Meet Shira and Sam, mother and son. We came across these 2 dogs a couple of years ago. We saw them chained to the fence and stopped to talk with the owner. It was a young man and his mother that lived there together and the dogs belonged to the son. Neither of them were fixed at the time, no vaccinations. They were on chains and had inadequate shelter. They were at good body weight and the dogs seemed to like the owner-they weren’t afraid of him or anything. They got excited when he came back there, however we could not touch them at all.
We made arrangements and brought these dogs in for spay/neuter, vaccinations and de-worming. Thank you donors for making this possible!
After these two were spayed and neutered, we provided better dog houses for them both. We got them on tie-out cables, instead of their chains. We provided flea and fly control and overall just improved these dogs’ lives. A couple of us made friends with Shira, the smaller of the two. She was wary, but at least we could get in her circle and get her fixed up when we came. Sam was not social with us at all. He barked at us all the time and the owner would have to come out and hold onto him so we could hang up fly catching bags, etc. Sam really did like his owner, he was just always freaked out when we were there.
Sometimes, when we arrived, Sam would be caught over the fence. He would jump over the fence and get his tie-out cable caught on the fence so that he could not get back over. Either that, or he’d get back over but could no longer reach his dog house. We found him like this numerous times and addressed this with the owner. Every suggestion we had about moving him away from the fence had some reason why they couldn’t. It was very frustrating.
When we find the dogs tangled, we make the owner come out and untangle them-it’s their responsibility.
We ended up calling animal control on them when we found Sam caught over the fence in the winter on a very cold day. We’ve found him over there in the rain, etc. We called animal control a couple of times on this situation, but all they ever did was give them a ticket for no city license and warn them about the fence.
It was obvious that nothing was going to improve over here any further unless Chain of Hope did it ourselves. A supporter was very generous and donated a dog run to us. We knew exactly where we were going to take it.
Chain of Hope - WDAF 6PM 1-14-16.wmv
We got a team together and headed over with the run to put up. Finally, we were going to get these guys off of their cables and they would stop getting tangled and caught. WDAF came along to film our efforts!
This is where Sam used to live:
and this is where he lives now:
This is where Shira used to live:
and this is where she lives now:
We are, of course, monitoring this situation. We have spoken to these people repeatedly about the importance of getting in there and cleaning out the pen. We will stay on top of this!
These dogs are so much happier. They have each other now. They have a large igloo and they both get in there and cuddle up. They have no chains pulling on their necks and they are no longer getting tangled. It is a much better situation.
This was only possible because of our wonderful supporters! Thank you once again for enabling us to improve a couple of more dogs’ lives!