Keisha was a little black pup that came to our shelter
with her 5 sisters. They were very young at the time.
Their mom refused to feed them and the people brought
them to a clinic to be destroyed. They ended up with us
instead and had to be nursed for a while.

Keisha was the smallest and was badly picked on by her sisters,
so I took her into my home over the Thanksgiving holiday,
where all she wanted to do was sleep wrapped in a blanket
in my lap or touching me. It was very difficult to return her
for adoption but she deserved a home of her own
where they would give her the full attention.

They were with us for many months
(black puppies seem to be hard to adopt, just as much as black cats)
but they all finely found loving homes.  All their names began with "K".

Here is her sister Kodiak.

 They were special favorites of the shelter staff and volunteers.
I cried for months after returning her because I wanted to keep her so badly.

The picture I scanned at the top left was taken
when I brought her home for the afternoon on New Years Eve.
I was working the shelter that night and just decided
to give her an afternoon out of the cage.
She rode home in my lap under the steering wheel
so that it was really hard to steer.
The dogs were excited to see her again but she was only interest in me.
This picture is sitting on my desk at work.
Many people think she is one of mine.
In my heart I guess she always will be.
Returning her was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

Here are a couple more pictures of her at the shelter -
the one on the left was after she first came in and
the one on the right was just before she finally got adopted.

My other foster pup was Howard.
He was a strange little mix.
His mother was a corgi/pug and his dad was unknown,
or as some people joke "a passing stranger".
But that really isn't funny, it's sad
because there are too many unwanted animals in the world.

He had a sibling that was adopted very quickly and Howard was left all alone.
He would hide at the back of the cage and
when pulled out for people to see would do the most remarkable
face of fear with mouth parted that one would have thought he was having a heart attack.

So I took him home over the Christmas holiday to try to bring him out of his shell.
I had no idea that it was all just an act.
Within a half hour he was parading through my livingroom
dragging a stuffed Xmas bear 3 times his size across the room.

He also had temper tantrums when put in his cage at night
and would storm the door and shake it - every hour all night.
I tried putting the cage in the bedroom with us
to keep him quiet but the dogs moving around kept him stirred up
so that I finally gave in and let him sleep with us on the bed
and he never made another noise that night. But that wasn't right
when we weren't going to keep him so
I put the cage back in the bathroom
the next night and the tantrums started again.
He loved my dogs and would have liked to stay but
I felt he deserved his own home and he was returned.
He lives with a beagle brother and they have lots of fun
and get into lots of trouble.

I think Murphy was trying to smash him in this picture. She likes to paw things that she isn't sure what they are - guess Howard fell into this category.  She never did figure out what he was though and any time he would come near her she would run away.

Also, please take a moment to sign my guestbook. Thanks.