Hi Darling,
The Carr-Fassett family has a lot to be grateful about. If you’ve been following our adventures on Facebook and Instagram (where I post most of my personal pix and lots of animal adoption updates) you know that we found a big ole blessing in the woods (with the help of some awesome New Yorkers!): A sweet, emaciated (35 pounds underweight), sick and struggling-to-stay-alive, hound dog who we named…Buddy!
After weeks of searching for his owner, making countless trips to the vet, nursing him back to health around the clock (how do you moms out there do it?!), and showering him with love, respect and compassion, it’s official—he’s doing great and we’re keeping him! He’s our soon-to-be-healthy boy now and we couldn’t be happier. Welcome sweet Buddy!
Today Buddy is quite the celebrity. Thousands of people from around the world have been praying for him and cheering him on (#gobuddygo). Folks have been logging into their social media accounts just for Buddy, especially on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
If you’re one of those people, I just want to take a moment to thank you. I know your love matters. It’s been part of his medicine and ours.
What’s more, I’ve read at least a dozen comments from people who went out and adopted a first or second fur-child. And countless others who have said, “now you’ve really got me thinking, I really want to adopt.” Booyah! Nothing makes me happier. I swear I’ve cried hundreds of heart-opening tears as I read all the love and possibilities. You all are so wonderful, yet another reason I have to be grateful.
When I first saw this skinny guy, I knew the road would be long.
And I heard the voices in my head: “Um, you don’t have time for this. He’s too sick. You’re already spread too thin. Lola doesn’t like to share. You travel too much. He’s bigger than your house. He’s a hunting dog, you eat plants!” Sound familiar? I bet you have practical voices that tell you not to do stuff you really want to do too.
Soon I came to understand that Buddy was my spiritual lesson.
I constantly talk about the importance of loving kindness—extended to all beings. How could I pick and choose when it’s convenient? How could I not take this guy into my life and heart. Brian felt the same way (thank the Gods!).
That was our rubber meets the road moment.
Who better than us to care for this guy? We have 16 acres of woods to explore, 6 of which are fully fenced in—crucial for Buddy’s built-in wanderlust. We work from home. We love animals. We want more joy in our lives. It quickly became a no-brainer.
As for Lola, she’s dealing and healing too. I think Buddy is the only brother she’d ever tolerate. Because he was so malnourished and wounded, she gave him space and reverence. Though she really doesn’t appreciate when he takes over her bed (that’s way too small for him), I think she likes to have a pal to trot around and explore with (which he is slowly starting to do). We’re doing our best to make her feel super special during this time. Translation: She’s getting chubby. “Hello piglet, enjoy it now cause it ain’t gonna last!”
After only a few days, Buddy is putting on weight—close to a pound a day. His coat gets shinier, his eyes get brighter and his tail wags more and more. He’s even starting to look our way when we call his name!
I wanted to express how lucky we feel to have the chance to make a difference in Buddy’s life.
If you decide to bring an animal into your home this holiday season, please consider adoption. So many beings suffer senselessly in shelters. Sadly, many of them die there, never knowing any kindness or cuddles. If you’ve got a rescued fur-baby, you know what I mean. You also understand that they know you saved them—it’s a bond like no other. And boy do they appreciate it.
Unconditional love heals.
Thanks for listening! He continues to heal. As do we.
There’s nothing better than happy trails and waggy endings!
Public Service Announcement: For all the hound dog lovers out there—consider a GPS collar. Hunting dogs and hounds are lead by their nose. They get lost easily and really need our help. Tragically, many hunting dogs go missing during hunting season, and others get left behind if they aren’t top performers.
Your turn: Share your adoption story in the comments below (and congrats to Lisa Henbest, my Crazy Sexy Kitchen contest winner!)
