UPDATE 3/04/03 on the Montana Collies

Statement by AWCA President Jean Levitt

*Permission to crosspost*

Hearing. There will be a new trial. The judge has offered two possible dates: April 14 and April 21. The location is yet to be decided. Ms. Harman will get to have Panache with her now, although she cannot take her outside of Toole or Glacier Counties. Panache remains the property of the State of Montana, and could be reclaimed by the state. She has not been spayed.

Food. Understandably, Hills’ Science Diet has had to move on to other rescues. They are now donating food to a large rescue in the west consisting of a few hundred small dogs. We thank them for donating 25,000 lbs to the Shelby, Montana, rescue. We are also grateful to Iams for the truckload of emergency food they donated at the beginning of this rescue.

The AWCA Board of Directors has voted unanimously to assume financial responsibility for feeding the animals in Shelby. We will continue to order food from Hills Science Diet because the animals are doing well on it, and it is better not to change their food. We have an agreement with Hills Science Diet to purchase the food wholesale at an average cost of $2,868.00 a month. AWCA is thankfully able to make this financial commitment because of the ongoing donations from you, the animal-loving community.

Blankets. Dr. Hardee Clark wants you all to know he “really appreciates” all of the blankets you shipped to his hospital in Shelby. His office manager, Dusty, assured me they are being put to good use. “If we get snowed in, we won’t get cold,” she said. They will not be needing additional blankets for a while. We will let you know if and when to send more.

Grooming. Thea Sperline, AWCA co-ordinator of maintanance grooming, and her team of volunteers rode the Helena “Collie Trolley” to Camp Collie last weekend to brush out 71 dogs. Some are blowing coat, so Thea is keeping a list of who must be brushed more frequently to ensure all loose hair is removed to prevent matting. They will return next weekend. Watch for another article by Thea coming soon.

And now...we present:

Sally and the Shark
By Rev Oakes

One day a sweet little sable girl came in for her spa treatment. She was tagged with the nickname “Sally” for her stay with us. Sally was startlingly thin and haggard; our hearts went out to her. At first we thought her stay would be brief, as her coat was relatively sparse, and Sally was so docile. We soon had her bathed, massaged, dried, brushed and trimmed to a shining red-gold.

While grooming her, though, we had found that she was sensitive around her face, and were disturbed at how very thin she was, even after weeks of good care and feeding. We’d tried to guess her age, and finally decided around three or four, just from her carriage and her drawn face. We couldn’t tell by her teeth, they looked so bad. The vet tech looked at her teeth, and immediately put her on the roster for dental care as soon as could be scheduled. (All the dogs’ teeth had been checked in November, and those that had emergency problems then had been treated. Many more mouths needed dentistry, and that is addressed as a part of their ongoing medical treatment.) She also checked and found that Sally had not been eating well the past few days. Seeing those teeth and gums, we could understand that! She would stay with us for a few days for special care until her appointment.

We soaked some kibble for poor Sally until it was very soft, so that she could eat, and she was one grateful girl to scarf that down. Thankfully, there was nothing wrong with her appetite! We also ordered in some canned food for future soft meals. Now that she was clean and fed, we walked her and put her back in her pen with a bright, fluffy new towel, as we did all the dogs. Sally was thrilled. She lay down carefully on her pretty towel, scrunched a bit of it between her forelegs, and rested her tender jaws on the towel and her paws, looking quite blissful.

The next day, to her pleasure, she got a fresh, cuddly towel, and an extra meal of soft food at noon. She obviously appreciated that, but little did she know just how special a day this was to be for her. That afternoon some volunteers came in carrying a huge load of generously donated supplies – and some stuffed toys. These weren’t little stuffed toys, these were B-I-G bright ones. They went around the room giving each of the dogs a toy, with varying responses – most of these dogs had never seen a toy! When they came to Sally, they gave her a huge red and white shark, putting it in the pen with her. I don’t know what they did after that, as I was so entranced with Sally’s reaction.

The thin little red-gold girl stood and cocked her head, ears up, at that strange object, then tentatively nosed it. She touched it with a gentle paw, then stood looking down at it wonderingly. Slowly, carefully, Sally lay down, the shark between her forelegs. She laid her chin on it, rubbed it with her cheeks, and cuddled it to her chest with her forefeet. She rested her head on the soft shark, snuggled into it, and released a long, gentle sigh. Sally was in love. Sally never willingly went beyond reach of her shark again. She slept curled around it or lying draped over it. Always she treated it tenderly.

One morning we found a small, strange-looking object next to Sally’s pen. We picked it up and looked at it closely, and the light dawned – it was a tooth, a baby tooth, stained and caked with tartar and a little blood. Sally had evidently lost it during the night – probably while she nuzzled and rubbed her aching face on her shark. Sally, who looked so much older, was barely past babyhood herself!

We were glad the retained baby tooth had fallen out, because that meant one less bit of dental surgery needed. That afternoon a volunteer fed the dogs, and without realizing Sally’s problem, gave her dry food – which she promptly ate! We still gave her three meals daily of canned food during the rest of her stay, to ease her discomfort and help build her up, but were very relieved to know that she could eat normally. Finally her dental “date” came; Sally left us to get her mouth cleaned and treated, and would return to Camp Collie. Later that day I suddenly noticed they had left behind her beloved shark! I felt terrible, thinking of her loneliness without it, and asked that it be taken to her. So she got her shark again, to keep with her for her very own.

In January when we returned to Shelby I asked Dawn Seifert about Sally and her shark. Oh yes, she kept her shark and adored it for a long time. Then she chewed it up. We both laughed – Sally was feeling better. Then Dawn said, with a sheepish smile – “So...we got her another one.”

May Sally always have a soft shark to cuddle, and one day a human child of her own to adore.

I loved seeing Sally with her shark. Thank you, Rev.

Calmly,
Jean Levitt, President AWCA
Lisa King, AWCA Director AWCA Rescue
Officers and Members of AWCA

If you would like to assist AWCA with this rescue effort, you may send a check to:

Bethany Burke
AWCA Treasurer
2807 Lee Trevino Court
Shalimar, FL 32579

Make the check out to AWCA and in the memo area note: collie rescue-medical, collie rescue-stainless steel, or collie rescue-general.