From commentor Juju, who lost a dear companion this week:
The pictures are of Martha in her first, and probably only ever dog bed, and after her first convertible ride this spring, after I finally got my old bug running again. She was a Triad Golden Retriever Rescue golden retriever. TGRR’s vet said she was at least ten, and had had a rough life. Her family moved and just left her behind. She lived on her own for a number of months, long enough to get heartworm. My mother and I adopted Martha after our previous golden rescue Isabel/Bizzy died.
We went to meet Martha after we went through the adoption process. I believe the foster mom was on the fence about keeping Martha, but wasn’t sure, and TGRR had a sure thing with me and my mother, who wanted to adopt an older dog, and that is not always the case. When we arrived at the foster home, and the foster mom saw me with Martha she decided that Martha needed to go with me. I was bending over to talk to and pet Martha and I heard the foster mom say, ” Oh, Martha needs to go with her, they have the same color hair.” We took Martha home that day.
We discovered over the almost three years we had Martha that her life must have been close to a living hell before she came to us. She had been hit by a car and sort of put back together, but kind of unevenly. This didn’t show in pictures, but in person you could tell something wasn’t quite right. You could also tell someone beat her, my guess was daily, or nearly daily, because she cringed if you made sudden moves and yelling really upset Martha. We had her for four months before I ever heard her bark and she only barked five times in all the time we had her. When she did bark she always had that “please don’t hit me”look.
I don’t think she had been inside a house before her foster home, because the sound of beaters or of a food processor scared her at first, and the vacuum cleaner was the scariest thing other than thunderstorms.
However, one of the things that upset me the most about Martha’s prior treatment, is the way she behaved in cars. Martha loved to go for car rides, but when she got in the car she cringed when she settled down in her seat, like she expected to be hit. I think it must take an extremely sick person to encourage a dog to do something they enjoy and then beat them for that.
I worked to make sure she knew that that no one would ever hit her again for anything. Over time, she cringed less and less, but it never completely went away. The people at TGRR said that Martha won the doggie Powerball. I think Martha felt the same way.
Martha and I were meant to be together. We both had red hair and white faces, big feet and weird eating and sleeping habits.
I am so glad I got to adopt Martha, and if anyone in the Balloon Juice community has the opportunity and ability to adopt an older dog, do it. For me, it has been one of the best things I have ever done. I will miss Martha so much.
***********
Apart from giving our own fourfoots an extra hug, what’s on the agenda this morning?
CarolDuhart2
Walter, now this. I’m not a cryer, but this got me to at least get my eyes moist. May she rest in peace knowing she was loved at last.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
rikyrah
Martha. May she RIP ???
Mustang Bobby
She may have had a rough beginning, but you loved and cared for, and that is truly a good thing.
Pogonip
Has anyone seen my glasses?
R-Jud
Christ, that made me boil. So glad you were able to give this sweet pooch happy, peaceful golden years, Juju.
raven
again:
We who choose to surround ourselves
with lives even more temporary than our
own, live within a fragile circle;
easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we would still live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only
certain immortality, never fully
understanding the necessary plan.
— Irving Townsend
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
From an earlier thread: There was some talk about tees saying “15th Amendment Remedy” and “19th Amendment Remedy”. I researched the font HFA is using, which is a custom version of Sharp Sans. I’m out of time this morning for doing a mockup, but if no one else picks up the ball, I’ll try something this afternoon.
Schlemazel
I have said that being a parent is the most painful joy and the most joyful pain a person can know, but pets come in a close second. So many happy memories tinged with sadness for both pup and person.
Baud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Should there also be a 26th Amendment remedies shirt for the young people?
Schlemazel
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Could also include the 14th I think.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I’d buy one of those. Hell, I’d probably buy a dozen or 2.
