Canby Herald Online

The joy of helping dogs find good homes

• By: Ray Hughey  
• Published: 12/1/2009 11:21:04 AM

About a year and a half ago, I fortunately stumbled into a way to combine two of my passions — dogs and photography.
 
Every Saturday, a nonprofit group called Oregon Dog Rescue would bring a bunch of adoptable dogs to the PetSmart store near where I live in Tualatin.
 
When I shopped there for supplies for my pooches, I would stop to look at the adoptable dogs. When I realized that the group had only cell phone photos of the dogs on their Web site, I offered to take a more personality type portrait that might help find them homes.
 
Tristan was the first rescue I photographed. He was supposed to be a shepherd, Airedale mix, and with the chin whiskers he sported, maybe a bit of Irish wolfhound thrown in. At a year old, he was still mostly pup, and a big one who still insisted on sitting in people’s laps.
 
It took a few weeks, but he got a great home. He was adopted by a couple with five acres, including one fenced. Both worked from home and they had a female dog about the same size and appearance as Tristan.
 
Love at first sight. And it felt good to think that I might have had a hand in helping find a home for him and the other dogs.
 
So I have gone back nearly every Saturday photographing hundreds of dogs since then.
 
It’s nothing fancy. Just take the dog outside and take its picture. I have built an embarrassing repertoire of sounds to encourage the pups to look my way.
 
For me, it’s a dangerous endeavor. I want to adopt them all myself. I am saved by the fact I lived in a fifth wheel with two dogs of my own.
 
The closest I came to buckling was Esther, later named Gracie, a 7-year-old miniature schnauzer. She was blind, apparently due to detached retinas, but seemed to be able to sense light. She lived for someone to toss a squeaky toy for her to pounce on. She found a wonderful home with her foster parents.
 
The fun part of my endeavor is all the great dogs and dog lovers that I get to meet. All kinds of wonderful dogs come through. Beautiful purebreds, amazing and adorable mixes, old dogs, young dogs, dogs with special needs.
 
Some were strays found running loose and never claimed. Others were crowded out of their home by a baby, or another pet. Some come there when their owners die, become ill or no longer can care for them.
 
Oregon Dog Rescue found a new home for Lady, a 3-pound teacup Chihuahua, whose owner had died. Currently up for adoption are Bonkers and Bubba, two 10-year-old Chihuahuas. They came to Oregon Dog Rescue after their owner was injured, lost her job and home and could no longer care for them. The rescue group hopes someone will adopt them together.
 
Some dogs come with heart-tugging special needs, like Ella, an 8-week-old boxer puppy left hairless by a birth defect. Instead of fur, she had only a little “peach fuzz.” They smeared her with sunscreen and dressed her in baby doll clothes to protect her from the sun.
 
Chloe and Buddy were 9-month-old double dapple dachshunds. Double dapples, produced by breeding two dapple dogs, also can produce a high number of birth defects. Chloe was deaf and mostly blind. Her brother Buddy could hear and was blind only in one eye. Oregon Dog Rescue succeeded in finding them a new home together so Buddy could continue looking after Chloe.
 
Andy, a 6-year-old Jack Russell terrier, lost his home when a baby came along. His front feet were deformed, missing a foot on one front leg and part of the foot on the other. His new family outfitted him with boots to wear on walks.
 
Others have been treated poorly. Charles, a 5-year-old male German shepherd-husky mix, came to a shelter with a severe neck wound from an embedded collar.
 
Pudding, a little black lab mix, was rescued by authorities from a previous owner who thought it sporting to whirl the dog by its ears and throw it against the side of a house.
 
Thor, a 4-month-old black lab mix, was rescued by police after his previous owner locked him in a car at a MAX station in 85-degree weather to go shopping downtown for a few hours.
 
Perhaps the saddest are those rescued from puppy mills, huge breeding operations where the dogs live in filthy cramped crates, cages and even shopping carts, devoid of human companionship.
 
Many of the rescued animals at first are terrified to just be held and petted.
 
Oregon Dog Rescue took in 10 Chihuahuas out of 150 dogs rescued from a Washington County puppy mill last year.
 
This year, the group took about a dozen of 400 miniature American Eskimo dogs rescued from a Kennewick, Wash. puppy mill.
 
Despite the abuse they have suffered, the rescued puppy mill dogs begin to heal in the safety and nurturing of their foster families.
 
The first time they go out for adoption, they huddle fearfully at the rear of their crates.
 
Within a week or two, they crowd to the front of their cages like the rest of the dogs to greet their next visitors.
 
No matter how they get there, once these pooches find their way to Oregon Dog Rescue or other rescue groups, they will find their “forever homes.”
 
It is rewarding to see that so many people are out there willing to provide those homes and that the rescue volunteers are there to bring them together.
 
For more information about Oregon Dog Rescue, visit its Web site at http://oregondogrescue.org/contact.php.

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