A really really happy ending

When the average person is presented with the words "dog rescue" they often conjure up a mental image of militant animal rights activists stealing from home to home under the cover of darkness, stealing dogs who are chained up in backyards and unloved and uncared for; nursing them back to health with around the clock medical attention, then unable to part with their charges, surrounded by dozens of large, mixed breed dogs they have saved.

In reality, dog rescue often involves listening to people tell us on the telephone why they can no longer keep their beloved pets and wanting us to take the dog off their hands. Or it means taking already abandoned dogs from shelters so they don't get so stressed and anxious they become unadoptable. Sometimes it's finding strays and placing them in new homes when they old homes don't come forward. This doesn't mean we aren't saving lives every day; it's just that the dogs that come to us, more often then not, come from relatively mundane circumstances and have no wild tales to tell.

Occasionally, however, we do rescue dogs from circumstances too horrible to be imagined. (We are proud to always obtain our dogs through legal channels.) The abused, the beaten, the deliberately abandoned ... all have come through our doors in search of their forever homes. And sometimes, the tales they would tell, if they could only talk, would break your heart. Sometimes you know just by looking at them.

I have a special fondness for Red Dogs, so when a fellow rescuer told me "We need you to assist this dog" I was helpless before him. I had no room for another rescue dog, but I couldn't turn him down. I heard his story and was doubly determined to help. I began to call on my friends and fellow rescuers, the people without whom we could not save as many dogs as we do. And as always, one of these kind souls came forward to help - not to help me, but to help Ruger.

Ruger, you see, was an Unloved Dog. He was a breeding stud, good for nothing except making puppies - puppies are, in turn, the money makers. So this beautiful, young, intelligent dog was left chained to a doghouse for 24 hours a day, only let loose when he was needed for stud. His coat was dirty and so matted that he was developing sores as the skin twisted and pulled with the snarled hair. His nails were long and broken. His eyes were full of fear. Horribly, he had a large shaved patch on his neck where the shock collar he wore sat to remind him who was boss.

Why a shock collar? Because Ruger is an smart dog. He knew he was better than the miserable existence he was chained to. He was determined to change his fate. So Ruger ran away, whenever he could. He always ran to the same place, and the kind woman who took him in was appalled and full of anger that when the owner would come to retrieve him, he would shock Ruger repeatedly - one, two, nine, ten times - to instruct him to get back in the truck and return to his substandard life of cruelty and mistreatment. The dog would cry and shake and though every fibre of his being told him to run, the collar on his neck told him to obey.

But someone was looking out for Ruger because one day he ran away and this time, no one came looking for him. The kind woman who had always regretted returning him in the past decided she would have no more regrets. She took Ruger in, removed the terrible instrument of torture from around his neck, and simply waited. When no owner appeared after the legally required number of days, she now owned this dog. And she signed him over to rescue.

When Ruger arrived, he made us all cry. The poor dog was the most vile case of maltreatment we had ever seen come to our doors, and yet he greeted everyone in his path with a wag of his chewed up tail and a hug was accepted from all open arms. Ruger knew he was safe, and he was grateful. He was the kind of dog that you just wanted to envelop in your arms and keep forever.

And this time, his foster home did.