Scooter Finds A New Home
July 7th, 2008 by ComputerBob
Next-door neighbor Annamarie has a soft spot for animals. She adopted Sasha (a very sweet chow mix) about 15 years ago, when Sasha was an abused and abandoned puppy. Annamarie’s also been heavily involved with helping a local greyhound rescue charity for several years. Mike joined her in that cause when the two of them fell in love a few years ago. Over the years, they’ve cared for several foster greyhounds and even adopted a few of them as their permanent pets.
One 3-day weekend a couple of months ago, Mike was working out of town and Annamarie had driven up near Atlanta to visit with her daughters and grandchildren for the weekend. That weekend, I went next door a few times each day to take care of their pets for them.
While she was in Atlanta, Annamarie noticed a large stray dog wandering around her daughter’s neighborhood. It was a large, very tame and very friendly rottweiler/doberman mix. So, being the animal lover that she is, she tried to find his owner.
She took him for walks around the neighborhood, asking if anyone recognized him.
No one did.
She called all of the local shelters in Atlanta to see if anyone had reported him as missing.
No one had.
She even took him to be scanned, to see if he had been “chipped” with its owner’s contact information.
He hadn’t.
And all of the shelters told her the same story. People are very leery of rottweilers, so the shelter probably wouldn’t be able to find a home for him. And if he got picked up by the authorities, they would put him to sleep.
For two or three days and nights, Annamarie fed the stray dog. It hung around Annamarie’s daughter’s house, slept on her porch, went for walks with Annamarie and her daughters and grandchildren, and happily interacted with both adults and children. It was obviously well trained, well behaved, and in good health.
Annamarie repeatedly called Mike that weekend, to apprise him of the situation and to seek his advice and agreement about what to do.
When it was time to come home, Annamarie left her small car at her daughter’s house and drove home in her daughter’s minivan — with the rottweiler/doberman.
For several days, we all called him “No Name.” Ten minutes after he had arrived here, I had him sitting on command. A few minutes later, I got him to “shake” and “lay down.” As big and incredibly strong as he was, he was a very smart and very trainable “gentle giant” with a happy heart. There was no question about it — “No Name” was a very good boy.
Within a few days, Annamarie took “No Name” to her vet and spent a few hundred dollars getting the 95-pound dog all checked out and current on all of his shots.
But Mike and Annamarie were in a difficult situation. Their home was already filled with their four other dogs. And “No Name” was a highly energetic dog with a puppy’s enthusiasm and energy, who seemed to thrive on being with children and who required the same amount of attention and supervision as a grandchild.
Annamarie started the difficult task of trying to find a really good home for him. By that time, they had decided to call him “Scooter.” (That’s a whole other story in itself.)
The Sheriff’s deputy and his wife the nurse who live on the corner of our block fell in love with Scooter as soon as they saw him. The deputy had grown up with rottweilers in his family, and he really wanted to have one now. And they could see that their well-behaved, pre-teen son and daughter loved to play with Scooter. Annamarie imagined that it would be wonderful if Scooter would end up being a neighbor and she could still see him sometimes. But the deputy and his wife were very concerned that their older chow/pitbull mix, “Pupper” — who had always been the only dog in the house — might feel threatened by the presence of a new dog and get into a dangerous fight with him.
So I took some pictures of Annamarie with Scooter, and she sent out an email message to several friends that she thought might be good new “parents” for him.
After going to all the trouble to rescue Scooter from certain death in Atlanta, Annamarie worked really hard to find a really good home for him here in the Sunshine State. But Mike and Annamarie both admitted that if they couldn’t find a really good home for Scooter, they were willing to keep him themselves, instead of giving him to just anyone, even though it would mean a lot of extra work for them.
In the meantime, the deputy up the street just couldn’t stop thinking about Scooter. He and his wife really wanted to figure out a way to “try out” Scooter in their home.
So one evening, they rang Annamarie’s doorbell and asked if Scooter could go to their house and “visit” for awhile.
Scooter went to Pupper’s house for a two-hour visit. At first, Pupper snarled at Scooter a few times, to make sure that Scooter understood that he was just a visitor. But after a little while, Pupper started to accept Scooter without feeling threatened by him.
A few days later, Scooter went back to Pupper’s house for an overnight visit. The next morning, the deputy and his wife decided to keep him a little longer. Scooter ended up staying two or three nights and days.
It’s been a few weeks since Scooter went to live at Pupper’s house permanently. Pupper and Scooter are best buddies now. They run around together, chasing and playing with each other.
And this coming weekend, when Scooter’s new family goes out of town for two weeks, Scooter will come back to Mike and Annamarie’s house to visit.
Here’s one of the photos that I took of Annamarie and Scooter:
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Florida, Friends, Images, Inspirational, Personal, Pets