Why New Beginnings when it starts with an ending? After 2 years of bearing the loss of Jazz, bearing the missing piece from my life of “a boy dog”… After 2 years of thinking my sweet Edie would be my last…a photo came across my feed a sweet little boy sitting with a bunch of puppies but standing out…so sad, so quiet in his soul. My heart screamed GO GET HIM! He belongs here!
He had a story - Hoarding is such a dirty word – how can you hoard lives like toys or cars or newspapers? How do you care for these beings that have only you but there are too many and you have lost control?? You don’t you get over your head and you can’t care for those lives as they deserve, those beings that have ONLY YOU – when that happens, they get sick, they breed and breed and there’s no end. And they fight to survive be it escaping to find food in a neighboring farmer’s chicken coop, or chasing livestock – no skills to go to humans for help – and why would they? Why would they trust?
There came a cry for help all over the internet to all the rescues – “who has room?” BEAR MADE room Dogs young, old, puppies and seniors – sick thin and needing a safe place to go… This little puppy and his sibling, as well as several more puppies – a mix of litters with no mommas – 4 weeks, some 5 some a little older…were all alone except for the kindness of BEAR and their network of loving volunteers and breeders who ALL stepped up to help in this very bad situation.
Mooch – short smooch because he was JUST so smoochable – came to me a few days after Christmas after countless hours on the road from his “kennel” to the shelter to MD - to BEAR in NJ and I went to get him! 17 hours on the road round trip to bring home this little poof – he road like a dream, never cried never soiled his crate. Just so tiny and sweet.
My beautiful girl Edie seemed like the perfect grandma for this little guy who didn’t have a role model or anyone to teach him how to be a dog…We thought a slow introduction would be best so they stayed apart at first to learn that the other was there. It didn’t seem to be going like we thought it should and we began to worry – Edie LOVED to watch him in his pen and sniff his pen when he was outside.
But she seems almost afraid of the little bugger – 5 weeks after we brought Mooch home we found out why. Edie began limping one day and we though hey – she is 12 plus she is just getting old but it did not seem right, it came too fast…way to fast. The morning of February 3, 2023, our girl would not get up – could not get up, so we rushed her to the ER vet. There is only one word that we ALL fear hearing – anything else, torn ACL, broken bone, but never cancer. No not that…never that. But then it came, she had cancer in her joint and when they xrayed further they saw masses hidden in her chest. She was sick, she was in pain but until that day she never let us know. The world stopped turning when they said there is nothing we could do – except let her go. Give her pain free peace…and so we did. Sometimes the kindest thing is the hardest…and it was. I couldn’t breath, my girl gone just like that.
Mooch lost another family member that day – he had us but he NEEDED a dog a Momma! When I told Edie’s breeder that she had left us, after a few tears together she said she thought she could help…Enter Teaka.
So two weeks later and another very LONG drive, I met the sweetest girl, shy but loving – she’s a hugger! We got to know each other on the trip home, and she got to learn stairs for the very first time at the hotel. She would climb a flight and turn around and look down so very proud of herself. She was not impressed with elevators!
So Teaka came home to us from a comfy life in a kennel to meet her new charge. It was all she ever knew but she jumped right in and made herself at home – boofing at night to let me know a crate was NOT her idea of a nice place to sleep. So, she got free roam of the house in only a few days and a few days after that she came up to sleep in our room. She was home!
Mooch is such a character – and was just in land shark mode when Teak arrived. She immediately set to work letting him know that was not okay! So with baby gates, xpens and crates our house looks pretty much like a kennel but we would not have it any other way… It’s been a slow process but we see the glimmer of the bond they will more every day…and it is going to be STRONG!
Mooch my little rescue boy LOVES his momma and Teaka loves her daddy. He’s so confident and strong and yet stands behind me when he goes out at night when there is a scary noise…Teaka has only got eyes for Mike, she is filling the great gap that Edie left in both our hearts. You see Teaka is Edie’s granddaughter – so Edie is with us through her!
Mooch and Teaka are walking because they know we all know how things can change in a moment – one minute everything is okay and the next it is not. Big East Akita rescue is there – has always been there when everything has not been okay…saving dogs, treating dogs – finding them loving homes…
Please support Mooch and Teaka as they walk in honor of Edie, to bring a new beginning to all the Akitas who need help – all the akitas who need BEAR!
BEAR cannot do it alone – please help! Please donate!
Whisker Walk Team New Beginnings
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WHISKER WALK 2023