Red Ted's spot: Collie or Ibizan Hound?

While looking for something else in my files this morning, I came across a photo that shows Red Ted's spot on his head! So in the interest of full disclosure, here it is :)

I still think he looks a little like an Ibizan Hound.

© 2009 Terry Albert. All rights reserved.

Red Ted, The un-Collie

“In Loving Memory of Care Bear, SCR No. 786, a therapy dog to many seniors, a true gentleman and friend to all.”

On the Collie Wall of Fame

As I looked through the Southland Collie Rescue website, I found my former foster dog memorialized on the Collie Wall of Fame. To me he was Red Ted. But to the 99 residents of the Sunbridge Care Nursing Home, he was Care Bear.

Teddy’s Story

I told the Oceanside shelter staff I would pick up their collie on Sunday afternoon, in order to give him the weekend to get adopted. When I arrived at the shelter at 4 pm, the last possible minute, there was a big sign on the front of his cage “HOLD FOR COLLIE RESCUE.” So of course no one adopted him. Worse, he wasn’t a purebred collie. Anyone else might have left him there, but I couldn’t do that to him after he’d lost an entire weekend of possible new homes. The shelter would have to euthanize him on Monday morning. But they didn’t, because he came home with me.

He looked sort of like a collie, with his beautiful white mane, white legs and plume of a tail. The blaze on his face was weird though. He had had a big spot in the center of his head, right between the ears. He reminded me of an Ibizan Hound. Come to think of it, he was the same color as an Ibizan too. He was a vivid red, like an Irish Setter, not a golden sable like a collie. Could he be the product of a puppy mill breeding gone wrong? I would never know. I named him Teddy, which soon morphed into Red Ted with the Spot on His Head.

Teddy’s favorite place in the world was on the couch and his favorite pastime was chasing rabbits in our back yard. He would dash out the back door and head straight for the hole in the fence where the bunnies tried to escape before the dogs could catch them. After several weeks, Teddy finally caught one, and he was so proud. I came out the back door and was horrified to see Teddy standing almost upright on his hind legs, wiggling from his head down to his tail in ecstasy, with a dead rabbit hanging from his mouth. A game of keep-away ensued, which Teddy won with ease. He ate every bite of that darn rabbit–even the feet, fur, and head. Ugh.

Red Ted gets a home

Sometimes it is hard to see them leave, and this was the case with Red Ted. I always comfort myself that the dog I’ve fostered is going to a place where he will get more love and attention than I can offer in my house full of animals. Teddy became the resident collie at Sunbridge, and like all the collies before him, he was renamed Care Bear. Susan Osborn, a staff member, explains that Ted/Care Bear is the only reason some residents want to get up in the morning.

Susan told me about Teddy’s life at Sunbridge. “He makes the world beautiful for so many people,” she told me, “ including staff, residents and their families.”

Teddy is part of the staff, and can go wherever he wants to in the facility. He wears a special collar that is the same as the one that Alzheimers patients wear. It buzzes an alarm if he goes out an exit door. This ensures his safety even if someone isn’t keeping an eye on him every second. He has his own health chart, just like the residents, where his meals, potty breaks and care are logged in every day. One staff member is responsible for him on each shift.

Ted senses who needs him most and often sleeps in the room of the sickest residents, comforting the families keeping watch over their loved ones. He enjoys watching the birds in the aviary, especially Dufus the cockatiel. There are treats for him in every office and it seems that everyone, even the staff members, thinks Teddy likes them best. He has his own bulletin board and it is updated regularly with photos of him with residents and visitors. When the marketing director takes visitors on a tour, Teddy goes along as an escort. He knows the route by heart.

Volunteers walk Teddy regularly, and some of the patients also get to walk him as part of their physical therapy. A sponsor pays for his care, and he gets a trip to the groomer once a month.

A good-hearted dog, Teddy always wagged his tail for everyone, even the mailman.
____________________

Teddy is gone now, and a new Care Bear has surely taken his place. But I fondly remember my foster un-collie, and the how he made so many people happy. There is a photo of Ted/Care Bear posted on the Collie Wall of Fame, where no one will ever forget him. He is shown relaxing on a couch, just like he did so often at my house.


Photos above: Teddy with a stuffed toy on my couch, and posing in the yard.
© 2009 All Rights Reserved Terry Albert

Colley Girl

“There's an old female collie down at the shelter with infected eyes and really bad skin, possibly mange.” Evelyn's message on the answering machine was loud and clear. “I doubt you'll want to get her,” she finished.