Peace & wags,
We have two rescue cats from our local humane society. Our orange-tabby-meets-puppy boy Wallace was returned twice b/c, well, he’s not what ppl want when they get a cat. He’s energetic, always curious, playful and smart-as-whip… This makes him a bit mischievious and relentless when he wants something (i.e. To play at 4am!) – it breaks my heart into a billion pieces when i think about him in a cage for over a year and how confused he must’ve have been to be returned twice. Well he has his forever home now. Our black beauty shady lady Lola’s back story is not known and she came to us in pretty good shape, actually. It wasn’t until we got her home we realized she has “feral-like fear aggression” – which means if she feels at all scared, she goes “feral” – there is no limit to what she’ll do when she is nervous. With a new baby on the way, it wasn’t looking good for Lola to be a fit for our family. Fast forward a couple months where I deliver our son at home – just as he was born Lola came running in and meowed (she’s normally silent and hiding somewhere) – it was cimpletely out of the realm of her personality to enter a room full of the chaos of a labor and birth; but from that moment she completely changed. She was loving, attentive, curious and would sit at my feet while i nursed. My son is two now and Lola puts up with a lot of crazy toddler behaviour thst only a committed cat-mama would. Lola has found het forever home with us.
13 years ago while driving on a back road in Stamford, Ct. I spotted a paper bag that was moving! As we passed it, I yelled out to Tom, I think that bag was moving…Tom thought I was crazy but I would not let it go…I told him we needed to go back and check to make sure I was not seeing things.. Which happens sometime! After me pleading with Tom, we turned around. We pulled over and sure enough inside a brown paper bag were 2 sweet kittens. They were barely a few weeks old but someone dumped them! We immediately drove to Dr. David, our vet at the time. He was WONDERFUL! He was there when we had to say good bye to my sweet girl, Feebee only a few weeks prior. Feebee had one paw that was orange and one paw that was taupe. When I looked in the bag and saw that one was orange and one was taupe I said to Tom, right paw, left paw and he knew exactly what I was saying… They had worms and needed a lot of TLC. Tom and I fed them by hand and gave them their medicine. Fast forward to now…Fenway Park (after the Red Sox for Tom) and Shea Stadium ( after the Mets for me) are 13. They are the most precious things. They show unconditional love every minute and I know they are grateful for us saving their lives! They are our Furkids since we do not have children and we love them back every single day!
We wanted to help friends one January about 4 years ago when they were going through a tough time. When they asked if we could take their dog, a four-year-old Jack Russell, we responded, “How ’bout we foster care her while you get your lives back in order?” She was a mess: shedding everywhere, submissive peeing, a raw spot on her leg that she incessantly gnawed, and hated her crate that they left her in for hours at a time! We took her to the vet for a check-up: “Devil-dog,” she said, “Foster Care,” we said; “Looks like you got yourself a dog,” she said; “Oh no, she’s just temporary,” we insisted. Six months went by and we knew from the great changes in her that she was here to stay. One by one, the family called and said we could keep her if she was doing well (we never asked for her). She sheds a lot less, but still more than I would like, she growls like a Tasmanian devil when she doesn’t want to get up after getting cozy, sneaks up on the bed to sleep between us at night, and she’s all ours! Couldn’t imagine life without her and her fun antics of playing hide-and-seek with her toys, or dropping balls at my feet all day (I work from home), in hopes that I will like one of them enough to play with her! So thankful for our adopted puppy!
I was living in Mexico, a place where dogs are treated to the equivalent of trash. It was heartbreaking for me. I wanted to rescue every dog, I saw so many of them starving, and I cried. Constantly. I decided that though I could not rescue them all, I could provide some sort of kindness. I went to Costco (yes, there’s Costco in Mexico) and bought a Costco-sized bag of dog food so that way, whenever I was driving around town and I saw a starving dog, I pulled over, and poured out a heap of food. It is literally the only thing I can do, because the crisis for dogs there is overwhelming.
Well there was one little dog who was about 4 months old and she learned that I was the sucker around; that my love and food for dogs had no end. So she started coming by every morning and every evening for dinner. She was beautiful- one blue eye and one brown eye. She was so sweet. She let me pet her. I tried to have her come inside, but she would not. She was so fearful because of the way that people treat the street dogs there. The people in the neighborhood hated her because with the two different colored eyes, it was clear that she was not pure blooded, meaning she was “just a street dog.”
