Meet the all-furry team!
The Dogs
 Leia
(Black Border Collie Mix)
About a month after moving to Idaho, I started volunteering at the local animal
shelter. There I met a fuzzy little black pup who wasn't healthy. She also had
the disadvantage of being a black puppy and getting older, so no one wanted
her. The folks at the shelter said she either had kennel cough or distemper.
I decided I didn't want that little black pup to lose her chance at a home,
so I adopted Leia, and took her to the vet. The problem turned out to be kennel
cough and a few antibiotics later, as you can see, Leia is a happy, healthy
hound. Her main vice was separation anxiety. In other words, when we left her
alone, she tried to eat her way out of the house. We tried many things, but
basically the best thing we did was get Tika. We always say that Tika is Leia's
dog and it's true.
 Tika
(Golden Retriever)
Her story starts off badly. She began her life as a puppy mill puppy. When the
mill was raided in the winter of 1997, she was dumped in the street and was
found with her feet frozen into the ice by an elderly couple in town. Tika was
about 6 weeks old at the time and her medical records said she was "immunosuppressed."
But the older couple took her in and put her in the back yard. Unfortunately,
by the time Tika was five months old the couple couldn't take her hyperactive ways
anymore and brought her to the animal shelter. When I adopted Tika, she had
almost every behavior problem in the book. Submissive urination, excitement
urination, jumping on people, you name it. She couldn't focus on anything long
enough to even begin to be trained. Suffice it to say, Tika was completely out
of control. My husband James couldn't touch her for the first 6 months we had her. After
consulting with a behaviorist and vets, I discovered that Tika is hyperkinetic
(the doggie equivalent of ADHD in kids), a situation that has been resolved
through obedience classes and behavior modification training.
 Cami
(White Samoyed/Aussie Shepherd/Lab Mix)
Cami was the cutest puppy I had ever seen. (And as an animal shelter volunteer
and employee, I have seen a LOT of puppies.) When I was volunteering at the
shelter, I spent some time holding and cuddling her. After I got home, told
my husband about the tiny fuzzball puppy I'd met. When I showed Cami to James,
it was love at first sight…he cuddled Cami and couldn't leave the
building without her. Cami was adorable and well adjusted, until she hit 4 months
old. Then she became psycho weirdo dog. I thought I knew about dogs, but I couldn't
figure her out. No one else could either. After three years filled with vet
trips, university consultations, medications, and socialization classes, I ran
across a reference to a study indicating that thyroid imbalance can affect canine
behavior. So I had the vet do a "full thyroid panel" and lo and
behold Cami's problems were a lack of thyroid hormones! Now with her daily thyroid
supplements, Cami is a happy, happy little hound again. (You
can read more about the research I found here.)
 Leto
(Off-white Great Pyrenees/Retriever mix)
The big boy's story is a tale of travels. Originally, Leto was picked up as
a stray in Los Angeles, California. Because he was white (sort of), the shelter
called Samoyed rescue. He looks nothing like a Samoyed, but because he was SO
nice, the rescue folks took him anyway. He went to foster care in Temecula,
CA and then later Redding, California. Meanwhile, because of Cami's myriad behavior
problems, I had subscribed to an online Samoyed discussion list SamFans http://www.samfans.org).
The link to Leto's picture was posted and I saw it and fell in love with his
gentle brown eyes. After much e-mail discussion and applying for adoption, the
task of getting him to Idaho presented itself. Enter the Canine Underground
Railroad, a network of volunteers who drive dogs to their "forever"
homes. So all told, Leto went from Lancaster (LA County) shelter to Murietta,
CA: 120 miles; Murietta to Redding, CA: 325 miles; Redding, CA to Vancouver,
WA: 430 miles, Vancouver to Seattle, WA: 164 miles, then Seattle, WA to somewhat
north of Sandpoint, Idaho 400 miles. For a grand total of 1439 miles! When I
got him, he was extremely skinny and after months of the "good life"
here in Idaho wasn't putting on weight. After conventional medicine failed,
I cured his digestive problems through more alternative means. I wrote more
about it here.
The Cats
 Alia
(gray and white tabby): We adopted Alia and her sister Chani from
a group in San Diego that takes cats on death row, Friends of the County Animal
Shelters (FOCAS). However, Alia and Chani never spent any time in a shelter
because they were fortunate enough to have a mother cat who was found by a FOCAS
volunteer in the dumpster in her condo parking lot. The volunteer took in the
momma cat and let her have kittens in a spare bedroom. Then she adopted out
two of the kittens to us. We signed all the contracts as if we were adopting
from a shelter. Although they didn't enjoy it, the feline team left the sun
of Southern California and survived the move to Idaho. Alia is still going strong,
but Chani who was the runt of the litter died in 2000 from kidney failure.
 Troi
(brown tabby): We adopted Troi from a humane society south of here
because Alia was incredibly depressed after the death of her sister tabby Chani.
I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it, but cats do grieve. Alia
would no longer get up and wander around. All she did was eat, sleep and cry
mournfully. She got hugely fat and we were afraid we'd lose her. So I consulted
a behaviorist who suggested getting a kitten who looked as much like Chani as
possible. Oddly enough, the shelter only had one tabby in residence at the time:
Troi. We took her out of the kennel and played with her for a while. She seemed
nice, but we decided against adopting her. I put her back in the kennel and
said goodbye. As I was walking out of the room, I looked back at her. She gave
me a look of such disappointment I knew I had to take her. So we adopted her
after all. Named after Counselor Troi in Star Trek, she has done a tremendous
job of counseling Alia. And the ironic thing is, she grew up to look almost exactly
like Chani who was a very small, rotund cat. It's weird. Even though Troi has
a completely different personality, sometimes I think Chani's spirit is in there
somewhere.
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