Some happy news

Remember Fleka? Well, she got adopted just a couple of days after Alice took her for a walk? And Nelly? Well, she got back with her family. I think Alice need to come more often as she obviously brings luck to the dogs she walks:)
I also got to cuddle with a Sharpey/Mastiff puppy - three black ones were brought to the shelter and only one hasn't been adopted yet. She put her pawa "around" my neck and burried her face into my hair. I just couldn't leave!!! She is one of the black ones.

An afternoon with Elda & Alice

I spent a lovely afternoon yesterday with my dear friend Elda (you can read her blog by clicking here) . Elda and her daughter Alice wanted to visit our dog shelter and I was more than glad to take them there. Because of Alice we only wanted to take out smaller dogs so that she could walk them. So we took Fleka (Flehkah) - seems like she was found in Trieste - what a coincidence! That is where Elda lives!! She has just been sterilized so she had to wear the, what I call, a satellite dish:) but that didn't spoil our experience.

She is a very nice, gentle and sweet girl who loves to give kisses :)) She really looks like she was with a good human family because she is well fed and her coat is shiny. I hope her she can get reunited with her family but if she doesn't I am sure she'll find a new one in a heartbeat.

As Alice absolutely wanted to walk another dog (even if it was quite cold) she chose Nelly. Nelly is a new arrival -  her owner ended up hospitalized and the dog's owner's son brought her to the shelter as he didn't want to take care of her. It may have been for the best. Nelly is a bit shy in the kennel but she is very nice on the walk and she looks quite funny, too, as she is soooo loooong!

 

I really hope we can repeat the experience some time soon!

A few videos

I thought to share a video of Pupa and one of Misha with her pups...

Misha was adopted!!!

I first met Misha in the beginning of February of 2009. I was just leaving the shelter when 2 ladies who work there came and they had Misha with them. She was found in a village, hungry and very scared as everybody was chasing her away because she was pregnant. They asked me if I could stay a little longer to keep Misha company while they prepared a kennel for her. She wouldn't move a centimeter, she was just too shy and so humble that it broke my heart. I was given the honor to name her and I chose the name Misha as it had such a gentle and sweet sound to it (it's also a diminutive for a mouse). It was love at first sight! I started going to the shelter even more frequently and she changed so much in just a week! Even though she was huge she jumped up like a flee and was so full of energy and love. She liked going for walks but she liked cuddling even more! She gave birth to 7 beautiful pups on February 18th. And she was treated like Snow White:) Everybody at the shelter fell in love with her the minute they got to know her and we were all fussing over her and later over her pups as well. Here they are the day they were born, with their proud mum:

She was very tired during the first days and she didn't want to go for a walk but I managed to take her out for 15 minutes - she just wanted to be with her pups. This changed the bigger they got :) She was a brilliant mum and everybody who adopted one of the pups said the pups were well behaved, gentle, playful,happy. There was a waiting list for them and the shelter could chose the best of the owners for them.

 

 

 

After the pups were all adopted Misha was sterilized (shelter policy). She was always so happy to see me and she was a real joy. She loves to cuddle and instead of walking, I just sat down with her and we cuddled :)) I always like to walk the dogs who like to cuddle... it's obvious that I like cuddling them as much as they enjoy it! Misha was first adopted during the summer, but her new family brought her back as she just didn't adapt. I believe she's had some bad experience with men so she snarled at the husband and later on at kids as well. When Misha saw she is back at the shelter and the ladies who work there, she went crazy!! She whined, jumped, went totally nuts from joy.The woman who brought her back ended up in tears and she said that if she was half as crazy about them as she was about the shelter ladies, they wouldn't have brought her back. After that Misha didn't want to go on walks with strangers as she feared they might take her away from there, silly girl. But she genuinely loved it there. This time she was adopted by a woman who lives alone with another dog and 3 cats. She doesn't work, has a big house and a garden. She calls every day to report how Misha is doing, she kept her name (usually the new owner change the dog's name) and Misha is doing just fine. She sleeps with her new human in the bedroom!! I really hope she continues to do well. The woman said she will come visit after a few months and I really hope I get to see Misha again!!! I have mixed emotions about this: I am happy that she might find a permanent home, but I am also sad because I won't see her adorable face anymore.I am sorry this post is so long, but I cannot stop when I talk animals!

Dog walking

We finally had a dry day and I went to the dog shelter after work. After being sick for over 10 days, then constant rain and a couple of annoying days at work I couldn't wait to go to! Walking the dogs is my cure for (almost) everything. When I was frustrated with the studying for the state exam, when I feel blue, when I lost my grandmother, when I just feel overwhelmed I know where to go. It works every time. And when I am in a good mood, I come home in an even better one! It's not just the walking, it's the cuddling, too:). I was over stressed, with a headache, tense, ... but I came home happy, energized and relaxed!

Our local dog shelter is home to approximately 70 dogs and around 10 kittens and cats. It's a no kill shelter and they try their best to find homes for every dog and cat that lives there. I've been a regular volunteer for 4 years now and I try to go weekly to walk, brush and pet the dogs, to help with the preparing the food and the feeding. My husband does not want to have a dog so walking the shelter dogs is the second best thing. It really is. I know that if I had a dog, I wouldn't be so regular there and those dogs need love and cuddling even more. Just after a few months after I started going there I chose to adopt a dog on distance. That means that the dog still lives at the shelter, but you pay monthly a certain amount of money for his/her food and vet care. The money really goes towards all the dogs, the dog you choose is just to make it more personal. After my first day there I fell in love with PETKA. She was taken from her owner as she was bones only and she was living on a short chain (which is against the law in Slovenia, but a lot of dogs still live on the chain:( ). That's why she kept having puppies and she ate rocks (her teeth are the proof of that) because she obviously wasn't fed enough. One of the puppies was taken away, too. He looked like a St. Bernard mix and he was huge! But adorable and he found a new home in a heartbeat. Petka was immediately sterilized and was very shy at the beginning and she would (and still does) do just anything for food. She was also very playful when she started to relax and she loved to cuddle. She was very thin.

With time she started to forget about her past and she was a bit of a star of the shelter. She also gained weight and became more cheerful. She would check my pockets (where I had the dog biscuits) all the time.

She was adopted 5 months later by a great family. I wanted to know where she ended up and I contacted her new family and we became friends, so I can still visit her!! She is the queen of the house and she is teaching her human family new tricks every day :). They renamed her Iena and discovered, she was a pure bread Dutch Sheppard (not that it matters).

Iena in her new home:

Can you tell she is happy now? We met at the park where she loves to run. She was the first on distance adopted dog, but not the last... but I'll tell you about "my" other dogs in another post.

It would be a lie if I said I didn't have favorites. Apart from my new on distance adopted dog Misha

I love walking Dik, an older German Sheppard.

There's a lot of nice walking ground: