Remembered
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January 2005
By Jill Cravens
In late fall of 2003, we made the decision to adopt from Gold Ribbon Rescue. Like many a “mom-to-be” waiting for that call from the GRR matchmakers, I used to visit the website daily and read all the stories. One girl brought a tear to my eye every time: her name was Charity, and she had the most beautiful eyes and the sweetest face! Yet her original owners had dumped her at a vet’s office to be euthanized—they hadn’t kept up with her puppy shots, she’d come down with parvovirus, and they didn’t want to pay for the treatment. The vet, however, had other ideas. He decided that the 5-month-old girl was worth saving and treated her at his own expense. The little dog also had another medical problem—a rather unusual one. Her tail was just a little curlicue that turned right around and dug into her back end. You couldn’t even get a towel underneath it to dry her off after a bath, and the vet predicted problems with infection if the tail remained (in fact, as he learned, it was already infected from the inside out). It had to come off. The surgery was complicated, but a success!—and after a few weeks of recovery, Charity was ready to go to her forever home.
GRR figured that nobody would care about Charity’s “defect” (it might even be an advantage: no worries about one swipe of a tail clearing an entire coffee table!), but she stayed up on the web for quite a while. When I spoke with the matchmakers, I wondered why someone wouldn’t want this wonderful, sweet girl—but it seems tailless Goldens just weren’t in demand!
Laura Reed found out more about Charity from her foster home, and it turned out she would do fine with our family of two kids, a cat, and a peppy Australian shepherd. We met her and adopted her on the spot! Her name is now Annie, inspired of course by that other little orphan Annie with wavy red hair.
But there’s more to Annie’s story. Not only is she a wonderful pet for my children and a best friend for our other dog Shelby, but Annie has a talent: she loves playing frisbee. Shelby had been playing and competing for 3 years, so we took Annie along one day, not expecting much. Were we in for a surprise! In less than a year’s time, Annie has already competed in local and national frisbee tournaments. In October, she attended the UFO (United Flying Dog Organization) Major in Houston, and claimed a bronze medal in the intermediate class, placing third out of 22 competitors—and the gold and silver medalists were former world champs! She has also done demonstrations for schools and other organizations. Only cattle dogs, border collies, and Australian shepherds typically make it in this sport, so everyone is really surprised to see a tailless Golden out on the field. She’s a crowd favorite. Everyone cheers the loudest when Annie goes out for a frisbee! Whenever she wins, we proudly share her rescue story with the crowd. Through Annie and her accomplishments, we hope to encourage more people to turn to rescue groups for their pets.
Editor’s note: I didn’t know a thing about frisbee competition, so I asked Jill to explain it to me. Here’s what I learned: In the intermediate class of competition (in which Annie medaled), the dogs have one minute to get in as many throws and catches as they can; they score higher for catches at a greater distance and for those made in midair. Freestyle competition features a variety of tricks, all choreographed to music; Annie’s “sister” Shelby competes in this class. The dog might do a flip in the air, vault off the person throwing the frisbee, or jump over his back to catch it.
Sound like fun? Want to know more? Visit the Austin Airdogz link . You’ll find links for UFO there, as well. Austin Airdogz has practices every month, and Jill’s husband Dan even offers classes for people interested in teaching their dogs to play (some dogs won’t automatically go after a frisbee). It’s a great way to have fun with your pooch, get some exercise, make new friends—and cheer Annie on to greater heights, of course!
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