Digging into the Past
When I first saw a picture of Candy online in June and called Delores at BFF Rescue to ask for details about her, she explained that her and her half-sisters Flower and Dottie, all in a foster home through her rescue, had been puppy mill mothers.
She told me that a Kansas organization named the Sheltie Shack had been the rescue that was initially involved. I have recently been thinking about their origin, and I decided to look up the shelter online. I found a number for the founder, Linda, and called her. I told her who I was and that I had a blog telling the story of three shih tzus I had adopted. I said I had heard her organization had rescued them and asked her if she would tell me what she recalled about that day.
Linda was very pleasant to talk to. She remembered the dogs instantly. She said she had heard that a local breeder was not going to breed shelties anymore. When she inquired about them, the breeder told her she could take them off their hands. The breeder also relayed in the conversation that they would no longer be breeding shih tzus, and that if she wanted to, she could take the ones they had. Concerned about what could happen to them if she didn’t take them, the rescuer said she would make arrangements with other rescues to place them in homes.
When she picked them up, six shih tzus were in an outside chicken coop-type dog kennel. They were in need of grooming and affection, having lived a life isolated from humans, but otherwise, the rescuer had seen fair worse cases among the hundreds of dogs she had rescued. I was relieved when she said that. I thought maybe their life hadn’t been as bad as I had imagined.
She told me a few of the shih tzus acted very frightened. The others simply acted confused, most likely because they were being moved from the only home they had ever known.
I thanked Linda for sharing the story with me and asked her if she might have some pictures of the girls from the day they were rescued. She said she would look into it and send me what she could find. I will share those pictures if she finds any.