Adopted by Love
Rio's JourneyWe've rescued 2 dogs from Sundance. Jake and Rio. Jake was born within Sundance's care and has had a privileged life so far. Anybody that knows me, knows I love to talk about Jake and show pictures of him. Words cannot describe the love I have for him. But this story will be about Rio (pictured). She has not had a privileged life and has seen to much abuse. I started volunteering with Sundance shortly after we adopted Jake. I liked the work they did and really had no idea of the scope of the problem with stray and abused dogs. I volunteered to work a Spay and Neuter clinic in Hobbema through Sundance. The last day we were getting ready to leave. Tracy Penrod (founder of Sundance) begged me to take this little dog back to the city. They had no room for her and if I didn't take her, she would have been set free into the community, as she had no owner and was just that, a "community" dog. So we loaded her up and I took her home to foster. I think she was as scared of me as I was of her. The second day we had to give her a bath. OMG....the bath water was filthy! With the bath, I was able to look her over better. She was missing teeth that looked to have been kicked out. She had a massive scar between her shoulders and a few cuts on her head. After we were done, Rio licked my hand as if to say thank you. For a whole week she would not leave her crate, except to go to the bathroom (which she has always done outside. She has never had an accident in the house). Then one morning at about 2:30 I heard her crying in her crate. I got up thinking she needed to go outside. Nope, she wanted to cuddle. I pulled out a blanket and pillow and slept with her on the floor until 6:30. Again she licked me as if to say thank you. That day was going to be her first adoption event. She was scared and was not sure what to expect. Through the coming weeks we went to every adoption event and she got better. More confident. Everybody at Sundance saw how she looked at me and said I was going to be a foster failure, but I refused to see that. I wanted this girl adopted. She only had one adoption application filled out for her the whole time we were fostering her. Tracy called me one morning to tell me that a lady wanted to meet Rio. I was happy for her but also very sad. We went for one last walk. While on the walk, Tracy called me again and said that the woman was not an acceptable person to adopt Rio. I think that is when I knew I was going to be a foster failure! My wife said, "you cannot let Rio be adopted. Look at the way she looks at you. It would break her heart." So we let Sundance know we were going to adopt Rio. She did give us a scare last year. She had what we thought was a crushed toe that turned out to be a type of bone cancer. The toe was amputated and the cancer was caught in time. It has been a year and Rio is cancer free! Now I always talk and brag about my Jake, but Rio is the real success. She has never growled, never snapped at me or the other dogs. Her favourite place is to be on the sofa on a cold winter days and on her own dog bed at night. She plays with Jake, tolerates Maisy, our other dog. She doesn't really know how to play with toys, but that is OK. She is a happy girl now and everyone that meets her, comments that her tail never stops wagging. And being happy is what success is about, isn't it?
Jake....the other adopted family member
|
Jager & DieselMy husband and I have welcomed two dogs from Sundance as members of our family. Diesel (formally TJ) and Jäger (formally Kris). Both dogs came to be a part of family on chance as either time we were not looking for a dog, but fell in love both times and had to make them part of our family. One morning Sundance happened to be having an adoption event in the parking lot of the grocery store. That's where we spotted Diesel. Love at first sight.... From that moment on Diesel has been like our first child. He was pretty skittish and afraid of the most unusual things (garbage bags, running vehicles). But with lots of love, patience, and structure; Diesel has become a very well behaved dog. Jäger came to us when I was about six months pregnant with our first child. My husband and I had volunteered at a Adoption event, and we had discussed beforehand how we were not going to be getting a dog as we were in the process of moving, and would soon have a newborn. Well that all went out the window when we met Jäger. His easy going personality and calm nature made him the perfect puppy for a child. We had to have him! Our families told us how crazy we were for adopting a puppy at such a hectic time in our lives. But they couldn't have been more wrong. Jäger has been the best furry addition to our family yet. He completely calmed Diesel down, as he is ALWAYS at Diesel's side. We now live on 100 acres of bliss, and the dogs have the life they have always deserved. They are the best of friends (i mean inseparable) and will live a long happy life being the guardians of our land.
Marc and Vannessa Goudreau 
Jager (Kris)
Diesel (TJ)
|
Baxter -- Love Story
We have a very busy house, 2 boys (5&7) and my husband and I but our house has always had a dog and sadly we lost our Jake Dog in April 2012. Our family was devastated by our loss but knew he had a great life and was living with our Papa in heaven now. So being working parents we thought ok we have some freedom now. Well that was very short lived! We missed having that furry face to meet us at the door when we came home and when we went to the lake we missed having a furry friend to play with. My husband started to do some research on rescue organizations and wow there was a lot of options and tons of dogs, thankfully as seasoned dog owners we kind of knew what were looking for and what breed we would like to have- or so we thought. My husband found Quimmick and immediately fell in love! I wouldn't look at the pictures because I am a softy and was trying to fight the urge to "need" another baby!! Well after a couple of months following Quimmicks progress on the Sundance Website we decided that we would go and see him, you know just to visit…
When we arrived at the foster parents home, we brought our friend who is a vet, and he was very timid! poor guy was 5 months old and totally scared of my husband and was quite timid of myself. But we just sat and tried to convince him that we are safe people. It took probably 30mins before he would come to us but once he did we couldn't get him to leave us alone. He loved our boys and would jump up and kiss them!! So we wanted to get him outside so we can see what he was like away from the safe foster parents environment. Well he did not like to be on a leash and was not going to move. We just kept constant pressure and tons of encouragement and within 3 mins we had him walking along with out issue. Well needless to say he stole our hearts and we took him home that night! Once we got home we got him settled in an showed him his new house. He was a very shy quiet dog he just slept in front of the fire place forever!!! We had found the perfect dog! Loved kids, active outside, not a big shedder PERFECT! The next month consisted of 2 daily walks (to get him used to being on a leash) and this also showed us lots of other things that he was scared of (garbage bags, cars, men, buses….) once we kept him focused on the walks and not on what he was scared of our little man now known as Baxter came out of his shell and we immediately started puppy classes with him, he had a few bad habits that we needed to fix ASAP. (He jumped, he like human food and absolutely loves socks!) So like a normal dog that he is we have conquered most of his "bad" habits but he still loves socks and my boys's mittens. He has fit into our house amazingly and now we don't know how we would have lived without him. There were/are still some challenging days but all in all he is the "Perfect Dog" for our house! Few of his quirks that we have grown to love: The boys are outside and he can't get to them, he wines until he finds "his" boys He is a very tall boy, if he wants something up high bad enough, he will get it Socks, oh socks that dog can pick them out of laundry baskets, he loves his socks!! He howls at our boys in the bathtub it is the funniest thing I have ever seen and of course the boys love it too! Doesn't love the water like we thought he would but will just lie on the pier while we play happily around him Submitted by the Shank Family Baxter (formerly Quimmik) |
