current residents
These are the dogs currently living at our sanctuary. All of our dogs live in our home as family members. We don’t use kennels or cages or outbuildings. Our dogs spend their days on the couch watching tv, lounging in front of the wood burning stove, begging for more food and sleeping in my bed at night. We have four acres for them to roam, but I find they prefer being in my lap and following me to the bathroom.
Bandido
So Bandido is a “special needs” dog because of his behavioral issues. You can see he is as cute as a button (I mean, look at those teeth), but looks can be deceiving.
Bandido bit Erik on the way home and then hid under the bed for three days. I was beginning to think he might live under there forever, and then we had a thunderstorm. He’s terrified of thunder and jumped into Erik’s lap. He then became a relatively normal dog. And I mean “relatively normal” in a way that only people who live with over a dozen old dogs, have a chicken coop in their living room and have high anxiety can mean, “relatively normal.”
Bandido will scream if you try to pick him up, groom him, or put any sort of collar or leash on him. And I mean scream. Like a teenage girl in a B-horror movie scream. And then he’s utterly traumatized for about a week. But other than that, he’s a pretty friendly little guy. I can even kiss his little squished up face. He reminds me a bit of “Mama” in Throw Mama From the Train. Go watch it right now, you’ll see what I mean.
Bandido’s other quirk is that he won’t eat dog food. Ever. I think he’d starve to death before he’d touch the stuff. So we feed him chicken, hamburger and his favorite, hot dogs. We are a non-judgemental sanctuary; if all you will eat is gross hot dogs then so be it.
Birdie
Birdie likes to do three things in this order…chase the cats, eat and sleep. That’s it. A simple life.
We had initially named Birdie, Gilda, but she makes this cute chirping noise when she sees the cats, so we renamed her.
She’s about 12-14, has limited vision (enough to chase the cats apparently), and is super sweet and shy. She cowers if you reach for her, but she’s coming around.
She spends her days sleeping on my bed facing the hallway so she can chase a cat if one happens by.
Bob
So, if you are unfortunate enough to land at the Sanctuary during December, you get a Christmas-themed name. I LOVE Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, (Erik HATES A Christmas Carol because he worked in theatre for most of his life) but I know he’s wrong, so here’s Bob Cratchit. (We’ve also had Dickens, Ebenezer, and Martha…you know, “it’s such a goose, Martha”…and we currently have Topper for those keeping track. We can’t have Marley because it’s the most overused dog name in history, and my brother-in-law’s name was Fred, so that’s a no-go. I do have a tarantula named Tiny Tim and two Euromastyx lizards who are The Fezziwigs, but I digress).
Okay, so I was told by the shelter that Bob was a sweet, old poodle. Well, he is sweet, but that’s about all that was true. He’s actually a wirehair dachshund mix, and he’s very young. But I LOVE him. He’s funny, sweet, super friendly, smart, and affectionate. Sometimes I feel like when I get a young dog by mistake, it is just the Universe giving me a little reward…you know, like a dog that might not drop dead in the next week.
The reason I know Bob is young is that he still has his testicles, and they are as firm as sugar plums. Most old dog testicles are more like the shriveled raisins you find in Aunt Bertha’s stale fruit cake. And the beautiful thing about Bob? He loves showcasing his balls. All the time. In every photo of Bob, he shares his most glorious attributes. Unfortunately, at some point, they’ll have to go, but we will let the world see them first. I’m sharing this one photo, but if you find yourself wanting more, you’ll have to subscribe to his Only Fans account.
Mabel
Mabel is the sweetest of the sweet. We call her Maple because she’s as sweet as maple syrup. She came to us from an abusive situation. When we got her she was terrified of us and the other dogs. She would sleep in a bed way across the room and would often hide her head under a blanket when she was stressed or scared. She is particularly scared of the floor cleaner. Or any kind of cleaning…making her my spirit animal and also giving me a good reason not to clean. It took her years to come out of her shell and start to interact with us. She’s about 13 years old and is completely blind. She has become the emotional support dog to other blind dogs here, like the late Irving and Story.
She’s a total anomaly because she’s a chihuahua, yet she’s not a total asshole. IYKYK.
