Riley is the newest and last member of our family. She is a border collie and was born at the end of January 2007. Last December, she followed my neighbor's home from a walk. My neighbor's husband took her back to the spot where she had started to follow them and dumped her there....shame on him!!! When we came home that night, she had made her way over a mile back to our street. We set up our crate in the backyard and gave her some food. At the time we did not have a gate to our backyard due to renovations but she pretty much stayed put. Shane spent all of Saturday driving around Houston to various shelters, none of which would take her. The following Monday, I took her to our vet and they checked her out and vaccinated her. I am sure you can imagine how unhappy Shane is at this point. I sent out e-mail to everyone I knew and asked them to forward the e-mail on to see if anyone might want her, to no avail. We slowly started introducing her to our other pets. It was obvious that she was very scared.
After we found her, I posted her information on petfinder.com and craigslist. That same day, I received an e-mail from a woman named Dawn who was looking for a dog that met Riley's description. Apparently, a man had been keeping her in an empty house in Heatherwood, the neighborhood next to ours. A family had been working on the home and, I believe, they conveniently "lost" her. Since she was so hungry and dirty I did not want this man to have her back and he agreed to let us keep her. Here is a picture of Riley as a puppy that Dawn sent me.
Dawn rescued Riley and her litter mates when they were new puppies. Riley was born on a farm off of FM 2978. Apparently, there is a mean old farmer there who lets his pets mate and then dumps the litters around the area.
One day, Riley's mom was defending the puppies from being stepped on by a cow. This angered the mean old farmer and he shot and killed her. Then he dumped the litter next to Dawn's office. Dawn found homes for all the puppies. Riley was harder to place and Dawn was unsure of the man who took her. She had reason to be unsure. The man, whose name I forget, neglected her. She had never had a bath, was malnourished, had worms, had never been in a car or on a leash. Everything we have done with her has been a first for her.
It has taken many months and some pretty extensive training/boarding; but, she has become an awesome pet. She loves to go on walks and ride in the car. Border collie's have lots of energy so we have had to adjust to this. She will run behind Shane on his bike at 20 miles per hour for over 15 miles at a time. She is very interested in our cats, none of which are interested in her. She is terrified of baths but will run into any body of water that she sees. We just recently taught her how to play with a ball. It was so neat to see her playing like a puppy. I really think she spent the first year of her life on concrete, being ignored. To give her a good home is so rewarding.
We have many years to look forward to with her.
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We just returned from a fun week in Galveston, despite Hurricane Dolly. I will have some pictures to share as soon as I can get them on the computer later on today.
Hugs to all!
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