Happy 1st Birthday Sophie!

There are few things more rewarding than seeing dogs we've helped in the past living the good life with their new families. One of our more rambunctious foster dogs, Bea, found her way into an amazing home with her new mom Linda where she became Sophie. Linda is the mother-in-law of one of my best friends so it was an added bonus that we'd get to continue hearing stories of Sophie's antics. Oh the stories we heard. After a few months of Sophie hinting that she was bored and needed a friend, Linda adopted Pebbles who is now Sadie. Pebbles was another Mid Atlantic Bully Buddies dog that was in the rescue for a good amount of time before landing in luxury at Linda's house! Sophie and Sadie are now the best of friends!

Linda decided to throw Sophie a 1st birthday party and when I got the invitation I was thrilled! Nick was, well, he came and he actually had a blast. The dogs all had a great time running around and eating their doggy birthday cake, regardless of how much I burnt it. The weather was gorgeous, everyone loved each other, Bella scared Sadie with her gremlin noises, and at the end of the day we had seven exhausted, happy dogs. Success! Happy Birthday Sophie!

Birthday Girl!

The party hats were a hit!

And of course there's Piglet, who can't quite figure out the party hat..

Let them eat cake!

We have tired dogs, finally!

Thank you Linda, we all had a wonderful time and really enjoyed celebrating Sophie's birthday with her! Thank you for giving her and Sadie such a wonderful life! I hope Sophie slept for at least a few hours after we left :)

BARCStoberfest 2010!

One of our favorite events is BARCStoberfest, a fun filled day of dog and family friendly events to raise money for BARCS. BARCS takes in about 11,000 animals a year from a city housing an estimated 355,000 pets. To say they have a full plate at the shelter would be a gross understatement! BARCS works so hard to find homes or rescues for their animals, they really have an amazing team working there. Any chance we can get to help is wonderful and what better way to do it than helping BARCS and Mid Atlantic Bully Buddies at the same time. Nick and I ran the MABB booth this past Saturday, along with the help of one of our fabulous fellow volunteers, Alida, and her daughter. Alida and her family adopted our foster dog Sophie, who was one of our favorites, and we absolutely love spending the day hearing Sophie stories :)

We had a wonderful, successful day at BARCS as you'll see below. We met some amazing pets, saw some past foster dogs, talked with fellow animal and bully lovers, and most importantly; we succeeded in tiring out Miss Bigglesworth, one of MABB's adoptable dogs! We were lucky enough to have her for the day since her amazing foster mom couldn't make it, and she was a hit! Everyone loved her and Miss B sure did love everyone in return.

We're all set up and ready to go!

Miss Bigglesworth really enjoyed the Great Danes

A recent MABB adoption!

In true pit bull fashion, Miss B loved EVERYONE!

Bull shark :) 

This little guy was so determined! 

Not much of a challenge here..

Another adoptable puppy <3

Charlie Brown, a past MABB dog, enjoying the event!

If you missed out on BARCStoberfest this year definitely try and make it out next year! There are costume contests, raffles, giveaways, tons of pet vendors, and most importantly are the adorable adoptable animals at the event!

Driving Miss Daisy- 10/17 Transport

Sunday during football season means transports have to be done on Saturdays or in the morning on Sundays, unless the Ravens play MNF or a rare Sunday night game. I couldn't turn down this transport though after reading about the dog needing a ride.

This is a special needs dog. She has a deformed eye (she probably doesn't see out of that eye, the other eye is OK, she is not blind from what I have been told) and one of her front leg’s is deformed, but she doesn’t have mobility problems. She has quite the history. She was found in a ditch, left there to die when she was only about a week old, covered in maggots. That's how she lost her eye, the maggots had eaten at it. The people who found her bottled fed her and kept her for a while, then found her a home and I guess the people they gave her to didn't want her anymore as she was a stray.

How can anyone say no to that poor plea for Daisy? I couldn't. Nick could, he did stay home and watch the Ravens game but Daisy and I had a nice trip the two of us. I picked her up from the Frederick Municipal Airport and took her to The Maryland House in Aberdeen. Thank you Mary Ann for shortening our drive the Wilmington, DE and thank you Elliott for flying Daisy to Maryland on behalf of Pilots N Paws.

Daisy, a Blue Heeler/Catahoula Leopard Dog mix, was a perfect co-pilot. She did great in the car and was such a sweetheart. Here are some pictures of our adventures :)

Daisy got around surprisingly well on three legs, she could really pull! She is going to make someone very happy!

On the road!

One of our favorite things to do on the weekend is dog transports! This is actually where we got started fostering, we tried overnights first for transports and it grew from there! When people ask us what they can do to help animals if they're not in the position to foster I always tell them about transporting, or as I like to call it- the underground dog railroad.

There are tons and tons of packed shelters who are forced to euthanize highly adoptable dogs everyday. The best hope for these dogs to get out is to find a rescue who will take them in. Often the rescue is out of state so the dogs need to hitch a ride to safety. Transport coordinators spend hours upon hours mapping out routes for the dogs to take to their rescue. The route is then broken down into 60-80 mile "legs" and volunteers sign up for the leg they'd like to do. Once each leg is filled the transport is a go! Your job is to meet the driver before you, take the dog(s), and drive to the next volunteer where they'll take the dogs and so on until the dogs reach safety!

It's really not too hard, it doesn't take up much time, and most importantly you're playing a role in saving the life of a dog or dogs who otherwise would had a much less happy ending. Here are pictures from some of our favorite transports!

 Effie! Our first ever transport. 

Chadwick was our favorite overnight...who ended up being with us for about a month!

I really loved him! His heart was with Nick though.

All packed up and ready to go! 

Our most um, memorable transport. The sending rescue said they had 7 13-week old puppies for the transport. An overnight was needed so I said we'd do it. Well, as you can see below we were a little surprised when we met the transporter for the leg before us.  

Nick was really happy about this one....

 Waiting upfront before we had to hit the road. Those puppies wore her out!

Who can resist a transport full of little pups! 

Poor old Abby was stuck in the car with the puppies. Luckily we were able to give her some private space so she wasn't bothered too much.

If you're interested in doing transports the easiest way, in my opinion, is to join some of the transport groups on Yahoo Groups. You can check the messages section and see all of the transports they have for the upcoming week, as well as dates in the future. Check out the ones in your area and sign up! Some of my favorite groups are Roads of Hope, Dog Rescue Railroad, Animal Transporters, I-70 rescue and transport, I-95 rescue and transport, On the Road Again, Pet Travel, and Pet Transport. You can also opt to be on the email list if you prefer to receive transport listings that way.

Happy Transporting!