ETA: I have thought of making a bumpersticker: Ballots, not bullets
geg6
Oh, sweet Martha! That car story just breaks my heart. My Koda’s greatest joy is a car ride and the thought of her joyful and then cowering is too painful to contemplate. So glad Martha found love and a measure of peace in her life. RIP Martha. Juju, you did good.
raven
Every morning I put 4 meds in Lil Bit’s eyes (7 at night). While I do it Bohdi comes in for a scratching, I get his ears and then he runs so I can get his butt. When I’m one I go to the cookie jar and Bodhi peeks around the corner to make sure I’m getting them. Now we take off for our walk to the bakery. Lil Bit poops right away and then wants to go back home. She drags behind until we hit the main drag and then the cookie light bulb goes off and she pulls the rest of the way! Off we go.
raven
Olympic Athlete Drops Out Of Games To Save Her Horse
Cermet
Confused by tRumps methods; yes, they get media attention but he is missing all the heavy ammunition he could use against Hillary. The latest e-mails, while blown out of proportion are, none-the-less, the best stuff he is likely to get. Instead he hits mainly at President Obama and treats Hillary as almost a side issue. Either he really is trying to reduce his real strikes against her or (and this is more likely) is so mentally unstable that he’d rather throw the election away than lose out on attention by the media. This guy, in either event, is the worse possible nominee for the thugs and well deserved!
Baud
BTW, judging by the comments, I won’t be able to handle reading the post, so I’ll just say that Martha was lucky to find you, juju.
Pogonip
I can’t understand why anyone would just leave a golden retriever who could be sold, but it sounds like it was a blessing for her that the evil owners did leave her.
JPL
JuJu, you gave Martha the life she finally deserved. RIP Martha.
sherparick
Thank you for the rescue and giving her a wonderful, loving home for the last years of her life. I also think that companion animals help us become wise.
“Drop, drop—in our sleep, upon the heart
sorrow falls, memory’s pain,
and to us, though against our very will,
even in our own despite,
comes wisdom
by the awful grace of God.”
Aeschylus, Agamenon
(525–456 B.C
debbie
@raven:
I haven’t seen that before. Beautiful.
satby
Juju, that beautiful story made me cry for your loss. Thank you for sharing that, and for giving Martha the life she was meant to have at least.
satby
What’s going on? No comments on this or Sara’s post for almost 15 minutes? Happy Friday everyone!
Woke up to temps of 78 with 80% humidity and strong storms predicted. No farmers market for me today. More packing.
debbie
@satby:
When are you and your pack moving? Will you be able to short sale your place?
debit
Juju, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m so glad that Martha spent the last of her life in comfort and being loved.
@satby: Arg, packing. At the end, I gave up sorting and labeling and being careful because I just wanted to be DONE. I now have several boxes filled with a hodgepodge of junk that will make unpacking just as crappy. Oh well. Good luck with your move.
satby
@debbie: I’m going to end up doing a cash for keys; the house can’t be listed with so much damage, and the insurance is not going to cover much more than cosmetic repairs. Though more than a few people told me that the tree remover guy and his wife showed up to burgle the house and he just told me he was there to patch the roof as a cover, so who knows?
@debit: yeah, at this point I’m starting to dump clothes into big garbage bags. I hate holding yard sales, but I will to unload some of the stuff. If the weather ever cooperates.
WereBear
You made Martha so very happy. This is a wonderful gift. Thanks for sharing a bit of her with us.
hedgehog mobile
RIP Martha. Sweet puppeh.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: yay! I love this idea.
TaMara (HFG)
JuJu, how lucky you and Martha were to find each other. As for the scum who mistreated her, may not only their lives reflect the karma they deserve, but their afterlife as well.
I just hugged the Bixby and am about to put him in the car for a nice long walk in a finally cool morning – he will get extra scritches now…. <3
Thank you for rescuing such a beautiful girl. [[hugs]]
Aleta
Beautiful picture. The look in Martha’s eyes.
She knows she was loved.
What a wonderful dog.
Mandarama
Oh, JuJu, I’m so sorry for your loss but so happy you had three years with Martha! Our golden, Murphy, is eight and looks almost exactly like her. He also had some sadness in life before we got him from the rescue. I spend a lot of my time making him as spoiled rotten as possible!
Miss Bianca
Both my dog adoptions have been older dogs. I’ve had four dogs during the course of my adult life – two I’ve raised from puppies, and two have been rescues. Definitely different experiences. The puppies grew up into strong, confident (dare I say, “bossy”) dogs. They may be rotten, but they’re my kind of rotten. ; ) I know neither of them ever dreamed that people might be mean to them, and I always pray that that continues to be so.
