My Cool Life

After my girlfriend and I found out what dogs go though at pounds, shelters, boarding facilities, etc… thanks to Patrick’s Miracle,  we decided we needed to help a poor soul that had been suffering an entire lifetime. That’s when we started looking into adopting a Pitbull. Why a Pitbull? Because they are the most misunderstood breed out there, and the abuse towards them is just beyond what anyone can imagine.

HOW DID WE FIND FIONA A.K.A FIFI? 

My girlfriend and I went wine tasting on May 29th to feed my alcoholic needs because we needed to get away on a little vacation. She insisted I didn’t bring my computer, but like the stubborn average guy good boyfriend that I am, I decided to go a different route and brought my computer. The second night we were there I saw a friend of mine (that until today can’t remember who it was) that got tagged on a “rescue picture”. Apparently this doggie, named Chica, belonged to a US Soldier that had been deployed to Iraq and had to leave her dog at a high kill shelter because he didn’t have anyone to take care of the pup. Thank GOD someone was there at the high kill shelter when he took her there, and instead of letting the pup get killed she took her elsewhere and boarded her while she found her a forever home. These are the two pictures I saw on facebook of her:

After seeing these pictures on Facebook I decided to contact the woman that posted the pictures and asked her if I could meet Chica Fiona and we agreed to meet her on Tuesday, May 31st 2011 at the boarding facility where they had her. At the time I didn’t know anything about the pup. I had no idea if she was aggressive in general, aggressive towards dogs, aggressive towards other animals, children, etc… but I didn’t care. I wanted to give a “baby” a new chance at an awesome life. So after agreeing with the woman about the date, place, and time to meet up to get to know Fiona I had the difficult task to tell my girlfriend about it and as always she was very understanding and totally agreed that I should meet her and if everything seemed ok with the dog then she would go meet her too and go from there.

THE DAY I MET FIONA

Of course the wine tasting trip was over and it was finally time to meet this baby. I had no idea what to expect at all! At that point I only saw 2 pictures of her on Facebook and was told that she was “sweet” but the person that had her wasn’t completely sure about it. I had to drive for almost 2 hours to get where the dog was boarded, so I woke up very very early in the morning and left 3 hours before to go meet her. I felt like I was going on a “first date” because I was so nervous. I got there an hour before and waited. The nice lady finally arrived and asked me if I was ready to meet “Chica” and I said “Of course”.

We went inside of the boarding facility and she told the lady in charge that I was there to meet Chica. The lady went into the back of the place, opened a cage, and I heard a dog running wild like crazy out of there. I was so nervous but excited at the same time to meet whatever was going to come out of that door, and then finally I saw this MASSIVE Pitbull just charging full speed towards me! I was so nervous but played it so cool (at least in my head). She had to be the tallest Pit I’ve ever seen in my life and it was running full speed towards me! And when she finally got to where I was standing, she decided to just glide through the floor and hugged one of my legs with one paw and with her head!!! I’ve never been really “hugged” by a dog before, and of course it immediately broke my heart to see this wonderful beautiful girl so desperate to get some love.

After she was done “hugging” me she became extremely excited and began running back and forth inside of that room. I asked the lady if I could take her out for a walk and she said yes. Then I asked her if the dog knew how to walk on a leash and she said “not really”. Fine! Who cares if she can’t walk on a leash… I’ll teach her! So I put a collar on her and walked outside with her. She was pulling like crazy, like she hadn’t been out in a long time so I decided to “test” her and pulled the leash on her. She instantly stopped, looked at me, and sat! I was blown away and thought to myself that this wasn’t a coincidence. This dog knew exactly what she was doing! So by the time we made it to the end of the street I decided to ask her if she could sit for me and guess what!? She did! I was blown away by her being so obedient right off the bat, so I then asked her to “lay down” and again.. she did! I walked her for an hour and noticed how eager she was to please people and how loving she was so I took some pictures to use as ammo to send my girlfriend and a video, and here they are:

Well… I said to the lady “Thank you very much and I will bring my girlfriend whenever she gets a chance to meet her”, I drove back to my office and got to work…. well…. that lasted for about 20 minutes and then I called Belen (my girlfriend) and asked her if it was OK with her, I wanted to go back and get the doggie! Even though I wasn’t sure if she was aggressive towards other animals, kids, etc… I wanted to save this girl from being in a cage for 9 straight months! Yep, she was boarded for 9 months and barely went out on walks! (I found out about that after doing some research online). Thank God Belen was all for it so I drove back there and got her! This is a picture of Fiona tasting sweet freedom in the back of our truck!

