Hope's Homecoming Fund

Many of you remember and generously donated to Hope's Puppy Transport Fund a couple of months ago. As of April 12, 2008 all of the puppies had been successfully adopted into loving, responsible forever homes.

The quest to capture their semi-feral mother dog continued. After a long, tedious and sometimes dangerous rescue effort spanning more than a year she was captured for us by a wonderful man from the University of Tennessee Veterinary School April 16. She had been injured in an apparent dogfight. She was hurting pretty badly. After at least 15 months of wandering and reproducing she was taken down with a tranquilizer dart and transported to a private vet hospital. She was immediately spayed, vaccinated and medically evaluated. She stayed at the animal hospital for a week while we built a small fortress to contain her while we socialize and train her to be a loving pet. She is remarkably healthy for a wandering animal, and despite her wounds she is healing nicely. Hope is semi-feral so it will take time and patience to be able to introduce her as an inside dog in our home.

Her vet bill is was $626. The supplies for "Fort Knox" were more than $400. They included a chainlink kennel, a doghouse, concrete blocks to discourage digging, 2.5' iron pin anchors, and padlocks. We already had the canopy.

She is now home with us and residing in "Fort Knox." Socialization is slow, but we expected nothing else. Every step we've made with this dog has been an experience in patience and love, but she has taught us more about compassion and love than most people learn in a lifetime. She is a special dog.

Once again we are reaching out to the kindest, most animal loving people on the planet to help us fund Hope's vet bills and safely contain her until we can socialize her enough to bring her into our home and make a loving pet out of this sweet dog.

We are not an organized non-profit rescue group, but we are animal-loving folks who have tenaciously tracked this baby saved her from an uncertain fate. Some call us crazy dog people, but we love animals and work hard to save them. You can see Hope and read more of her story at this link: http://www.dogster.com/dogs/693563

Thank you and God bless you.