Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue

The Bella Coola 4 were rescued by Lou and Bonnie from ALBERTA who were vacationing at Bella Coola. When they found the Bella Coola 4 they didn’t just say “Somebody should do something about that dog running around town. Somebody should do something about that starving dog that those people who moved, left behind. Somebody should do something about the puppies that nobody wants. Somebody should do something about the four starving dogs and then walk away. They did that something to help.

They found a safe haven for them and then drove them seven hours out of their way (from Prince George which is where they would turn to go home), transporting 4 strange dogs in their own vehicle – a suburban, bought them collars and leashes and food. They are Somebody and heroes in my eyes. Thank you for showing me an extreme animal lovers’ soul. And they are cat people – they have precious cats at home – no dogs!! King, Bella, Spring and Chinook thank you too.

 

And Turtle Gardens’ everyday heroes are our veterinarians Dr. Martin and Dr Kye and all their staff. Without their care and compassion we would not be able to continue our work at Turtle Gardens. Your support, words of wisdom and encouragement when days seem so bleak and never ending is so appreciated. Without you there would be no Turtle Gardens.

And to everyone who has ever donated dollars or supplies – you are our heroes too. Big or small we appreciate them all. THANK YOU.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

Busy as bees sounds better  and that is what we are! Getting up, picking up deposits while the coffee brews (thank doG for starbucks coffee!!) Having a couple of cups while we discuss the day and then it is wash the floors and start our day!

Today was a busy day to meet people. A couple of days ago we received a phone call from Lou and his wife who were vacationing in Bella Coola and found four skinny dogs. Three were male and one was a female. They seemed friendly and he wanted a safe haven for them. He had called all the rescues on the BC Rescue web site. No one could help. I told him we would help if no one else came forward. Today he called from Vanderhoof – he was on his way here. Luckily for me both my guys were still home – did I mention that Stan got home in time to meet Kelsey at the schoolbus this morning? He said he would call from Burns Lake for directions. I said ok I will be ready.

Stan brought home two returns – Sheba – a lovely, sheltie/husky mix and Penny one of our failed sherriff dogs – she has severe separation anxiety. While we were waiting we had a visit from Migs who was looking for a good bush dog to take to work with her. And she will be in wilderness! We talked about the dogs here and soon Road was brought out. It was love at first sight. We talked about his background and then after signing adoption papers Stan set up a crate in their pick up for Road to ride home in – surrounded by all their gear. Good luck Road!
Another sherriff dog finds a home – he looks like a sled dog!

Then Derek arrived and he was looking for a gentle medium sized dog. And who did he see first off? Sheba who had just arrived from a long trip south. And again – love at first sight. She is so soft and gentle a bit shy but so well behaved and she was so pretty with her one blue eye.
Pretty Sheba.

He did look at a few of the other dogs but his eye kept going back to Sheba. Then he asked if we ever allowed dogs to overnight and I said "Oh yes we allow sleepovers!" so all of Sheba’s worldly possessions in a plastic bag went with her and a new leash – she has chewed her other one! thank you Dayle – we have used the collars and leashes as soon as I unpacked the box!! We are alway short of leashes. A matched set went with a very special boy but that is another day’s blog.

As Derek didn’t want to be on the net I cut him out but this is when Sheba has her new leach clipped on for her ride home.
Good luck Sheba – kitties are your friends.

Then Lou and his wife arrived with the four Bella Coola dogs. And what a sad sight they are. These are four of the saddest scraps of canine fur you can imagine. Lou has named them so here they are:

Bella – the very pregnant female!

Chinook – a very nice boy!

King – the leader of the four and he went from Lou’s suburban right into the TG Bus to the vet. He has a broken femur that is almost healed – he is starting to walk on it. It is healing straight so it will continue to heal on its own. He was too thin to vaccinate -so he needs a few days of rest and all the food he can eat – Thank you VAS for the premium dog food – we really appreciate it!! Then he will be dewormed and hsi rehabilitation will begin.

Spring – "Can I really eat?" He also went to the vet as he is soooo thin. He too needs rest before worming and then all the food he can eat.