SO WHAT NOW?

I decided that the best thing to do at this point was to take this girl to a vet to make sure she was perfectly healthy and to get her all of her shots. (Normally when you rescue they have all of their shots taken care off, but this was a “special rescue” so she didn’t have them. But before I took her there I had to make this official and introduce Fiona to Belen, so we stopped by our home and made that happen (And yes, it was love at first sight again!):

After making sure Belen and Fiona liked each other we headed straight to the vet/overnight boarding facility. I explained to the vet everything that happened and he agreed with me about getting all possible tests done, so she had to spend the night there.

After I left Fiona at the vet that night to make sure she was healthy I went back home and thought about my 2 other little girls (Bella and Zoey), who have been in our lives for almost 5 years! Wanted to make sure that Fiona was going to get along with them perfectly fine and didn’t want to risk any “accidents” so I called a couple of rescue friends and they referred me to people that do “Temperament tests” on dogs. After picking the right person to work with we decided to go get Fiona and bring her home for a night before she met the trainer. We are lucky enough to have a “dog room” in our house so we had the chance of leaving her in there for the whole night, and then for me to take her to work with me the next day before the trainer picked her up to take her to his facility to make sure she got along with everyone there.

That entire night and next morning Fiona didn’t see or meet Bella or Zoey at all. We wanted to make sure that the first time they saw each other (depending on the temp test) we were doing a proper introduction so that we didn’t cause them any problems, so really early that morning I took Fiona to work with me. She got to meet my friends and some people that work at the office with me and she was very shy but very friendly and sweet to everyone. The trainer was picking her up at 1PM so I was just playing with her the entire time she was there. Here are some pics:

FIONA GOES TO MEET OTHER DOGS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 9 MONTHS

So 1 o’clock came that day quicker than ever and the trainer came over to pick her up. From the moment he met her he said she seemed to be a very good dog, but better be safe than sorry so he took her with him. That same night he was supposed to let me know if Fiona got along with other dogs or not at around 8. So 8 PM came and still no word from him… then 9 PM cam and still nothing… then almost at 10 PM I got a text message from him saying that he was gonna need another day but he had a great start with Fiona. I was excited but not too excited, I mean… why did she need another day? Did she have a problem? What’s the deal!? All of that and many more things were going through my mind.

Finally Saturday came. The trainer called me at around noon and said that Fiona was very very good with other dogs and that he was going to send me a picture. He also said that he couldn’t make it that day back here to LA (he is an hour away from where I live), which I totally understood but still was getting anxious to have Fiona back and for her to meet our girls. Finally I decided to let it go and accept that she was coming the next day, but I was still waiting on that picture. I waited for hours before I heard back from the trainer. He said the pic was coming at around 7 PM and it did! When I saw the picture (I hate to admit it) but I almost cried from happiness! Here is the pic that I got of the dog that I just rescued that was in a cage for 9 months and didn’t interact with any other dogs for that long time:

FIONA MEETS OUR GIRLS!

Sunday was here and we were so excited for our girls to meet Fiona and to see what they thought of her! We went to the store and got fiona a bed, a crate, food, toys, etc… everything you can possible imagine and waited at home for the trainer. At around 2 PM he called me to let me know he was outside with Fiona. So I went out to get them both. I asked him if it was better for all the dogs to meet outside or inside the house and he said: “It’s a bit more difficult for them to meet inside, but I’m confident she’ll do great” so we decided to do it inside. We opened the door, and of course Bella and Zoey were just waiting by the door and Fiona came in running through the door. They all stared at each other for a second and started playing like they knew each other for years! They all got along so well and we were so very happy! We couldn’t think of a better outcome for this situation! Here is a picture of all of them after 30 minutes of meeting each other:

3 MONTHS LATER

We have a very happy family of Bullies! All the girls get along perfectly, no “incidents”, they all play together, sleep together, lay down together, and best of all take care of each other! I can’t believe a dog this good was gonna be put down and I’m glad she had another chance at life. She makes us extremely happy and smile every day. She is so grateful for being here, always by our side, and so sweet it melts your heart! Here are some random pics of FIFI that I love!

I just wanted to share this with everyone so that as many of you can give a dog like Fiona a second chance and a better life!