The rescues both took about two years to really settle in and get over fear aggression (not toward people, but other dogs), being head-shy, and generally giving off other signals about the various ways they had been abused.
My Husky Larry had the goofiest personality ever – a super-loving dog. But his people dumped him at a shelter after he got hit by a car. He was broken, so he had to go – didn’t fit as an accessory in their rock and roll lifestyles anymore, or something. They didn’t bother to get him fixed up properly at the vet, so he always had a stiff hind leg and his quarters were messed up on the side he’d been hit.
Stella, my Shepherd-Rottie mix, is probably about 11 years old now. She’s always been a bit anxious, but she’s a miracle of calm now compared to how anxious and fearful – and fearsomely protective – she was when I first got her. What brought her out of her shell, I think, was when I got baby Luna – an eight-week-old Siberian will leave no time for brooding, and I truly think that being “dog mama” to Luna was a life-saver for Stella and me both! I’ll never have a puppy again without an older dog.
RIP, Martha. So many dogs get so little of the love and companionship they need and crave, but she turned out to be one of the lucky ones.
CatHairEverywhere
I am usually too late to comment on threads, but I want to second the comment about adopting senior pets. We adopted Rusty, a 10 year old corgi mix, in March. We already have Jasper, who is 20 and Mayzie who is 12. One of my friends does rescue, and begged me to adopt Rusty from our local high-kill shelter. He had been there a month, and a 10 year old, matted, anxious dog doesn’t have much chance of escaping such a place. He had the longest toenails I have ever seen- they curled sideways- and 5 abscessed teeth.All of that has been fixed, and he is a much happier boy now. Martha’s story reminds me a lot of Rusty’s. After 5 months, he does seem to understand that we will never have dog beatings at our house, and my other dogs really help him with his confidence, but his confidence is a very fragile thing. He does better every day, and I am so glad his senior years will be happy. His former owners better hope they never meet me in a dark alley, though.
Also, we lost a couple of our elderly cats this spring, so I ended up adopting 12 year old siblings from our county high-kill shelter a couple of months ago. (I was there innocently donating newspaper) They had lived with a senior woman from the time they were kittens, and were taken to the shelter when the woman had to be put in an Alzheimer’s facility. They are also declawed, so their chances of someone adopting them were slim, especially with the rest of the cages filled with kittens. I adopted them, and while it has been challenging (they had never lived with any other animals) with the help of a Feliway plug-in and lots of patience, they are settling in. The tiny little girl kitty is incredibly bossy, so I am working with her to play nicely with others. It’s obvious that their senior lady spoiled them rotten, as they are very sweet and affectionate with plenty of confidence.
My rescue friend said that the shelters gets tons of senior animals who end up there when an owner dies, and most of them don’t make it out, so please consider adopting a senior pet.
Miss Bianca
@CatHairEverywhere: I’ll probably never adopt any but a senior pet, at this point, for precisely the reasons you enumerate.
LAO
JuJu, sorry for your loss.
The first dog I adopted was a 3 year old female doberman, who had been starved. By the time I brought her home, she was still 15 lbs underweight. For the rest of her life, she never believed that there would be a next meal. This caused some mayhem and many trips to the Vet ER, especially after she managed to climb the counter and grab a tray of dark chocolate brownies from atop the fridge and obviously eat them. (I still do know how she did it because it required a leap). She was, however, the best dog I’ve ever had.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemazel:
It’s specifically for the voting-related amendments. I checked — the 15th Amendment is the one that specifically granted the right to vote for former slaves (the 14th only granted citizenship).
@Baud:
Yes, that might be good, too!
bluefish
Dear Juju — Sending you a big hug. Martha in doggie heaven, both with you during your years together and now that she’s onto her next chapter. So wonderful that you found each other and were such sweet and loving companions. Take extra good care of yourself. Maria
dexwood
Thanks, Juju, for taking care of Martha like I took care of my great Golden, Dexter, who lost his four month battle with cancer in February. He, too, seemed to be a victim of abuse before adopting me, and, he was definitely a gunshot victim resulting in some serious health issues we paid heavily and happily to correct. He was worth every dollar and all the work, as I’m sure Martha was. Peace and strength to you, Juju. RIP Martha.