We didn't have anyone representing collies in our all-breed rescue group, and I have always loved them. Like every little girl in the fifties, I wanted a dog just like Lassie.

But we didn't have room for a big dog, and my mom didn't like dogs anyway. Maybe I'd just go to the shelter, look at the collie, and confirm that she was too old to rescue.

The next day I went down to see her, and she looked pretty awful. Huge wadded up mats the size of baseballs hung off of her. Her third eyelid was covering most of each eye, and both eyes were oozing green pus. She barked endlessly, along with all the other dogs in the kennels. 

But when I took her out, she was quiet and friendly, wagging her tail and rubbing up against me. If her owners didn't come to claim her, I told Leah, the shelter officer, I would take her out and foster her till we could find her a home.

I had never fostered a dog, and was eager to help the rescue group. I called the president, Lyn, and told her what I wanted to do, and she said okay. The following Tuesday I picked her up from the shelter, and found out she had been a stray on Tiger Mountain, right near my home. What was her story? Had someone been hiking and lost track of her? Had she been dumped? Did she just wander away from home? Were they still looking? How could anyone NOT be looking for her?

Obviously I was new at this, and very naive. The shelters are full of dogs that no one comes looking for. Just because she was a collie wasn't anything special.

I took her to the vet, who pronounced her spayed, and healthy, and only about 5 years old. She had trouble climbing into the car or getting up on the table at the vet's office. It appeared she had bad hips, or arthritis. Her teeth were also badly in need of cleaning. He gave me medicine for her eyes, and we went home to start our new adventure.

Since I wasn't going to keep her, I didn't name her. I just called her Collie, and pretty soon that became Colley Girl. In the meantime, we got a collie rep, Sharon, who started telling people about my dog. While Sharon worked on finding homes, I worked on brushing out all those awful mats. I ended up cutting them out, leaving a few bare patches. I couldn't bear to shave her, so we just did a little brushing at a time, until she'd get fed up with all the tugging, lumber to her feet, and walk away. As the excess fur came out, I discovered the end of her tail had been blackened by frostbite.

Once the eye infection cleared up, her inner eyelid was still showing, so I went back to the vet. He decided that her eyes were too small to push the eyelid back into the proper place in her eye socket, and that she was probably born that way. She had bad scars around her eyes, so I thought maybe she'd had surgery or been injured. He sent me to a specialist, who decided she wasn't in any pain, agreed with my vet that the problem was congenital, and there wasn't much you could do about it. Her field of vision was limited, but she seemed to see well enough to get around.

Colley Girl adjusted beautifully to our home, ignoring our four cats, and getting along famously with my two dogs, Sherman and Tank. Within two days she was following my husband everywhere off leash, and never wandered away. I never forgot that she had been a stray, so I kept a pretty close eye on her. Chew toys exercised her gums and started to clean the tartar off of her teeth. Her gums bled a lot at first, but soon they looked good enough that the vet said I didn't need to get them cleaned.

Sharon called several times, and came to take Colley Girl to meet potential new owners, but they always turned her down when they saw those funny looking eyes. I didn't even notice them anymore. What I saw was the sweetest, most gentle, loving dog I'd ever known, who slept by my bed each night, and moaned with happiness whenever I rubbed her tummy. She had been well-loved at one time. I wondered if her family missed her.

Each time Colley Girl went out to see new potential adopters, it got harder and harder to say good-bye. After about a month of this, I told Sharon to come get her while I wasn't at home. She called me that morning at work.

Colley Girl had come out of the yard easily enough, but when she saw Sharon was going to take her away again, she took off and wouldn't let Sharon catch her. After about a half hour of keep-away, Sharon gave up and called for help. I drove home, 25 miles, frantic that Colley would disappear in the meantime.

Silly me. When I drove up the driveway, there was Sharon, arms folded, looking totally disgusted up at Colley Girl. Colley was standing by the dog run, barking defiantly at Sharon, daring her to come after her. Of course, she came straight to me. As I knelt down, Colley Girl tucked her head under my armpit and wagged her tail slowly, as if to say, “Please don't make me go.” 

Tears in my eyes, I loaded her into Sharon's car, and away they went. I sat in bed crying that night. My husband tactfully ignored me. He's no fool; he knew what the problem was. I was deciding I was too soft for rescue work.

