With the loss of our two Bichons, Abby in January of 2012 and Ivy January of 2013, our lives have seemed a little empty. If you read my post on how frustrated I got from searching for our new forever dog I’m happy to update that we have adopted a sweet little 10lb female Bichon mix that is about 2 ½ yrs old or as best the rescue place can guess. Lily, or Lil as we call her, came from a puppy mill rescue of around 200 dogs in June from outside of Fargo, North Dakota. The information that we found was that all the dogs were small breed dogs and were in terrible condition. Five or six dogs were crammed into a kennel and were very matted and dirty. We know for sure that a pet store in Fargo got puppies to sell at their store and said the puppies always came in from the owner in very good condition. Too bad the adult dogs couldn’t say the same.
For what Lil has gone through she is a wonderful, sweet little dog. She didn’t know what a leash was but has adjusted to that fast. She loves walks and exploring. We keep her in a kennel when we are gone and at night which is hard to do when we know where she came from but she goes into the kennel really nice and never complains by barking. Joe and I laugh at her because if we let her she would want us to hold her and pet her 24 hrs a day. She is so full of love and affection it is hard to think about what her first two plus yrs of life must have been like. She has been great with our granddaughter Cate so far but we are very careful to watch both of them when they are together because we don’t want to take a chance after all everything is new for Lily. She has just started playing with toys and it is so fun to watch.
After waiting for months to finally get accepted by a rescue group we thought all of our dog prayers were answered. We found out it wasn’t that easy. We are grateful to New Day Rescue for giving us Lily but I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. I think they intend to do well but are so unorganized that they create some very unfortunate problems for both the dog and the adopting family. These first few weeks have been a real trial and not because of the dog but more because of New Day. We have learned a lot about rescues but hope we never have to go through this again.
We are so excited to have Lil in our home but more important we are thankful that she and many other dogs were rescued from a terrible puppy mill and hope that all the other dogs can find loving forever homes.
Stay safe and if you have a four-legged family member give them an extra hug. If you have an empty spot in your home rescue a dog.