When we first heard that she was being returned, we panicked. We had seen Miss Stevie in the shelter, and knew how badly she might regress if she ended up back there. And with the shelter close to full already, we didn’t know how good her chances were of making it out.

We didn’t realize how many lucky stars were aligning for Miss Stevie while we were freaking out and coming up with unreasonable, irrational plans. Plans like driving back to Maryland from Texas to fetch her and bring her back home with us. 50+ hours of driving and 1.5 dogs too many in our house, that would have been. Luckily, we kept looking for other solutions.

Lucky Star Number One: we found out from Stevie’s family that they were committed to keeping her in their home for at least a few weeks — until a suitable foster home could be found. We can’t overstate how much respect we have for a family who realizes that they have to / want to / decide to surrender a beloved family pet, but then is willing to hold on to the animal until a good option arises. It must have been heartbreaking every day. But it turned out to be critical.

Knowing we had at least a couple of weeks, we reached out to rescues. We contacted Jasmine’s House, our friends at Bully Paws, and a few individuals and families we know who sometimes foster. We even put a vague post out on our Facebook page, stating that a dog we love very much needed a soft place to land — hoping that one of our DC area friends would step up.

Lucky Star Number Two: our friend Catalina at Jasmine’s House remembered Stevie’s story well, and agreed to do what she could to bring her in to the rescue. Several Jasmine’s dogs were being adopted that week, so a suitable foster home was likely to come up.

Lucky Star Number Three: one of our friend-of-friends and blog followers sent us an email in response to our Facebook posting. They were thinking about getting into fostering, and were interested in meeting Stevie-girl. They were a young couple with two dogs, two cats, and no kids.

Catalina arranged a meeting, and took Stevie up to meet her potential foster. A few hours later, we got a call from Catalina, gushing about how wonderful Stevie’s would-be fosters were. They had lovely dogs, a nice home, and were clearly thoughtful, kind, educated, and actively interested in dog behavior and training.  Potentially perfect. And judging from the quick iPhone photo we got, it was love!

A few days later, sh** hit the fan in Maryland. The state Court of Appeals issued an opinion that casts a label of “dangerous dog” on any pit bull type dog in the state, and creates strict liability for not only owners of pit bulls, pit bull mixes, and dogs who anybody thinks look like pit bulls, but on any landlord who has a pit bull living on his/her property. More detail on the opinion is available here, but in short: the Court of Appeals, in one catastrophic opinion, made owning or adopting out pit bull type dogs a hell of a lot more risky and difficult.

We immediately panicked again — what would this mean for our Stevie-girl? Would the family who had loved her get cold feet and back out?

Lucky Star Number Four: Nope. They quickly reassured Jasmine’s House that if anything, the Court’s ruling made them more committed, not less committed to fostering Stevie Wonder. Awesome!

Another week later, Stevie was safe and sound in their home in Towson, and we could finally sleep well at night. Her journey is far from over, but we already feel optimistic about her prospects. Stevie Wonder is a resilient, loving girl. She’ll bounce back from all of these changes — we have no doubt.

And while she starts the next chapter of her journey, please enjoy Lucky Star Number Five – her new foster family’s blog about their experience, Hound and a Half! Stop by to lend some support, ideas, or just plain thanks for being so awesome.

Bon Voyage, Stevie Wonder! We’ll all be with you all the way!

**And a special bonus, Lucky Star Number Six: Stevie’s new foster family is real-life-good-friends with the adopters of another of our favorite fosters, Curious Georgia! What a beautiful, wonderful, small world it is!

. . . and they lived happily ever after . . . until they didn’t.

They loved our little Stevie-girl to pieces. She slept under the covers in bed with them, accompanied dad on daily morning runs, played fetch on the back patio until their arms were sore, and went to basic obedience class at the top-notch facility nearby. They bragged about how sweet, smart, and darling she is. By all accounts, everything should have been perfect.

But right about January, we got the dreaded email. Stevie’s family was seeing some behavioral issues –some anxiety and fear– and they needed a good private trainer. A few months later, an even more dreaded email: Stevie is being returned.

Our first reaction was to be shocked, appalled, and judgmental. Yikes.

But the return of Stevie is an important reminder to us that all stripes of people part with beloved pets, for all kinds of reasons. Us who work in dog rescue often protect our hearts with a high wall and a quickness to judge: returns are never acceptable. Those who return pets are wrong. Always.

But in fact, could we be wrong for thinking this way?

Hang around animal rescue for long enough and have the courage to keep your heart and mind open, and eventually you’ll start to see that nothing is as black and white as you had initially thought. Not all those who want to adopt pit bulls are criminals, not every shy dog was abused, not every dog who growls is dangerous, and not every adopter who returns a pet is a bad person.

Naturally, our instinct was to feel protective of our former foster, Stevie-girl, who we nursed back to emotional health after she was found tied to a tree on a golf course last spring. How could she be homeless again? Doesn’t forever mean forever?

That we heard the news in the same week that our post about another dog’s return was highlighted on the ASPCA Pro blog seems like a cosmic sign of some sort. Don’t forget to be compassionate. Kindness and humane treatment applies to all creatures, not just the dogs we work so hard to save.

Eventually, we came to what we think is an important realization. Some dogs may be better off rehomed. We would have loved to have seen Stevie thrive in her forever-home forever. And yes, we think that with enough time, money, patience, training, and care, the incompatibilities between her exuberance and her family’s lifestyle may have resolved. But how much time, money, patience, training, and care is enough, and how much is too much? What level of stress to a family and a dog is justifiable to make a situation fit? Knowing what we know now, we see that Stevie probably never would have become a natural fit for this particular type of family. And don’t Stevie and her family each deserve a natural fit? We realized that it’s actually possible — probably, even–  that she’ll be happier, healthier, and more well-balanced in a different home.

There is much to be thankful about in Stevie’s saga. And we’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

Who remembers this gal?

Stevie Wonder lived with us last summer — our fifth foster dog, and one of our true darlings.  She was one of those perfect rescue/foster stories. A good dog who wasn’t cut out for shelter life, pulled into foster care when it became obvious she wasn’t going to make it out on her own.

When she arrived, she was a quivery, shut-down mess. But with time and love, we helped her open up. We had lots of fun adventures together, and integrated her successfully with our own grumpy Chick, who ended up pretty fond of the spazzy lass. We took her to adoption events and talked about her all the time, like a good foster family does. Not only is she cute as a button, a great runner, swimmer, fetcher, and snuggler, but she had that kind of jubilant energy with a little splash of nervousness thrown in that made her oh-so-fun to work with. Our favorite kind of dog — a little challenging, but in a good way. Full of love, but kind of a spaz. Very emotional. And very willing to learn.

She was with us a couple of months, and then in mid August, a family showed up to meet her. They seemed perfect. Experienced, loving, ready for a new dog. They had a little boy with a head of blond curls. They instantly loved Stevie, and she instantly loved them. We had fantasies about her and the little boy growing up together. They applied, and they were approved. We were thrilled — it was a perfect match.

We cried a little when she walked out of our world and into theirs, but then we patted ourselves on the back and congratulated ourselves for a match made in heaven. And they lived happily ever after . . . right?

In any case, that’s how the story is supposed to end. In a perfect world, every dog would enter foster care, be matched with their perfect family on the first try, and live happily ever after. Easy breezy. But it turns out that in the case of Stevie — like so many dogs who circulate the rescue world — the story is a lot more tumultuous and complicated. Stay tuned for this story’s next chapter tomorrow . . .

For the last four bazillion 17.6 years, there was a definite ruler of our Texas family universe. Some of the humans pretended to be in charge now and then, and sometimes I even pretended. But deep down, we all knew who the real boss was. Disney.

She was about eight ounces of pure intimidation, and boy did she boss us around. Especially me.

We first met a few months after mama busted me from the slammer, must’ve been about the spring of 2005. I was a spring chicken, and she was about a hundred years old already. You woulda thought a young buck like myself would take charge of a little old lady (mama says she was not a hundred, but only eleven then), but no sirree, she showed me straight away who was in charge. Disney.

Over the years, she played many, many tricks on me. She talked me into going to the snack bar kitty litter for a tasty morsel — promising me that nobody would see — and then ran and told my mama so I would be caught with my face right in the kitty toilet igloo! Another time she talked my mama into letting me go off leash in her unfenced yard in Galvestion, promising she would take care of me, and then she pulled out her cell phone and secretly called the rabbits to come out and taunt me so I would go racing around and get in trouble. She sure was a trickster!