The next day, Sharon called. The latest family wasn’t keeping Colley Girl. “They didn't like her funny eyes,” she reported, “Everyone wants a perfect Lassie.”  Sharon offered to keep her at her place so we wouldn't have to transfer her around so much. “Fat chance,” I said. “Bring her back and she's not going anywhere again. She's perfect to me.”

That night my husband came home from work and arched his eyebrows in surprise as he recognized Colley Girl coming to greet him. Then he saw two giant cardboard ‘license tags’ hanging from her neck. One said “I love you Dennis,” and the other read, “Please keep me.”

He looked up at me and smiled. “I think it's already been decided.”

Colley Girl was with us 4 1/2 years. To others, her eyes looked strange, but I saw the perfect pet and companion. She loved children and senior citizens, cats, and horses. I found my Lassie. Those other people didn't know what they were missing. 

Dedicated to those who rescue homeless animals

I Never Was a Mother, by Terry Albert

A friend of mine made this video for me. I wrote the poem in 1995, when I was busy fostering homeless dogs and cats for various rescue groups. It just bubbled out of my heart onto the paper one night, the first poem I've ever written. (For that matter, I've only written one other one, read it here) 

A lot of rescuers don't have children, and maybe it is that fact that leads us to nurture and love animals so much. I never felt a strong desire for children. Though I enjoy kids a lot, I've never had a sense of loss that I didn't have my own. I poured my soul into this poem, and I hope you will enjoy it. In 1995 it won a Dog Writers Association Of America Maxwell Award after it appeared in the Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue newsletter.

My friend Roberta Cantow of Original Digital came up with the idea of a narration and video. The photos you see here are dogs I have fostered or cared for as a pet sitter, with the exception of the Lab at the beginning, who is my own beloved Tank, that once in a lifetime dog I will never forget. Roberta, an Emmy-winning filmmaker, has created some wonderful video tributes, multimedia stories, and has recently completed a new film, Bloodtime, Moontime, Dreamtime.

Some of the dogs: 

My brother's cat: Dan's cat really did come to live with me when they moved to Hawaii and couldn't take him along because of the long quarantine. Smokey was not a kitty who would do well with that. But when they moved back to California, Smokey went back to them. I didn't have a photo of Smokey, a blue-gray shorthair, so we used a photo of my kitty Whisper, who was rescued from Bonita Animal Control. 

The neighbor's dog: I've had a lot of these; a cocker spaniel who strayed over to my house (how do they know to come to me?). His teenage owner offered me one of her puppies as a reward (ACKK...NO!); a Rottweiler who parked on my front porch for an afternoon, until his owner got my call – thank goodness for tags. The dog in the video was Brandie, a toy poodle I cared for as a pet sitter for over 8 years. 

An AIDs victim's last request: Yes, this really happened too. A man asked if I could take his two shih tzus that were ten years old. I felt they had a good chance of being adopted at the Humane Society, so I referred him there and promised to follow up and take them out if they didn't get placed. He got them kennel cough vaccines to help them stay healthy, and both were adopted within three days, and I was able to call him with the good news. 

The red collie laying on the couch: Red Ted wasn't really a purebred collie, but Collie Rescue and Lab Rescue learned they should know better than send me to check out a dog in the shelter-- he came home with me. Red Ted with the Spot On His Head, I called him, because he had a big red spot right between his ears. He was adopted by a nursing home, where he was renamed Care Bear and lived there the rest of his life. I always though he had some Ibizan Hound in him. Weird breed combo, but maybe he came from a puppy mill or something, and got mixed-up breeding.

The pool dogs: Yes that's me in the water with the dogs on the deck refusing to come in! Indy and  Charlie Whiskers were foster dogs, Tank was mine, and Taz was a pet sitting client. What a group. I look like I'm conducting an orchestra.  

The Chihuahua in the cage: His name was Burr(also in this photo), and he really was in the shelter, with his roommate Issa, a Lhasa Apso, but they came home with me when I lived in Seattle and stayed with me til I found them a home. 

Irish Setter: Apples was a pet sitting client, who had cancer in her spine. I learned to walk her and support her weight while she recovered from surgery. After her owners spent thousands of dollars on treatment, her cancer came back and she couldn't be saved. She died at 13 years old, the day after my Tank passed away at the same age. 