J R in WV
Juju,
Thanks for your very happy work caring for Martha… so sorry for your loss. But she goes to summerland, knowing that there is a happy place for our dogs and cats.
We have rescued about 14 cats over 45 years, usually have 2 or 3 or 4. We live on a farm and have room for a small pack of dogs (2 or 3) and a small pride of cats.
Right now a rescue girl is lying on my shoulder, purring away. It took months to teach her to purr out loud once I heard a tiny purr with my ear on her side, deep inside. Now she purrs a lot. Esp when she is wishing it was food time! Sweet.
jenn
Thanks for giving Martha well-loved golden years.
/Tears
Kristine
Juju–so sorry for your loss. Thank you for giving Martha a good home in her last years.
My late, lamented Mickey was abused in whatever hellhole he was rescued from. He didn’t know how to play with toys, and months passed before he barked. I used to playfully bop his buddy King on the bottom with an empty paper towel roll, which King would then grab and make off with because PLAYTIME. The first and only time I tried that with Mickey, he cowered and cringed as though I’d gone after him with a stick–it took a few minutes of comforting before he stood back up and settled down. I had him for 4 1/2 years, and while his timidity and most of his fear responses eventually disappeared, he always left the room when a certain type of male voice sounded from the TV, or when someone swore. Even if you muttered under your breath, he heard it.
That was when I came to understand why folks who run shelters sometimes don’t seem to like people very much.
Juju
Thank you all for your kind thoughts, wishes and beautiful poems concerning my dear Martha. It really does help me with my grief. Hug all your doggers and kitties for me.
Mark
This has been a bad week. We are trying to hold onto our democracy because a vile sociopath wants to be president. Then you post this picture and tell this story about a beautiful dog. And the motherfracker who ‘owned’ this animal is just as vile as the motherfracker who wants to be president. May both meet in hell for infinity + 1.
bluefish
@Mark: The pet stories here are giving me life. No joke. This is what real leadership is.
Lurker
Juju, thank you so much for giving such love and care to Martha. The pup ended her life surrendered by love. My heart bleeds for you.
debit
I’m also late coming back to the thread but still want to agree with everyone who recommends adopting a senior pet.
Chloe, my darling JRT mix, was 9 and had languished for six months in a shelter before I saw her at an adoption fair and BAM. I was a dog owner again. She had all the hallmarks pf abuse: was timid and nervous, cringed at loud voices or sudden movements, hid at even a hint of anger in the atmosphere. She barked maybe a half a dozen times while I had her and always looked panicked immediately afterwards. My daughter commented that she thought Chloe had the bark beaten out of her. But once she was sure of us, her real personality emerged: she was a funny, cheerful little goofball who didn’t really like toys, but loved food puzzles and chasing squirrels. She loved walks and rides in the car and could strip out one of those striped rawhide chews in about 45 seconds flat. When her kidneys started failing, and her arthritis made her unable to get out her bed without cries of pain, I decided it was time to let her go. We had almost seven years together, and I still wake up every morning and feel for her beside me.
Senior pets have so much love to give. It breaks my heart when I see one in a shelter, knowing they are frightened and just want to go home. Please, consider an older animal if you are adopting. I promise they will return your love a million times over.
Priest
Older dog needs a new home, currently he’s in Atlanta.
Link to Facebook page with info.
stinger
Great, great story — thanks, Juju. So sorry for your loss. And yes, adopting older dogs is about as rewarding as it gets.
stinger
@raven: Hilarious!
Kristine
@Priest: Facebooked.
Priest
@Kristine: Thank you. Tig belonged to the father of a very good friend of mine; he passed several years ago, and another friend of my friend took him in. That friend passed about 10 days ago, so it’s been a rough couple weeks for all concerned.
Juju
@debit: I am sure Martha would concur. Martha and Chloe must have had similar experiences. Martha was such a funny girl once she figured out she was safe. Her foster mom said she was probably hard of hearing. It turned out that dog could hear a chip bag opening at 20 paces, but she pulled the hard of hearing bidness when she didn’t feel like doing something you wanted her to do. Sigh. I miss her.
BubbaDave
Juju, so so sorry for your loss.
Some lyrics from Marian Call’s “Good Old Girl” which always brings to mind my own dear departed: