Wee Willie Winkie comes to Canada.
Winkie came into the Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control in Downey on September 27, 2014 as an owner surrender. He was four years old and quite overweight at 37 pounds. He was neutered on October 27, 2014.
Then, because nobody wanted to adopt him, he ended up on the euthanasia list. This is often the time that rescues from across the region come in to save the dogs they believe are adoptable. Nobody wanted Winkie. It could have been his demeanor while enclosed in a strange place, with the sounds and smells and sights unfamiliar to him, grieving, perhaps for his old life or his "person" and confused as to where he was and why. It could have been because of how he looked, missing fur, looking “mangy”. That's what I was told. He was an ugly dog.
He was diagnosed with alopecia (hair loss) that the vet thought might be allergies, or a metabolic/endocrine disorder. There were no resources at Downey to investigate/treat this and remained up to his adopter to see a private vet for blood work and evaluation. (That would take over a year, and Winkie will see our vet on September 26.)
The heroes from Columbia Humane Society in St. Helen’s. Oregon, decided to take him. They saved him. They are a no kill shelter, and he owes his life to them and we owe our future life with Winkie to them.
He stayed there for almost a year, with no interest from adopters It must have been difficult for him to see his kennel mates come and go. But thanks to Petfinder, we found him. To say the staff and volunteers were not excited to receive an expression of interest in this guy would be an understatement. A few weeks later, on August 26, 2015, he was on his way to Canada, Vancouver Island to be exact, and welcomed at the Campbell River airport by me, Emma, and sweet and sour chicken balls (without the sweet and sour). I think he liked the chicken best.
This was all a risk and kind of ironic. The humane society told us he was not adopted because of the way he looked, yet that is why I adopted him.
You see, we had lost our dog Kessler at the end of July. He was not our only dog, but he was Emma’s dog, my daughter who has autism, and we had saved him as an 8-week-old puppy, from Los Angeles, when he was very sick and had mange and secondary infections. In the year it took for him to recover, he bonded with Emma, who was very methodical with his medications and baths, something she loved to administer, and became her defacto therapy dog. He was one of a kind. His death, 5 years later, was sudden, even though he had a devastating illness that resulted in him losing his eye via a violent seizure, the encephalitis took him after three months, just at the time everybody thought he would make it. It was an agonizing loss and a wave of sadness so overwhelming engulfed our family.
I decided to start looking for another dog for Emma. My only pre-requisites were male, dachshund cross, and a dog that felt right. Major emphasis on the latter. I recall Winkie was around the 400th dog I viewed on Petfinder, meeting the criteria I had plugged into the search engine, and the only one I clicked on for further information. In fact he took my breath away due to his physical similarity to Kessler, and this was before I realized they were the same age, and that Winkie, too, had a skin condition. They both came from Los Angeles and were both brown ‘Doxie-crosses’.
Their personalities are very different. Kessler came to us as a little puppy and never saw a day of neglect or abuse. Winkie, I suspect, has not enjoyed the same peace and love in his life. He is deathly afraid of coat hangers, fast-moving people, and has some aggression that I suspect comes from a latent need for self preservation. He has been snappy and growly in his first couple of weeks here, over his food, over being touched in some places, or moved off the bed, a mere facade, I expect covering up a timid heart. But it has quickly dissipated the more he realizes he is safe here, and loved unconditionally. He is astoundingly bonded to Emma, literally following her everywhere. If she goes outside he waits at the door, pining. If she gets up to use the washroom in the night, he wakes up and goes with her, as if he is sleeping with one eye open. If any of our other dogs plan to jump up on her knee, well, Winkie remains a work in progress on that front, he is very possessive. But it will all settle itself over time.
We hear often that dogs in rescue are damaged goods. Yes it’s true that some rescue dogs aren’t good with other pets, and some aren’t good with children, or men, or being left alone. Some may have fear issues, while others might be over protective.
The same can be said about dogs anywhere. Most rescue dogs aren’t there because of behavioral issues, many of them are there at no fault of their own. Many are probably there because they were considered disposable.
Every dog who's adopted from a rescue means another spot opens up for yet another dog whose person dumps them, without concern for their fate. Some of those dogs, dumped into epidemically overcrowded shelters go straight to the "kill room".
There but for the grace of Columbia Humane Society went Winkie.
When you adopt a dog you’re giving him a second chance at life.
Everybody loves second chances.
At last count, I have had and lost 28 pets in my lifetime. None of them have ever been replaced. Winkie is not Kessler’s replacement. With that, I can state as fact: No matter how many times you go through it, losing a dog never gets easier. The only consolation that we have is the time spent in-between, and our lives are so much the better for it. The pain will fade, but that canine-shaped hole in your heart never goes away. Getting another dog does not fill it, it only makes our hearts grow larger, until we amass a gigantic heart with a lot of little dog-sized holes.
Like my backyard. And my couch. And the bottom end of my mattress (because they think I wont notice.
Let Winkie’s ongoing story inspire you, give you patience when your rescue isn’t perfect and give you faith that they will be in time and with love.
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