sharing and welcome to DU!

I'm not new but my post count may seem like it. I am mostly a lurker and only come out of the shadows sometimes. Cecil's murder has made me want to post again. It makes his needless death seem somewhat less awful to see Walter Palmer as hunted as his hapless prey and the donations and light shone on trophy "hunting" that maybe the tide has finally turned. Hearing about the kids of others always make me smile. I will pull out pics of my kids for anyone willing to see and listen to tales of their exploits. I haven't had the good fortune to have a future member of my family find me in a long time, but have many from my past. My life is filled with those spirits that I miss everyday but will see no more on this earth, I only hope that they wait for me. Thank you for sharing about your precious fuzzy faces, I love talking cat, the names you gave are great! I recently learned that my biggest boy is a Norwegian Forest Cat with a Viking pedigree, but all 16 pounds of him will run from the slightest movement. So majestic, So cowardly. I had a Sammy too and he was one who found us. We moved into an apartment and whoever lived there before just left him. He lived on the porch for who knows how long before we moved in. He became our fearless racoon fighter until his fighting days were done. They gifted us with him for 6 years and never knew it. Give yours a kiss for me!

without living with a cat was waaaaaaay back when I was a freshman in college & moved into a dorm right after Labor Day. No pets allowed, of course. but by February my roommate and I--a friend I'd known since 8th grade--got so lonely for a cat that we smuggled a tiny orange kitten named Matthew into our room. My friend found him when he was about 5 weeks old. He was all alone in an alley-- dirty, skinny, with the worst flea infestation that I've ever seen on a kitten. He lived with us happily until the end of the semester when we moved out of the dorm. We had a few close calls with him dashing out of the room, but luckily our RA lived on a different floor and I have a sneaking suspicion that she was a cat lover. She HAD to have known that we had Matthew--everybody else did, lol. Matthew went back to our hometown with my friend for the summer. So did I, so I saw him frequently. The next fall we got an apartment off campus & Matthew moved with us. He lived for many years with my friend.

I had three cats: one from the shelter, one from my vet, and another who came to us. Wonderful, wonderful girls. They have since moved on to, as I like to put it, that great litter box in the sky. Currently I'm without any feline companions, but someday I will have more.

The sad truth is that it is not possible to get every single cat and dog adopted by a good human. Careless breeding, not neutering and spaying, bad decisions, and other things are why there are so many in shelters, or simply abandoned and left to die. The very best some of them can hope for is a "good" euthanasia.

I was told they were feral and to not even bother, they were not feral - they were terrified. But they were considered not even worth trying to find a home for. Not only were they not feral but the dog had been spayed!

Setting the Jack Russel down on my living room floor to take a picture to send my parents she leaped right onto the couch and slept for about two days straight.

Written Election Day, 2008....Slick is now nearing 14...in cancer remission due to Kinavet, Chinese herbs...he's sleeping a lot, is pretty deaf, has an enlarged heart...but, he still loves his walks!

*****

...Let me take you back EXACTLY 6 years ago to November 4, 2002. It was the day before Election Day that year, an off-year, of course, from Presidential politics. The weather here in Southern New Mexico had been getting very cold at night for a few weeks. It was the time for everyone to start getting cozy as the sun set. It became a very special day….

Toro and Tico, both chihuahuas, were happily ruling the roost here. We had adopted Tico in February of 2002 as a companion for Toro, who had come with us from New Jersey to New Mexico a couple of years before. Everything was proceeding nicely, except for one thing.

I had had back surgery two years before in 2000 and had spent Thanksgiving in the hospital. It went smoothly, but recovery was slow. Two years later in October 2002, I was still in severe pain, drugged to the gills, hardly moving and depressed.

Over the summer my mother, who was doing the dog walking, started talking about a little black dog that was roaming the neighborhood. As I tried to walk down the block, I would run into neighbors who also reported on the little dog. One woman told me she thought he slept on a house porch on another street…that turned out to be untrue. Another woman told me he would drink from her bird bath. Yet another neighbor told me he was in his garage sitting on a stool cleaning his car wheels when the dog came into the garage. The man reached for him and fell off the stool…and the little dog ran off.

The reports kept coming. Finally, I called Animal Control, only to be told that they had been trying to catch the little guy for 8 months. Cages, traps…they couldn’t get him. Doing the math that October, I figured he had been “on the road” since February. That means he had been without a home through the cold spring, the extremely hot summer, and now was heading into another season of cold nights.

He was seen in the arroyo, near the highway and under cars. In fact, a man a block away told me he was sleeping some nights under his mothballed Corvette. New construction was starting next door to our house and I began seeing him resting underneath the construction trailer. Occasionally, I saw him with other strays, but he was usually alone.

One day as we were driving out of the development I saw a man sitting on an electrical box with a big dog biscuit in his hand. I stopped the car and asked him what was going on. He told me that he was trying to feed the little dog. Just then, at the corner, we saw him. He was licking the sidewalk. He ran off when I approached the spot…and I saw that he had been licking a smashed egg that had dried. Then, a few days later, my mother saw him in the middle of main street out of the development in the morning during the rush hour…he appeared confused and cars had stopped but he managed to escape unharmed.

Something snapped right then. I knew I couldn’t let this little guy continue like this. It was getting bitterly cold at night as we headed into the last couple of weeks of October. My mother said he was limping. I was afraid a coyote would catch him if he was down in the arroyo. Something had to be done. He actually began trailing after my mother and our two clannish chis, who took an immediate dislike to him!