Chester
Chester is a 18-year-old Chihuahua. He is tiny…like three pounds. The kind of dog little girls dream about. He came from a hoarder where he lived outside with 70 other dogs. He survived the winters by crawling underneath the other dogs to stay warm. Sort of like Luke Skywalker getting inside the tauntaun’s warm carcass. When he was rescued he had a stick that was duct taped to his leg, which had been broken but had also healed.
Chester loves to pee on everything. Beds, pillows, other dogs, guests. When he doesn’t feel well he climbs into the kleenex box on my nightstand. He refuses to have his nails clipped (making him look a bit like Mr. Burns when he rubs his long skinny fingers together and says “Excellent”). Chester can make your ears bleed with his bark. However, his real gift is that when he begs he can cry real tears. Sara McLaughlin and the Humane Society have nothin’ on Chester.
Fig
Fig is our youngest dog. He’s about five. Being a Chihuahua means he is crazy. Being a Chihuahua with a brain injury means he is off-the-charts psycho.
Kicked in the head as a baby by some lovely person, he was seized from said lovely person, hospitalized and then taken to the shelter where he was subsequently adopted. His adoring new parents, who promised to love and cherish him forever, apparently spent most of their time chasing and threatening him in an attempt to housebreak him. When they weren’t doing that, they were trying to forcibly restrain him so they could clip his nails. I guess all of this quality time got old, and they dumped him back at the shelter after a few short months. So much for forever. I said no to taking Fig five times. But when he ended up on the euthanasia list I caved. Fun fact: I suck at saying no (though I practice on my husband frequently). If I say no once, it’s a pretty safe bet you just gotta ask again. Or four more times, as in Fig’s case.
Fig is super-sweet – loves to be cuddled and held, but he’s highly unpredictable. He has shrieking spells where even he is left wondering WTF. He’s terrified of bananas, will kiss you and then bite you in the span of a fraction of a second, pukes when nervous, sucks on your finger, rolls in disgusting substances to make himself more interesting, and has seizures. His head is misshapen, and his tongue hangs out for no apparent reason, but when he curls up into a tiny ball to sleep (like a psychotic gerbil) your heart will almost burst from the adorableness of it all.
Hamlet
Hamlet (or Hami as we like to call him) is n 8-year-old mutt.
Put in a box at eight weeks old, driven to the desert, and abandoned, his life didn’t start out so great. Then Animal Control found the box. So that was great. Hami is one lucky dog.
He suffers from Cerebellar Hypoplasia, meaning his brain stem isn’t fully developed so he suffers from constant tremors and instability (probably why he found himself in a box in the desert). Think of a drunken toddler. That’s Hami.
Despite his disability, he is fierce. He is always up for a fight…he is the bravest dog I know. He’s small but thinks nothing of taking on our 185-pound Great Pyrenees; he is very strong and can pull himself up on the couch. Like those old-timey weight lifters with huge pecs and arms but with tiny waists and shriveled legs. He can't do stairs. At all. He throws himself off furniture like an acrobat. The only time he is still is when he is completely asleep.
Like all of us who were traumatized in our early years, and have an anxious attachment style, Hami shows his love by biting. Specifically biting your shins when you walk into a room. Friends of mine know this and wear protective gear when visiting. As the Def Lepard song goes, Loves Bites. Indeed.
Irving
Okay, so here’s the thing about Irving. I can’t really give you an accurate age. Maybe 110? It’s hard to say. Irving arrived at the Sanctuary with his yard mate, Ebenezer. And you guessed it, they arrived in December, so they were saddled with a Christmas name. Irving is named after Irving Berlin, the author of the song, White Christmas. Anyway, Irving and Ebenezer were left in the yard when their owners moved.
Irving has cancer. Lymphoma, to be exact. The thing is, he’s had it for years. The vet thought he’d be dead long ago. We did too. We always think Irving will be the next to go. Irving has other ideas. In fact, after a dog dies we all look at Irving and shake our heads. And when I had cancer last year, I thought, “oh fuck, I’m going to die before Irving.”
Now I’m kinda wondering if Irving was really abandoned in the yard of his previous owner. Maybe he died many years ago, was buried there, then dug himself out of his grave, and is now really one of the undead? I’ll definitely keep you posted.