Finally, I earned her trust to get her inside my house because I have an indoor courtyard and I thought she could run around or relax and just be safe. I wanted her to have a place that she could come in a storm, on the days of extreme heat, etc. I wanted to rescue her to live with me, but we already had two dogs and a rescue cat, and I thought that if I could give her shelter any time she wanted it and food, then that could be my part.
Something that was cute about this dog was that she had these crazy ears. One was often sticking straight up while the other one did all sorts of silly movements. When I finally got her inside, I found out that her ear wasn’t sticking up because she was trying to hear, it was because she was infested with ticks and just could not put her ears down. At that moment, I knew that I had to rescue her. She was just a baby, just like 4 months old, and she was totally abandoned in this world. I sat down for one hour removing ever tick I could find. I brought her to the vet immediately, who continued to get ticks out of her ears. We bathed her, got her her shots. She was a little underweight but the vet said that with proper nutrition she would be 100% healthy.
My husband and I named her “Estrella” which means “star” in Spanish, because she came into our lives and completely lit it up. Like you, I feared another baby would be too much, but it turns out that our hearts are so capable of so much love, even more than we think possible, and our lives are not burdened by adding another fur baby, rather they are expanded. We love our Estrella more than words can express. We LOVE her different colored eyes, her tenderness, and her playful nature. And she loves us with the purest heart that exists in this world with a gratitude that I think only a rescue dog can feel.
Meet my baby girl – A Spanish hunting dog. Badly abused and after she was of no more use she was dumped at a huge shelter with about 800 other dogs. And they were the lucky ones. All the others got either shot or dumped out of cars while still driving.
Link to photo on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4473219718067&set=pb.1517143867.-2207520000.1384777741.&type=3&theater
I adopted this hairy angel when she was about 7 years old. She was the love of my life. She opened my heart after it had been bleeding for a long long time. She was my angel – and I was hers. We have spend about 8 beautiful and loving years together. She passed away august 2012. And I still cry like a baby (as I do now) every now and again. But most of all I am so immensly grateful for the love, trust and wisdom this girl showed and teached me.
I always choose dogs from shelters. Their lives depend on us. But don’t be fooled, because these dogs will give you back something so special. They are so aware of their situation and because of that so dedicated and grateful for you to adopt them and love them. It goes very very deep.
Rightnow I have one more spanish cutie and we just fostered another until she found a great home for the rest of her live.
If you want to experience true uncodonditional love go for a shelter dog! They are all angels waiting for our eyes and hearts to open.
6 years ago I was a volunteer at an animal shelter, working with dogs deemed unadoptable. My husband and I were finally ready to open our hearts to a new dog after the death of our beloved first dog.
We thought perhaps around 6 months old- 50/60 lbs….
Then in came Bear, a 100lb 18 month shepard that was just scared. His previous two owners had not been there for him. He ws locked in a room then tied outside all the time. He was very barky and deemed aggressive, then he was set for euthanizing.
We fostered him as he was sick and he took our hearts and we decided he could not be put down. It has been a labour of love. Three years ago a friend told us he needed a job. We got into K9 search and rescue and now the dog I was told would never be able to walk down the street without reacting is nationally certified in trailing. He finds lost people and has expanded our life in wonderfully outrageous ways!
Adopting can completely open your heart 🙂
Three months ago, my son and I went to the local shelter, Sacramento Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA). It was a hot summer day in August and the poor animals were looking really withered in the heat. There was one white pit bull named Yellow that was jumping up and running around to get our attention. He was adorable. WE immediately asked to spend time with this spunky 70 pound baby. After spending five minutes with him, we knew he was ours. The rest is history. He is part of our family and we love him to pieces!!! I hope to adopt adopt another soon…
I believe that the animals we are meant to have will find their way into our lives so Buddy is right where he belongs.