And the reason they were loaded up so quickly? It is pick the Pound dogs day! Two more Burns Lake Pound dogs and these are a tad thin too. Turtle Gardens welcomes two nameless puppers.

This is a 5 year old dane mix – giving a good shake up. He is a good boy too.

This young sharpei something mix is a very sweet girl.

The reunion when the two came back from the Veterinarian. Thank you for giving us the time to examine them without an appointment we really appreciate all you do for us and all the rescue animals in Burns Lake and beyond.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

It seems that everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off but a lot is getting done! The yards are cleaned up and the water drained off with little ditches carved into the landscape. Mud is a killer around here – with so many dogs coming in and out it was impossible to keep the floors clean. I wore out the mop head and used gallons and gallons of bleach and cleansers. The backhoe made a horrible mess of our lawns both front and back and left piles of sand and gravel – many piles which are still too frozen for Dave to shovel. the days are warming up with the songbirds telling us that spring is here. It just isn’t warm at night yet – everything freezes overnight then thaws out by noon to start the slow process of clearing the ground. The hill across the road still has well over a foot of snow. I am really really wanting greener weather!

On the plus side the web site is nearing completion, the Turtle Gardens Facebook has nearly 60 members with loads of Happy pictures.  We (our supporters and the TG crew)  are working on transport for the dog food. And adoptions are picking up. Three dogs are gone for sleepovers – and dear Buddy has a Foster to adopt!!!  He will be fostered until his demodex is clear and he can be neutered. His medical expenses will be covered in full until he is ready for adoption. The two preteen girls absolutely adore him. They love his cuddly schmoozy face. And he really loves the hugs. He never looked back and hopped into the back seat as if he was home – I really do think he is!

Crackers and Amelia and Mimsy and Raz have been adopted. Amelia is wonderful with the kitten and the old cat. Wayne lost his Georgie last month whom he adopted from TG 10 years ago! Amelia has filled an emptiness in his heart. Good luck Amelia. And Mimsy’s sleepover was a resounding success. She is housebroken, well behaved – a dream of a companion. – I knew that!! She came back on Tuesday evening – was spayed on Wednesday and went back home from the hospital! Another Happy Ending. Raz’s family are coming today to finalize his adoption – he is a keeper too. He and Ben are best buds. What a Happy day!

There hasn’t only been good things – well maybe this is a good thing too. An old dog came in yesterday. She is 14 years old , arthritic, has lumps and bumps on her and because she needs to see a veterinarian she came back to us. I always say we take back our dogs no matter why or no matter how long they have been adopted. All I can say about Jessie is that booze got in the way. And a dog suffered. Jessie is gone to our veterinarian today. She needs pain management for her arthritis – a healed fracture of her front leg left her in pain and limping. She is thin and old and needs a soft WARM bed – they had kicked her outside. She follows me from room to room. We welcome Jessie – your days will be warm and pain free. You can live with us – we love old dogs!