Sheltie on a quilt: This is my Bonnie, who I adopted at 6 years old from Southland Sheltie Rescue. She and her littermate, Lily, came from a puppy mill in Texas. Over 35 dogs came to San Diego to find new homes. Today Bonnie and Lily still live with me, at age 11.  

Collie and little girl: Bonnie (a different Bonnie) was an elderly stray in the shelter, and she almost died from the stress of her spay surgery. We had to carry her on a litter to my car to bring her home. But she thrived and found a wonderful family with three kids who adored her for the rest of her life. They went on to adopt another collie from Collie Rescue.

Me with a dachshund: Beanie and Tuffy were ten years old when they came to stay with me. This is Beans, the world's sweetest most loving dog – especially for a doxie! Tuffy lived only one year, and Beans lived two years. Their owner had gone into a nursing home, and they were left in a kennel until the family could figure out what to do with them. A volunteer from FOCAS (Friends of the County Animal Shelters) found me. They came to live with me the first week I moved into my house. 

White dog with bandana: Oscar was an Un-Labrador that I took out of the Escondido Humane Society when I volunteered for Lab rescue. He was so beautiful and he had kennel cough, I just couldn't leave him there. He found a fabulous home with Ilona, who became a close friend. He worked as a therapy dog and is now enjoying his retirement.

It takes longer to tell their stories than to watch the video! I hope you enjoyed it. 

What's in a name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

William Shakespeare

A dog by any other name might NOT seem so sweet. I have a noticed some interesting things about pet names, especially when dealing with homeless dogs. A cute name helps them get adopted faster, for example. During my years in lab rescue, we came up with some good ones. I felt a freedom to come up with some silly names because the new owners usually changed it anyway. Bo Wiggly's new family liked his name so much they kept it. 

We took in a group of four chocolate labs, litter mates, from Las Vegas, all about one year old. We named them Fudge, Java, Dutch and Chip. At first Chip was Chaos, but we decided that was too negative for a rescue dog! 

Unintentionally, dogs seem to live up to their names. My Lab, Tank, certainly did. He was famous for plowing right through the high jump, instead of over it, in obedience class. One time my instructor Linda, who wanted to build enthusiasm and drive in our dogs, held Tank back and revved him up before letting me call him on the recall. He recalled so fast I though I was going to get killed! With Tank, it was more about calming him down.

Back to the chocolate dogs – our rescue coordinator, Mary Jane, complained to me once about "all those dumb chocolate names," like Cocoa, Snickers, Hershey, etc. I guess when you hit Cocoa the 15th, it gets a little old! So when I picked up a little brown puppy at the shelter, I named him Mudpie (see his photo here), and he was quickly adopted and became Harley to his new family. 

Another dog, a Lab mix, came to us with the name Dillon, but I renamed him Charley Whiskers, because he clearly had a wirehaired something in his genes! Charley moved on to a foster home with Virginia – she returned his name to Dillon – and she kept him until he died of old age. 

A black puppy I fostered was named Zorro, and  I named a collie mix Teddy. Teddy morphed into "Red Ted with a spot on his head." He had a weird red spot between his ears that made him look suspiciously like an Ibizan hound mix. I often wondered if he had been a puppy mill dog, where accidental mixes come out with purebred papers. I've seen several beagle-basset mixes touted as purebred bassets in a pet store. Teddy went on to become a resident dog in a nursing home, where he was much loved. His picture now resides on the Collie Wall of Fame at Southland Collie Rescue, under the name Care Bear.

One collie I fostered came to us so matted that he resembled a haystack more than a dog. Frosty was almost all white, which turned out to be loose undercoat. Since we were in Seattle, where so many places have Indian names (Suquamish, Issaquah, Sammamish, Snohomish, etc.), we christened him Frosty Five Collies. After we groomed him, he still looked like at least Frosty Two Collies, but the name stuck. 

My Maine Coon cat was named after his father, Moonshine. My first cat I owned as a child was Mustard. I love to see people smile when they hear a name they like. Especially if you own a breed like a pit bull, why handicap him with a name like Sharky?

It works for people too. Why have a boy named Sue when Mike will do? My mother's name was Molly, and when we would do art shows together, I could see people react positively to her name. Before she said a thing, her smile and her name made people like her. 

So think about it before you name your pet. Do you really want a dog named Cannonball or a horse named Buck?