We have 3 dogs and 1 cat, all rescued. They all have a story but I’ll share Samwise’s story. Sam is half dalmatian, half border collie. He and his 12 siblings (11 boys and one girl) were thrown in the garbage by the man who owned their mom. At some point, he decided to call a local shelter and tell them where they were. They rescued the 3 week old puppies (the girl had died) and two foster families hand raised and bottle fed the 12 boys. The owner of the mom refused to turn her over or even have her spayed. Sam will be celebrating his 10th birthday next week. He has a few quirks in his personality that I think is due to him not having his mother around but I love him.
Our 13.5 year old great dane/dutch shepherd, Ike was found wandering the streets with his brother and taken in as a stray.
Our almost 2 year old Pit bull, Oliver was surrendered to the shelter with his 5 brothers when they were 8 weeks old.
Our 12 year old cat, Bella ran into my husbands heart when he found her outside his work place one day. A tiny, underweight kitten.. he brought her home and she stayed.
Our cat Twinkle crossed our life paths in November 2004. The day that my cousin had emergency surgery and we were all praying she would make it. While anxiously waiting by the phone my brother in law called, saying that he had found a little kitten in the woods on the army terrain he was stationed as a soldier. Could I take the kitten in? I guess with all the chaos of that day around me I thought: why not? If my cousin doesn’t make it then at least I can give this animal a chance to grow up. So we did….
Fortunately my cousin survived the operation and is still here with us today. My kids named the kitten Twinkel and she was a miracle in disguise. Both my kids, now teens, are autistic, and my youngest, our daughter had trouble speaking at that time. She was almost 4 and mostly made noises instead of speaking words and understandable sentences. Within two weaks after Twinkel came into our lives she began to speak a lot better, it was amazing! In January 2005, when twinkel was at least 3 months old we adopted a little friend for her. Another 3-month old kitten we found in a cat adoption center. We called him Yuki. He had been beaten by his former owner and it took us weeks, even years to get him to trust people again. He’s a soft guy, always crawls onto my lap at night. Twinkel is a lady who knows what she wants and she will tell you 😉 Together they are our blessings in furry disguise and I hope we will have lots of beautiful years with them ahead of us. Sometimes life puts a soul on your path in a way that you could have never imagined!
There was this icelandic horse (pony) that had been limping and the vet could not find what was wrong. He was the loveliest spirit one can imagine. The family who owned him would put him down, however they asked me if I wanted him, and I knew this little fellow a bit and I could not resist. I had to pay 300 SEK for the halter but got the horse for free. We spent some 10 lovely years together and we learned to play clickergames and a lot of other fun stuff.
He could pull a cart despite his pains that had gone a bit better because of alternative treatments. I love him so much and once I said to a friend in the stable that if I could set him free I would. She told me about an Island where this opportunity is. He is still mine and I am responsible for him and pay for him but he lives in paradise. The closest to free as a horse can get in Sweden. The horses live in a pack and they walk vast beautiful land, in winter they are fed and they are looked after every day. The farm have a homepage and my horse has his own page there, it is: http://www.lenstad.nu/Grimnir.htm if you like to take a look.
Thank you Kris and all animal-lovers for all you do to save animals from cruelty and neglect in this strange world.
Lovely story! What a beautiful thing to do. I like to think of my pony in horse heaven, but you found one!
Thanks for sharing, what a lovely story. I had to put down my dog in June this year and I still miss him a lot. I love people who love animals and give them all they deserve. Love, love and more love as they give us so much back 🙂 keep us updatedt about your new love, please.
Love to see this – a wonderful dog saved and in a new loving home! Congratulations to you all!
The Humane Society in my town of Longmont, CO, is facing hard times and may go into foreclosure if they cannot make their next building loan payment. It breaks my heart to think of the hundreds (and more) of dogs, cats, and other animals that won’t have a saving place if this happens. I have adopted 1 dog and 3 cats from the humane society and they are as much my family as the non-furry members! Love to see stories like this – Happy Home to you and your new Buddy!!
We have adopted two dogs and two cats. I was brought up out in the country where people seemed to think their unwanted animals could be dumped off and they would just survive. So I have been rescuing since childhood. And it is moving down a generation now as my daughter and her husband just rescued a darling little boy from the pound. they are the best animals.