Lolly
So Lolly is a tiny little thing, about three pounds at the most. But her personality is about three tons. She is spoiled, entitled, and adorable.
I was recently reading a book that reminded me of Lolly. It was called “The Girl with the Louding Voice” and never has there been a better description for anyone or anything. She loves to bark. In your face and really, really loud. She knows she’s too tiny and cute to be punished. She also loves to howl. And it’s the most horrible thing you’ve ever heard.
Lolly is about 12 years old and was found as a stray wearing a coat that was too small and had rubbed all the fur off her legs, belly, and chest. They had to cut her out of it. She is also missing all of her teeth.
She’s never eaten a meal out of her own bowl. She steals bites and morsels out of everyone else’s bowl. I guess this is a carryover from her days of foraging as a stray, or probably more likely, just her beautiful mean girl way of showing everyone else she can.
Ilsa
Ilsa is an old pug, and she’s huge. Like not even close to the size of a normal pug, but looks exactly like a pug. Like one of those old sci-fi movies from the 1950s where a normal-sized animal gets hit with some massive radiation and becomes a giant size. That’s Ilsa. She’s demanding, entitled, loves to talk, and snores loudly.
She loves to fight. She waits to eat her meals to lure unsuspecting dogs over and then tries to kill them. It makes her happy. Gleeful really. She loves to fight so much that she becomes a bodyguard to other dogs who have treats or are eating their meals. She’ll stand in front of them and try to fight other dogs that might get close. So yeah, being a jerk by proxy. Her perfect career would have been as a bouncer at Roadhouse. Funny enough, I named her after the beautiful, delicate character Ilsa Lund in Casablanca. Of all the gin joints in all the world and she had to walk into mine.
Ilsa’s other main talent is looking bored. And disappointed. Make no mistake, she’s judging you.
Story
Story is a 17-year-old Chihuahua/harp seal mix. He’s missing one eye and blind in the other. He has no teeth and is very round. He was found in a field in the middle of nowhere with a stick in his eye. So they took it out (the stick and the eye).
Story is sort of an anomaly. He’s sort of sweet and shy…but then his flip switches and he becomes quite fierce. His arch-nemesis is Icarus. They spend their days trying to find each other and fight. Seeing how they are both blind (SEE what I did there?) there’s a lot more searching and a lot less actual fighting. And if there is an actual fight, there is no clear winner. Icarus is paralyzed, blind and has no teeth. Story is fat, blind and has no teeth…and has a bad heart, so he has to take multiple breaks from fighting to catch his breath and stop coughing. Think of Burgess Meredith in Rocky…that is Story.
Topper
This little guy is Topper, yes another Christmas Carol name. I don’t think he’s too old…yes, duped by the shelter again. He’s extremely high energy and does this incredible dance while standing on his back legs and madly waving his arms anytime he wants anything. Which is basically all the time.
Topper was picked up as a stray so we know not what horrors he’s faced in his life. We do know he is missing most of his lower jaw, and the sides of his jaws are not connected. Accident? Birth defect? Plastic surgery gone wrong? He also suffers from seizures, which is probably somehow related.
Topper loves to fight, but since he can’t close his mouth, he doesn’t do much damage. He’s an attention-whore and loves to sit in people’s laps and drool (but don’t we all?) He tries to eat everything, but he can’t. He pretty much drinks his meals, which I’m sure we can all relate to on some level.
Wilkie
Wilkie came to us a long time ago. Like a LONG time ago. My son, who is currently 18, was in preschool at the time. He was taken from his owner because of neglect (Wilkie, not my son). He was a skeleton when we got him. Wilkie is our oldest dog at 19 years old. He’s pretty crabby, and only likes me, and even that is subject to change.
Wilkie is named after one of my favorite authors, Wilkie Collins. Wilkie Collins was an opium addict. Wilkie, the dog, is not. He looks like one, but honestly, he has no access to opium. Sometimes Rimadyl, but definitely nothing harder.
He has this freaky nighttime ritual of licking the clean sheets on the bed. Not sure what that is all about, but when you are as old as Wilkie I figure you have earned the right to have a few strange behaviors that you shouldn’t have to justify.