J&K Always: The First Year with Fiona the Poo

This month we celebrate a whole year with Fiona, AKA the Poo. Fiona was one of several rescue dogs that lived at the spay/neuter clinic where I was working at the time. This is her story, shared with me by the wonderful woman who first helped to get her off the streets where she had lived the first couple years of her life:

"Her story started with me in the summer of 2011. I noticed her on the streets with what I know now to be some of her pups. They would hang out by the Dollar General store under the trailers. I started feeding them and taking bags of ice due to the heat. A friend of mine in rescue tried to help me catch her, but by then, I found out from some local folks that she had lived all her life on the streets. Very scared of humans. I came morning, noon and after work for 4-5 months. She had started recognizing my car by then but would not let me get close to her still. I started coming down on the weekends and leaving food and water because it was so hot that summer and I worried about her constantly. Finally after many months, she let me touch her, and within a few weeks, she was running to see me when she saw my car and would lay down for belly rubs. Then she had another litter of pups, and I knew she trusted me when she let me get near her pups. By then, I had notified MARC, who had tried in the past to catch her. She had had numerous litters of pups thru the years but she was very smart. She was caught once by the dog catcher and escaped!! He hated her from that point forward and wanted nothing more than to catch and kill her. At one point, he started watching me, so I had to be careful as I didn't want him knowing where she had her pups hidden. Once the pups could start walking, it got hard for her to contain them. Eventually the pups disappeared and her teats got large and infected since the pups weren’t nursing. That is when I contacted MARC and we drugged her and got her to the vets, where she was reunited with 2 of her pups that someone had found wandering the streets. Being contained at the vets was very stressful for her but she got better and then I took her to the spay/neuter clinic one night in December of 2011. Her 2 pups went to a rescue and Fiona started her life at the clinic that cold December night. As you know, it took her a long time to trust anyone. She did seem to remember me when I visited her. Then you came into her life and she is now happy and content and very loved. This is the short version but I hope it helps you to understand some of what she went thru and I’m sure there are some things she went thru that we can only imagine. I think about her every time I pass where she used to stay, especially when it is raining and in the winter time. So thankful she will never be cold or wet again!! So now you know why she is so special to me and I am so thankful to you and your husband for giving her the life she deserves and for letting me be a small part of it. You have no idea what those pictures mean to me and how happy they make my heart when I see them." -V

When I first met her at the clinic, she was quiet and very "aloof." This coolness and lack of overt friendliness didn't make her the most noticeable, and the other dogs that lived there with her, all with their own stories of abandonment and mistreatment, were friendlier and jumpier (just more dog-like, really), and they got adopted out in the course of a few months. And that left Fiona. She was always a good dog, the easiest one there to walk on a leash, but she had that soulful sadness that gets to you, especially when she'd look at your with her big, fire hazel eyes.

One hot day in August, while taking a break from answering the phones to walk her in the side yard to do her business, she suddenly got super excited about being out there and started to run and jump and play with me; I just couldn't believe it - it was amazing! And I just started to fall in love with her. My husband says I gave him "the look that a man cannot say 'no' to" on the day I asked if we could adopt her. And he tells me often how glad he is that we did. She has been a most wonderful, blessed addition to our family.

I thought I'd share the year in pictures, since she's just so cute.