But sometimes I tricked her too. For example, one time after I took a nap on the couch, I told Disney about the perfect cozy spot I had found, and told her to go try it out. Well she did, not realizing that I had hidden her kitty nemesis brother under the blanket, so she was caught cuddling a cat!

The last time I saw Disney was Thanksgiving weekend. We enjoyed some snacks from the Turkeyman together, and at one quiet moment, she pulled me aside and told me: An era is ending, Nephew. I’m going to be passing the torch along to you soon.

I didn’t really understand what she was talking about, but when I looked at her later that day, I noticed that she was looking kind of tired. I mean, she’s been an old lady ever since I was born, but it was different now. Like maybe she was tired of being the boss. Like she’d had the best life a dog can imagine in her 17.5 years, and she was ready to pass along the Family Elder torch to somebody else.  Me.

And then this past weekend when we went back to Galveston to visit my grandparents and my Disney, I could tell that something was different. Disney didn’t want to come out and party with me and meet my new brother. She didn’t want to eat turkey with me or lounge in the sunshine. She was ready. And so on that quiet Saturday afternoon, Disney’s doctor came over while the Duder and I were napping upstairs, and he helped her let go of the torch.

The family will never quite be the same without that old gal’s spirit, but I’m going to do my best to bravely wear the Family Elder shoes in honor of my favorite aunt Disney. I just wish there had been time for her to teach my brother Doodlebug how to play her spectacular game of fetch.

RIP Disney, 1994-2012

Disney mini painting by http://www.yellowbrickhome.com

Oh, hi there.

It looks like you caught me, friends.

Napping . . . and . . .

Cross-dressing.

In my mama’s socks.

But you see, I’ve got good reason.

I’ll tell you about it another time.

It’s hard to type, after all

when you’re wearing socks on your paws.

Chick has traveled thousands and thousands of miles with his face squished between the driver and passenger seats of our various cars. He loves laying there, softly snoring, gently rousing when he senses a highway exit or hears his favorite song.

This weekend we took a weekend trip to Galveston to spend some time with the boys’ grandparents and say goodbye to a very special friend (more on that later in the week). Chick got to introduce his new brother to all the wonders of Galveston living, and gallantly shared his favorite backseat driving spot. Luckily, Chick’s philosophy on cuddling-squishiness is “The more the merrier!”

Remember when a few weeks ago mama introduced you to our artichokes?

Well the Doodlebug and I put our big brainiac heads together and we got to thinking: why not introduce you to the rest of our garden too?

You’re with me, right? Ok, here we go!

This here is a photo of my rock-solid six-pack abs. These here are my tomatoes. Dad planted them a few weeks ago when they were quite miniature, like even littler than my head (he says that he and mama are too lazy to start them from seeds, whatever that means). But they just keep growing and growing and gosh, this week they became taller than me! You probably can’t tell but they have some tomatoes already growing on them — some of the plants have little bitty ones that grow all together like ducks in a row, and other plants have bigger ones that grow all by their lonesome (like I did until we started fostering). My favorite thing about tomatoes is that pretty often mama makes them into some kind of dipping stuff and uses chips to eat it. And you know what happens if you use a chip instead of a spoon to eat stuff? You drop chips on the floor, and your Chicken gets a tasty little snack!

Ok. Next up, here are my peppers. We have peppers of all kinds! Some of these little guys are bell peppers, others are poblanos, and others are jalapenos and some other kind of !ay carumba! hot peppers. You can see me keeping my stink-eye on those hot suckers so they don’t try to burn me in this photo. But those bell peppers? They make for some yummy snacks during the summertime. Sometimes mama will be doing some chop chop chopping in the kitchen and if I’m being a very excellent Chick and staying on my spot instead of tangling myself in her feet, she will toss some pepper bits my way. And they make me very happy!

Next, I’d like to introduce you to my greens and my basils! I had to check on them during this photo shoot to make sure there were no kitty-pillars eating them. Dad does NOT like kitty-pillars, even though they are fuzzy and a little bit cute. Anyhow, these are the greens. Sometimes mama puts some of the lettuces in my kongs along with some potatoes and ducks, and although my Doodlebug picks out the lettuces, licks them clean, and makes them into a neat pile on the floor, I am a better boy than him and I eat them up. They have lots of vitamins!

