Tag: cats

Photo Friday, No. 532

Current Photo Friday theme: Silence

This one is a hard one, and though it’s dated February 13, I’m writing it after more than a week of silence.

In the early morning hours of Friday, January 13, on a desolate stretch of Colorado highway, one of our rescue vans was involved in an accident. This particular van had a father and son driving team. The driver, Charles, lost his life. His son Jared survived the crash with injuries, but those will heal with time. Miraculously, no dogs lost their lives, and only four ran from the scene of the accident. Over the ensuing week, thanks to a groundswell of Colorado volunteers involving some of our rescue partners, a nearby shelter, and dog behaviorists, three of those dogs were recovered and are now safe and sound in homes. We’re sure with a little time, we’ll get our fourth girl safely back, as well. (ETA: The fourth dog was also recovered and is safe and sound.)

I say it all the time–we love our drivers. It’s a terrible loss to our rescue family and to Charles’s family. The only comfort I can find is that Charles loved what he was doing. He was a helper. He was a good man. He was a hero in Houston’s rescue community. We will miss him.

I created this little shrine of many little dog totems that have come to me over the years to honor him and all the dogs he safely transported to their new homes each week. If there is a Rainbow Bridge–and I believe there is, or something like it–then Charles was greeted with love by all the animals who recognized him as a new friend.

There can be a lot of pain in rescue. Most of our dogs and cats come to us from the streets, many are ill, some are fragile, and whenever we lose one, I make a final note on that dog or cat’s record to “run free.” Now I will imagine every sweet animal running, strong and healthy again, into Charles’s arms, and he will help them across the Rainbow Bridge with the same compassion and care with which he loaded so many onto his van.

Run free, sweet Charles.

Pet Prose: Mariann

Author photo.

“Sherry fell in love with the right man too young and let him slip away, but she never looked back.

She always made enough money to go where she wanted on her own terms. She’d partied with rock stars. A celebrated novelist had written a roman à clef about her. Once an ill-advised choice left her married to a surgeon, but she never spoke of those days. She’d certainly been to paradise and had even been to ME, if by ME one meant Kennebunkport, Maine.

Now she was a little weary of her life. Sometimes all she really wanted was to meet a weathered Texas man with white hair that curled a little over his collar. She wasn’t looking for a rancher or an oilman, just a gentleman to accompany her into her twilight years.”

An excerpt from Mariann’s first romance novel.

I take photos. I write. My volunteer job is taking photos of rescued dogs and cats transported by the rescue group whose records I manage. Since working and volunteering don’t leave me a lot of time to write, I’m spending 2017 borrowing from what these dogs and cats are writing. They said it’s okay.

Strike a Pose

Some of you may know that my first role as a volunteer for my rescue group employer was going to their transports and taking photos of the animals who were going to travel. What began as my desire to document something that I believed had the potential to be a great thing for Houston’s homeless pet population turned into a labor of love for the volunteers and fosters who helped get these dogs and cats on the road to new beginnings. I saw the tears of goodbye, the gentleness in the hands of a foster parent who handed a dog to a driver, the quick, emotional exits after a cat carrier was loaded, and I thought, If I can put photos on the rescue’s website of all the pets who leave, then everyone who helped them can always look back and see them on the day they took that leap of faith toward their new lives…

I never dreamed in those first months that 30 to 40 animals a transport would sometimes exceed 200, but there are more than 37,000 photos in my archive account now–that’s a lot of camera time, and post-processing time, and I’m still committed to thanking the helpers in this way after more than 17,000 dogs and cats (and two pigs) have been transported to their new homes.

What isn’t captured in those photo collages is the chaos of the photo table. I’m shooting very fast, and it’s only because the photos are so small in the collages that you can rarely see how blurred and bad they sometimes are. Cats are taken to the vans in carriers and very few of them make it easy for me to photograph them through their wire doors. But those carriers aren’t opened until they’re inside the vans with all the van doors closed so they can be transferred to their more comfortable travel crates without risk of their making a run for it. If given the opportunity to dash, there’s little chance anyone can catch a cat.

We have had dogs slip their collars or out of the arms of the people carrying them. Some amiably trot right over to whoever looks the friendliest, and others try to exit stage left, but with calm team work, they are gently ushered back to where they should be and securely placed on the vans. Then some of us, and by that, I mean me, have a mini meltdown and need to compose myself, but I try not to let it show. Seeing any dog anywhere unleashed amps up my anxiety level unless there’s an eleven-foot gated and locked fence around everything.

