When Dog Shopping Becomes A Helpless Puppy Rescue Mission
Every rescue dog has a story, even if it didn’t start out as a rescue.
The longer you stick around here at Dog Snobs, you’ll come to realize how deadset I am on “adopt don’t shop,” and on rescuing dogs in general. I believe enough of them exist that didn’t ask to be born, that breeding on purpose should be pretty much obsolete.
You know when you go to Walmart to pick up hairspray and walk out having spent a hundred dollars on everything BUT hairspray?
Yeah, that’s how my longest-living dog came into my life.
Decades ago, I went to see a litter of German Shepherd puppies from an ad I saw in a local newspaper. Yes, we still browsed newspapers in the year 2000.
This litter was located on a farm a fair distance from where I lived. My son, who was eight at the time, thought we made the drive because his lifelong dream was to have a puppy. But I really made the drive because the puppies were reasonably priced for German Shepherds.
Pulling into the property, I observed a shabby-looking farmhouse plopped in the middle of a very unkempt property. To be honest, it looked more like a serial killer movie setting.
By the time we had arrived, just one puppy remained from the litter we went to see.
I remember sitting on a dirty floor playing with the little Shepherd pup. He was white…not at all what the ad described. He was also male, I wanted a female. I wondered how on earth I’d have to tell my son we’d be going home without a puppy that day.
While we played with the Shepherd pup, out of a dark and dusty corner waddled a much tinier, much younger-looking brindle puppy.
I was confused so I asked the man where that little one came from.
He said she was a five-week-old runt leftover from another litter.
I nearly choked that she was only five weeks old and stumbling around that awful house by herself. And I couldn’t fathom that he referred to her as a leftover.
When I asked what breed she was, he lackadaisically replied that she was probably a lab/boxer mix. I’m pretty sure he pulled that answer out of thin air. In hindsight, I’m positive he had no idea since no parents were available to view.
My attention immediately shifted away from the Shepherd and toward the helpless little leftover. I asked how much he wanted for her and once more, he pulled a number out of thin air and said we could take her for $175.00.
DONE DEAL.
I scooped up that little runt with zero hesitation, and we hit the road to take her home.
Puppy rescue mission complete.
We named her Mojo. That’s her in the feature image up top, with a head the size of a tennis ball.
Mojo’s first night in our home was very restless, to say the least. I thought her discomfort was normal puppy behavior in new surroundings until I caught an up-close look at what was troubling her.
When I flicked on the lights and got down on the floor to comfort her I could literally see fleas scrambling all over her tiny nose. And the next morning at poop time, I noticed her poop was crawling with worms.
I…was…MORTIFIED!
We rushed off to the vet to have her thoroughly inspected, checked, and treated. And that was the first day of the rest of Mojo’s long and loving life with our family.
Born in the year 2000, she was our Millennium girl.
Mojo accompanied my son from the age of eight all the way through to adulthood.
She spent many summers squirrel-chasing at our family cabin, put up with years of teenage boyhood, posed for boring family photo shoots, and helped a lonely mom get through empty nest syndrome.
And finally, she enjoyed a very comfortable retirement in my quiet little condo, until we laid her to rest on her fourteenth birthday. 😪
I don’t know how many times my mother and I have said the same thing over the last 23 years: Even though she wasn’t technically a rescue, we firmly believe we saved Mojo from what likely would have been a much worse life (or death) at that serial killer farm.
Our rescue mutt, Casey, received his basic training in a men’s prison in Ohio. We’re deeply grateful to the man who taught him to love and trust humans, but the warden declined my request to convey our thanks. I sometimes wonder who our benefactor was and what he used to call the dog now known as Casey.
My first rescue as an adult was Sammy, who I found on Craigslist. There were several other people interested in him, but the owners said they picked me because they thought I was the most likely to keep him forever. They were home #3 for him. Sammy was a yappy stress ball of a dog, and I think the previous owners were right in worrying that he would be passed from home to home by people not willing or able to see it through. I feel so lucky to have been chosen, though, because he was my heart dog.