I am growing the basil more for mama and dad than for myself, because I honestly don’t care for it too much. But every time I will them to bring some basil inside, it makes them want to cook pasta! And you know why I love them cooking pasta? Because sometimes they let me chomp on a dry piece, and sometimes they let me slurp up a wet piece like Lady and the Tramp. Yummy!

Moving right along, I’d like you to meet my miniature cantalopes and my green beans (and behind them, my cilantroes, my chives, my thymes, and my oreganoes). Sometimes I get to snack on cantalopes and I love it so much that I dream about them at night. Mama and dad picked out mini cantalopes to put in our garden — I’m not sure why, but I bet it’s because I will be able to fit them in my mouth whole, without having to bother mama with cutting them up. And I’ve also heard from my dog trainer friends that cantalope can be good for chilling out a dog that worries, isn’t that cool?

Right behind the melon vines are my new green beans. We planted those from tiny little seeds just about a week and a half ago, and look how big they’ve become! I wonder if mama is putting some kind of growth horomones in the dirt, or what. Or maybe they just know that they are one of only five foods that my Doodlebug can eat, so they’re in a rush to come up? Anyhow, here they are!

Ok, let’s see . . . next we have my onions. I can’t say too much about onions, because I heard they are bad for dogs. Plus, they smell gross and make mama very, very sad when she does her chop, chop, chop to them. But she insisted that I grow them for her anyway, so here they are, almost ready to pick!

And last but not least, my cucumbers! They are those big, pretty-leafed ones right behind me in this here photo. I started those from seeds too, and they came up in a flash. I hope they start giving me cucumbers soon! I love cucumbers to eat plain when I’m hungry, or to slice and lay over my eyes when they’re tired and puffy (my eyes, not the cucumbers). And most of all, I like cucumbers when mama puts them in the big noisy kitchen machine that goes vroom-vroom and makes them into Guss-patch-yo. She doesn’t ever let me have a whole bowl or glass of it, but she does let me lick the pitcher. Nothing says summertime like a Guss-patch-yo pitcher to clean!

Well, that’s most of my garden. The other things I have are some rosemaries, some okras, mints, and some carrots. But they’re all pretty camera-shy, so I didn’t want to make them pose. I hope you enjoyed my garden tour, see you next week!

I have this big scar on my face. Nobody but me knows where it came from, and I’m never gonna tell. I think it’s rather distinguished and lends me some complexity (I am a simple dog), but sometimes I get self conscious about it.

So I hide it.

Sometimes I hide it in my dog toys while playing:

And sometimes I hide it in my dog toys while resting:

Or other times if I’m resting, I go ahead and just hide it in my blanket:

If I have no toy or blanket handy, sometimes the grass is a decent substitute:

Or an even better substitute, a pretty lady’s lap:

Really, is there anything sweeter than playing with a silly dog on some freshly mowed grass?

Not really. So that’s why we’re officially making time.

We love this little blog of ours, but lately it’s taking up a lot of our real-life-fun time. Time that should be spent outside working our dogs and playing with our dogs — and doing other little things like “laundry” and “cooking” and “reading a book” — is spent sitting in front of a computer, writing and editing and inventing and networking.

It occurred to us the other day that the Chickerdoodles have a big and glorious presence on the interwebs — they are virtual dog celebrities — but their real life lives are less glamorous by comparison. Not fair, right?

So we’re gonna cut back to a few days per week. Chick has already stated that he’s not giving up Chix-A-Lot Fridays —hell no— and knowing us we’ll be posting at least another one or two times per week (since we can’t keep our mouths shut and our fingers still for long). But the every weekday era is on pause for a while, so we can do more of this:

Who’s with us?

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There are those days you wake up and spring out of bed with ease — today’s going to be a day full of wonder.

We didn’t have anything in store, really, for Saturday. But when we woke up and saw two white-tipped tails beating on the dog bed in unison, eyes intently fixed on us, we should have known the boys had other plans.

We got up, fixed some coffee, had a big stretch — the boys in classic downward dog position and the humans in more of a sun salutation — and threw open the back doors to the yard to greet the morning sunshine.

And that’s when we saw it! The stick!

It was a lovely gift from our Live Oak to our boys. And the boys took one look and knew immediately what to do. As though they had dreamt of it and woken up with tails wagging, ready for the takedown.

Once they had defeated it, they proudly wore it around the yard, like a cape draped over a king’s shoulders.