Sweet Jessie.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

What a wonderful world we live in, to be able to communicate with 35 people, all at once . To see their pictures and comment on them is way too cool. It’s so heart warming to see all the furry friends that I have known and given a ride to in their furever homes. I even got called the most lovable redneck they know , how cool is that. I think the best part of face book for me is my life is so busy and hectic, that some times I forget things that are very important to me, with face book I am reminded of them, in living color. The shed is one of those forgotten things, I am not sure but if you have ever put up a tin garden shed you know where I am coming from. Carol at Saints, (who I just love by the way) agreed to share a piece of her paradise with TG. A place we can store dog food and such, so when people are going north it is there pick up. They could stop there as it’s on the way out of town and load the food to take north. We lost our transportation for food last fall and now we have to haul it ourselves; which is one of the reasons the poor van has no transmission. It’s not made to haul all that weight for 14 hours over the mountains. So now we have to buy the food when we run low and this moth alone we have spent over 600 dollars on food. But back to the shed and the really wonderful things it is going to reveal. I open the big cardboard box up to find about 5000 little nuts bolts and screws, and only ten pages of the worst instructions I have ever seen and they were to put together 5 different size sheds. I have to admit that I sat down and thought to my self oh no this is going to be almost impossible. So Kelsey was here with me and she is a very skilled been following daddy around for many years. Daddy I want to do it are words I am very used to hearing; she can, drill, saw ,screw and use a measuring tape with the best of them. So when she said "Daddy I want to do it" I wasn’t surprised but I was surprised to hear Ange "to say I want to help too, I love to put things together". That’s when Kelsey said "ya daddy can we do it please" Now that is one of those moments as a "daddy" I have learn to ask myself "Is the lesson they are going to learn worth all the time it is going to take to redo the shed ???"If I want her to never to say "I can’t  I most definitely shouldn’t tell her "no she can’t because it’s going to be very hard." What I saw next was one of the most amazing thing I have seen! Those three teens worked together as a team; three strangers from total different worlds and lives created an atmosphere of compromise, support and tenacity and mutual respect that most adults would love to be a part of. After all the destructive negative behavior we have just been through in the rescue community I thought to myself how  really big of an accomplishment it was that they were able to create that atmosphere. So I had totally planned on thanking them and complimenting them on what they had done. But as usual I got distracted with the web site and talking to a person that I never get a chance to talk to about it. It wasn’t till I was driving home that I realized that I never thanked Ange and gave her a big hug and thank her and complement her on the wonderful job she did on the shed. Then I got very busy with all the rest of the things going a thousand miles an hour in my life and never wrote the blog I was going to write about it all. So when Ange sent me a friend request last night it really hit me that she hadn’t helped with the shed to hear a thank you or to hear how good she was. She really did it with no expectations. But I have to really stop and say it THANK YOU Ange and you’re a great friend.

Ok I asked Ange if I could us a pic of her in the blog and she said as long as i don’t use one of her face. So the hands holding the tin up are her.

Ok here is a little more of Ange but still no face. The one in the middle is baby redneck (daddys pride and joy) and of  course the one on the end is Jim.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

Turtle gardens has its own facebook page. It is a place to post Happy Endings pictures and to write stories about your adopted dogs. This will show what wonderful dogs we have and in rescue. A lot of people still think that dogs who end up in shelters and rescues have "something" wrong with them. Not so!!

One of the most common excuses I hear about not wanting their dog is "I am moving"  It is too much trouble to take the family dog along. So they relocate the dog/cat or just leave it behind. Someone else will take it in. We live in a throwaway society and what does that teach today’s children?

So a lot of dogs end up in shelters or rescues that are wonderful family pets. Like Chaska (She is one of Bonnie Lassie’s pups – a Nautical!!)
:
Hi Yvette-
It’s been several months since I emailed you.  Chaska just had her first
birthday.  I don’t think she was very impressed by my singing Happy
Birthday, but she liked the bits of chicken I gave her.

She is a very friendly and out-going dog, who just wants to play with
everyone.  You obviously did a great job of socializing her when she was
a young puppy.   We take a lot of walks in a large park nearby, with
trails and hills and interesting smells.  A couple of doggie buddies
from the training school come over every week to play – lots of chasing
and wrestling until they are worn out.  She has just discovered how to
climb over the 3 foot fence around my vegetable garden (she seems to
like asparagus!), so I need to make the fence a bit taller.  Fortunately
she only climbs over in order to join me when I’m gardening; the garden
is safe the rest of the time.

Attached are a couple pictures from "graduation day" from her Advanced
Puppy training class.   It’s hard to tell size from the pictures.  She
weighs 42 pounds – just a bit more than you guessed might be her adult
weight.

Thanks for a great dog,

Rondi

This email could be on facebook with the pictures.  If you need help either in finding the facebook or posting email Stan  at slabatte @ gmail.com – remove spaces. Stan says it could be a lot of fun to keep in touch and some really cool things on it. I will be posting there too. And there is pictures of me and my dogs if you want to know what I look like! Have fun – looking forward to "seeing" you there.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.