We already had a cat and a full grown german shepherd so we were not looking for another pet. Was in getting food for my brood and happened by one of the windows that showed the dogs that had been rescued. Bailey was behind the glass and when she looked at me her eyes said please take me home! Her litter of puppies at 5 and a half months old had never been in a house and the only human contact they had was to be beaten and kicked, the man was taking them out to a field to shoot them.
Bailey was the only pup with enough courage to come sit next to me although she was clearly afraid. It’s 4 years later, she is still afraid of men and children but always willing to oive them a chance. She is a wonderful dog and I am glad that we decided to take her home.
Hi Janet,
If you can find someone who knows advanced Psycke K, they may be able to alleviate Bailey’s fears altogether. It’s one of the ways to change subconscious processing through a simple process. I heard of a very frightened and sad horse that was transformed into a cooperative and happy horse in minutes.
I was supposed to be ‘just meeting’ a co-workers dog, Oliver.so I could watch him while she went out of town in a couple weeks….she called him from the front door and no show for minutes…then he came ,almost crawling on his belly,from what it looked to me fear….I KNEW RIGHT THEN AND THERE …he was going to be my new furry baby…7 years later..Oliver is laying by my feet..he is 15 years old now and THE BEST and most grateful guy..He was also afraid of EVERYBODY…I packed some treats in my pocket and we went to local pet store where I asked if they would give Oliver a treat..with ALOT of patience and treats…in 2 years time he started to make the initial greeting..”hey you, hi, where is the goods?’ Happy ending..
We too rescued a hound…who incidentally looks very very similar and was named “Buddy” upon his arrival to us. We have since named him “Jackson” and he has been in our home for two years now. Although he can be a nuisance at times (getting in to the garbage cans and nesting to a point of ripping blankets apart) we love him and we wouldn’t be the same family without him 🙂 …
Buddy is more than grateful for your love and care!
Blessings to you!
Carolyn
That is such a sweet and wonderful story! Such a lucky dog! I cannot understand how people can just throw out an animal. It boggles the mind, I cannot ever imagine doing that to a beloved friend, and that is what they to us, part of the family. My cat was a cast off and roaming the neighborhood. When I found him he was thin and his fur was coarse like a porcupine. He took to me right away, I fed him and took him to the vet. They gave him his shots and an exam. He loves to eat and I think it is because he was without so long. He is a gorgeous little guy with soft fur and is a complete baby now. He is loved so much and I am so glad we found each other. It was the day before my birthday and I had just lost my dad a little before that. So, I feel like he was sent to me to help ease the pain of losing my dad.
What you have done completely warms my heart Kris! What a lucky Buddy and I love how his presence in your lives has been a spiritual lesson! ♡♡ We rescued our Border Collie, Maddie from the pound, and she too has been a blessing in our lives 😉 Kudos to all who adopt and/or rescue our furry friends! ♡♡
8 years ago my husband was late on his way to the university, as he saw a black spot on the road under the cars… he stopped his car, got out and stopped the others that he could pick up the kitten that was lying on the road bleeding… he called a friend working at a vet’s office and took the kitten immediately to them. The vet checked her, fixed her broken leg and told to my husband: She will be ok. But you know that you brought her her, now she is yours. That’s how his story started with our cat, who gave him so much love since then… we love her.
Our sweet pirate dog, Barney, is featured on our website. We adopted him 2 years ago, and we are taking classes with him where we’re learning to be a therapy team so we can visit kids in the hospital and older folks in nursing homes. Spreading the Barney love!
Thank you, Kris, for sharing such a beautiful story! We became involved in fostering dogs (through Double Dog Rescue in Connecticut) just 2 months ago. We adopted our first foster in September and currently have our 2nd foster, who we adore!!
We have been blessed by our experience with the many volunteers we have met in the rescue program–all coming together to give loving and safe homes to dogs waiting for their forever families.
I also wanted to share a wonderful Kickstarter project for anyone who has rescued a dog and then wondered “who really rescued who?” A childrens’s book by a woman I met in Marie Forleo’s BSchool
Blessings,
Kara