I noticed that he seemed to come down our street in the morning and the late afternoon. I got some food and water and put it down near our front wall that was next to the lot next to us where the new house was going up. That was in the morning. It was gone almost immediately.

I then moved the food and water bowls to the end of our driveway. And then a short way up the side of the driveway. He’d come by around 4 o’clock every day. I got into the routine of getting up early and putting out the food in the morning at around 6 AM. Sometimes he’d come down the street from the direction of the arroyo around that time and would eat. Other times he would come from the opposite direction, from the main road.

This went on for about a week. Then, I started opening the garage door and placing the food just outside the lip of the garage. Sometimes I’d leave a treat. One day I left tuna fish in the morning. He ate it, but when I left it in the afternoon, he skipped it. Not a tuna fan, apparently!

After a few days, I set up a folding chair. I put the food down outside the garage, but sat in the chair. He was tentative, but he was hungry, so he ate but he left immediately. Then, he got to the point where he ate but would take a treat and bury it across the street. Then he started sitting in the driveway in the sun for awhile. All this time I sat quietly and talked to him.

When he wanted more, he would stand by the dish. I calmly got up and went inside and brought out more food. He would dart away, but return and eat.

One morning I didn’t see him around. Worried, I got myself down to the corner and called, “Sweet-ie”! Down the hill he came and he followed me home. This became a ritual over the next few days. One day, he didn’t return at 4 P.M. and I was worried that something had happened to him. Not only was he limping, but I could see that he had patches on his coat. He seemed tired and run down. I thought he was ready to get picked up.

By this time I had moved the food bowls into the garage a few feet away from where I sat. On Saturday, November 2, I moved the bowl right next to me. He ate without a problem. But the next day, he didn’t show up in the morning and I was panicked. Had I waited too long? Had he wanted me to pick him up but had given up on me because I hadn’t moved then? Was he hurt? Or worse?

On Monday, November 4, I set up the chair and the food and went down to the corner. I called “Sweet-tie” but he didn’t come! Upset, I turned to go home…and there he was , coming toward me down the sidewalk from the other direction!

I sat in the chair, and he came up right next to me. Before he took a bite, I quickly scooped him up and ran into the house! I had set up a baby gate so that he would stay in the kitchen. Toro and Tico, the clannish chihuahuas, were going nuts. The little black dog jumped over the gate and promptly deposited a gift under the piano bench. I put a halter on him and put him outside and he immediately went over the wall! I fished him up and knew I couldn’t take my eyes off him for a second!

Things settled down as I took him for a walk. He did fine. And then we came home and he went to sleep on the couch. That night and for several nights after, he howled at the back door. But during the day he slept like he hadn’t slept in a long while. He was under the covers, warm, well-fed and safe.

I scheduled a vet appointment to have his limp and skin checked out. In the meantime, I called the no-kill shelter, Safe Haven, but they had no room for him. A man in the neighborhood who had tried to catch him once and failed said he wanted him…but he went out to work everyday. I couldn’t see the little guy thrown into a yard…he’d get away somehow. And I refused to bring him to the shelter because I figured he’d be adopted…but would wind up roaming again! He could jump any wall and walk it with ease!

I wasn’t really sure what he was, but the vet confirmed he was a fairly big miniature pinscher! His limp was going to be fine and we got started on clearing up his skin. The vet thought he was about a year old. Still not sure what to do with him at the “logical” level of thinking, I scheduled an appointment to get him fixed. Of course, by the time he went in for that a week or so later, my heart had made the decision. We were going to keep him! Toro and Tico weren’t too happy about it, either!

What to name him? We went through a couple of names until I looked at him and commented that since he had roamed everywhere around the development, he was really a “city slicker.” The name stuck–from then on he was SLICKER (Slick for short)!

Then came the problem of walking him! My mother couldn’t handle all three, so I took charge of Slicker. I started to walk, painfully, down the block with him. At the corner we started getting into some hilliness. Slick wanted to go there, so we’d go a short distance. Everyday I’d huff and puff a short way up that low grade hill. Gradually, the huffing and puffing disappeared and my weak leg and back started to get stronger. Soon, I could walk up that hill!!

As I started walking with Slick, my energy came back and I started doing more. Instead of sitting around in pain and depression, I as now getting out and about. My little MIRACLE DOG had restored my interest in life and had started healing me, physically and mentally!

Six years later, Slick and I are celebrating our anniversary together tomorrow, November 4th. No matter what happens on Election Day, we’ll be happy about being together! Toro and Tico have made an uneasy peace with “the intruder” and Slick has matured into the most loving, appreciative dog one could hope for!

Now, you won’t believe this, but a week or so ago I saw a little black and white dog with something draped around him/her in the street. I stopped the car, but he ran way down the road. A couple of days ago, a neighbor about a block away told me he had seen the little dog and what he was dragging along was a plastic bag with ties that had been caught on his neck! The little dog probably got tangled up while searching for food in the bag that was set out on garbage day. I’m keeping an eye out to see if he comes this way again…

So what have I done? Yesterday I put out a bowl of water and a bowl of food near the wall at the side of the driveway near the sidewalk. Maybe it’s time for another November miracle…in more ways than one!