Valentine’s Day Love Story with a Happy Ending, Starring 2 Pit Bulls from the York County Animal Shelter
Baby pit bull and Mama blue nose
My husband and I met these 2 dogs at the York County Animal Shelter on June 16, 2019 at 10:19 AM. It was a blistering 91° with a 61% dew point, even at that hour. Photographing dogs out in the midday sun for hours was excruciating and physically recovering from the 20-30 dogs per 90 minute sessions averaged 10 days.
I had been quite ill for nearly 2 years with a serious chronic illness, visiting a doctor and/ or hospital 2-3 times/ week. One of the side effects of my medications was sun exposure and heat sensitivity.
My husband’s assistance was very helpful since he was the only one who knew I was not well. It’s just not something I normally talk about. When you’re sick the last thing you want to talk about is being sick. Anyway…
The foster dogs arrive on July 1- a blue nose pit bull and her 6-8 month old puppy
On June 30th the shelter put out an urgent request: these 2 dogs needed immediate rescue out of the shelter or they were at risk for euthanasia because the shelter was out of space. Although we already have 3 dogs, we agreed to foster them for 2 weeks as travel schedules allowed. We made the preparations and picked them up from the shelter on July 1.
Mama, a gorgeous blue nose pit bull, moments after arriving at our home
Later that afternoon the mama dog and my husband watched an old western movie
The mama dog is very sick with heartworm
It is believed they are a mother daughter pairing, with the blue nose pit bull being the mother and the white one still a baby, maybe 6 months old. The mother was very ill with advanced heartworm and needed to be kept as still and calm as possible.
If you know puppies, there is nothing calm or still about them. So I took the puppy out often to give mama a chance to rest.
Mama dog was so distressed with advanced heartworm I worried she would not survive
How to manage 3 resident dogs and 2 foster dogs in the same house
For this to be successful we devised the cycle system: cycling the foster dogs and our dogs through multiple gates and doors so they never met. We designated separate areas of our house and cycled each dog group throughout the day. When our dogs were outside we’d move the fosters to the common areas for a bit and put them into a private area when our dogs came in. We’d put the fosters in our bedroom while our dogs were in the common areas and so on. Cycle, cycle, cycle.
Pit bull mama and puppy in their crates- notice which is in which. That puppy was a pushy little thing.
It was our system and it worked. But it was absolutely exhausting for us and for the 5 dogs.
4th of July morning. I’m not sure we could have done this had it not been a holiday week with both of us having almost 2 weeks off.
They sure are sweet and cuddly
Training the puppy was a joy
My husband was with them mostly but I took the puppy and trained her. She was a great learner and knew her basic commands when we returned them to the shelter for rescue transport.
I was already in love with this puppy by day 2. We sat outside early in the morning for a couple of hours after our morning walk.
She was a great walker. She didn’t pull, heeled well and she was not at all reactive to other dogs. But to be honest other dog parents often pulled their own dogs away when they saw her. The pit bull stigma- unfortunately it is a real thing.
We pulled out all the stops to get these dogs rescued. My neighbors even got involved and had their adorable daughters sit for a promo photo for them. The general idea was the little girls and the dogs were going to have a tea and cupcake party. Until the dogs turned out to really like the cupcakes the little girls were eating. The best laid plans…
Little girl model props
Cupcake party- what happened to the cupcakes?
On July 9th while I was cycling my own dogs inside our bedroom with a double barrier entrance, my 80+ pound Dogo Argentino landed hard on my right foot and I couldn’t walk.
A foot is not supposed to look like that
My Dogo- sorry about the quality. I downloaded it off my FB page. She ain’t dainty, folks.
Which landed me in the hospital with a broken foot. I was back photographing shelter dogs in the sweltering heat on one foot 5 days later.
In the hospital with a broken foot
I hopped around ok but it’s difficult to control multiple large breed dogs at the same time. In the meantime it meant my husband had to cycle the dogs in the house without me. He managed to introduce the puppy to 2 of our dogs and they played and interacted well in the yard.
A successful dog group introduction
After 2 weeks we returned to our normal schedules and the pair went to rescue. They both took a piece of our hearts with them. My husband and I cried quite a bit but knew they were going to their forever homes Aiken, SC. The puppy was adopted right away. The mother dog was successfully treated and cured of heartworm and was featured on TV!
Mama pit bull foster on TVhttps://www.wrdw.com/content/misc/Take-Me-Home-Meet-Cookie-513539181.html