Saving What You Love

I’m not sure if my dogs saved my life, but they definitely gave me life. I now pass that on how I can by fostering and transporting coonhounds. This video was put together by one of the volunteers for The American Black and Tan Coonhound Rescue. It recognizes the breed that I have come to love that is so misunderstood in our country. Please share this video with your friends. Oh, and watch close-Grannie has a cameo with my girls!!

 

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Coondog Day 2013

Once again, the town of Saluda, NC put on a great Coondog Day Festival! In fact, this year was the 50th year for the festival. Now, this is like many small town festivals…they shut down “the” street in town, people set up booths, everyone shows up for the parade and a good time is had by all. I went with Grannie, Daisy and Molly! Last year there were record high temperatures. I am happy to say it was around 80 degrees, and other than a few on and off rain showers, the weather was much nicer this year!

I went to help with the American Black and Tan Coonhound Rescue booth-which is the rescue I am fostering Molly through. Sadly, there are many people who come to this festival with the view that a coonhound is only good for hunting. We are there to show that they can be happy members of the family.

The parade is quite an interesting experience. Basically-there is no registration. If you want to be in the parade just show up at call time and they will put you in line. A couple things to note-the folks with guns (the confederate reinactors, and they guy following the dog in the hospital bed) were actually firing blanks. Lets just say there were many freaked out dogs watching the parade. Heck, there were freaked out humans!

At one end of the festival is where all the breeders set up. They have a coonhound bench show, a treeing contest, and that night they go out for a coon hunt. This year, Daisy and I tried the treeing contest. Basically…they put a scented fake raccoon in a cage and run it up a pole under this tent. The dog is supposed to run up and tree the raccoon. I am proud to say….Daisy refused to bay. Why am I proud? Well, all these “hunting” dogs were going NUTS over this dead, taxidermied raccoon in a cage. Daisy? She walked in, took one sniff then looked at me like “Um, Mom, it’s already dead!! DUH!” Then proceeded to wag and be cute towards the crowd. She was not fooled! It was a fundraiser for one of their regular coonhound club members who has been diagnosed with cancer and doesn’t have health insurance. You had a five dollar entry fee and they “auctioned” off your dog-the one with the highest price won and got to split the pot of money.

Hope you enjoy some of the pictures. If you live in the area, we’d love to see you next year!

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

No, this isn’t going to be an essay on a famous passenger on the RMS Titanic. So kids, if you are looking for help with your homework you better get back to google.

Miss Molly Brown is my new foster! She’s fresh from a different foster home where she was able to raise her singleton pup. He’s now been adopted and she is here for a little TLC and some more one on one attention. She did have a rough time before she came into rescue. We aren’t looking back though-it’s only getting better.

This sweet girl is about 60 pounds but she’s quite short and compact. She has wrinkles like a bloodhound but without the extra-large size. She is playing with toys for the first time and has started playing and wrestling with Daisy and Bella (when Bella will play) out in the back yard! She is very well behaved in the house and completely house trained. She does snore-but its cute. Molly’s main issue is that she does have  hand shyness if you try to reach out and grab her collar. She will either dart out of reach or completely freeze. I’m not sure what happened in her former life, but we are working on it.

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Risotto has a Home!

This past weekend my sweet foster Risotto-who is called Rizzie, went to her new home. It has been a couple days and I’m feeling great about it. On the long drive home I was terribly heartbroken and wondering if I could ever foster again. Then I got the picture of the kid/dog pile on a bed in her new home and I knew we’d both be just fine. She loves kids and now she has some to call her own! I knew she’d be okay with cats and she is-in fact she is a bit afraid of them right now.

Foster Grandpa got Rizzie some great flowers in celebration of getting her own home. The card said “I hope your next couch is the best”.

Personally, I will forever be grateful to Rizzie for teaching my Daisy that sleeping in the bed with me is a good thing! I always wanted a bed dog and now I have one.

Here are some last pictures of Rizzie and her flowers. As you can see Bella and Daisy were also interested in her gift.

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