Only a few dogs and cats have boarded the vans unphotographed over these three-plus years. Even then, sometimes I realize it’s happened while the drivers are still on the road and they’ll email me photos of the dogs when they’re taken out for their walks. Each week I’m surprised again by the amazing animals who pass before my lens and that there are people in this city who won’t give them homes, won’t spay and neuter to prevent more unwanted pets, or who surrender them to kill shelters because they are in some way an inconvenience. (Though trust me, not everyone who surrenders a dog or cat does it for selfish reasons–quite the opposite!) I’m grateful for everyone on the ground in Houston who wants to make this a better city for homeless pets, and for the rescues and shelters in other states who welcome our dogs and cats with love and care and find them homes where they will be cherished for the rest of their lives.

And every week, as frustrating as my amateur photography efforts can be, I have to laugh at the dogs and cats who turn their heads away, who are far more interested in the other animals and other people and vans than they are in my camera and me. They walk out of my shots, turn their butts to me, stick out their tongues, jump around like crazy things, stop to relieve themselves, do the upward gazing dog routine so I can only get their chins, or retreat to the backs of their carriers from The Evil Force With Exploding Light. I often use the squeaker from a toy when I’m trying to get them to look toward the camera. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not.

A couple of weeks ago when I was taking a group shot of our staff and volunteers at the end of a transport, I asked them to please, when I squeaked at them, do what most dogs do in that situation.


I love this Rescue Nation so, so much.

Strut Your Mutt!

Our transport rescue group is proud to be part of Best Friends’ annual Strut Your Mutt fundraising event. We’re hoping to stay in first place with our fundraising campaign, and we know we’ll have a lot of fun at the October 15 Strut Your Mutt day in Houston. Come out and join us!

If you can’t join us, you can still donate. This year, I didn’t form my own team. Instead, I donated to Timothy J. Lambert’s team. He would LOVE for you to help him reach his fundraising goal. You can go to his team page and read why this matters to him and even donate by clicking here [link is redacted because fundraiser has ended].

Thank you for helping us take Houston’s dogs and cats (and so far, two PIGS!) from death row to loving homes. We will always work to save them all!

Button Sunday

Last year when our rescue group participated in Best Friends Animal Society’s Strut Your Mutt fundraiser, our rescue raised $108,000, the most money ever raised by a single group in a strut event since its inception. This year our goal is to raise $125,000. Every cent of the money that our team raises during this competition will be used to save dogs and cats who are unwanted in Houston and to transport them to forever homes in areas of the country who want to adopt them.

My job in rescue consumes my time and my passion, and I’m so proud to be affiliated with the group. Some of you wanted me to let you know when we had another fundraiser so you could donate, and this is one of my favorites of the year. I love Best Friends Animal Society (I first became familiar with them because of the Vicktory Dogs). Strut Your Mutt is an event that engages animal rescue groups all over the country to help save the animals in their own communities. I’ve decided instead of doing my own fundraising page, I’d like to give my support to our group’s co-founder and board member Timothy J. Lambert (I’ll provide the link to donate at the end of this post).

Some of my friends and family have already pledged to donate if I’ll fulfill certain bizarre requests of theirs. This will be torment for me (that’s what friends are for, right?), but I’ll do what I can for Houston’s dogs and cats. Maybe you have a request of your own that I can indulge–within reason. My willingness to humiliate myself has limits!

You’ll be seeing more about the campaign on my blog through October. And as promised, here’s the link for you to donate to Tim’s fundraising page:

[link redacted because campaign has ended]


Recently our friend and TJB writing partner Jim was in town and helped us on transport day. Here he is with Ashley, Foster Coordinator Extraordinaire, Timothy, and sweet beautiful Farah, whose picture I just saw with her new forever mom!

THANK YOU!


This is Freida. You’ll see a few more photos of her before she leaves for Colorado on Thursday. Freida is terrified of noisy places, crates, and cages, so she was really happy that Flint made his trip to Colorado last week so she could have a place to be her happy self for a few days at Houndstooth Hall before she travels, too. She has been SO MUCH FUN, playing with Anime and Lynne’s dogs Minute and Paco. She’s a really good girl, and thanks to a transporter, she got her ride out of BARC so we could foster her just hours before she was scheduled to be euthanized.

Freida reminds me of why so many people are working tirelessly to improve the save rate of Houston’s homeless pets. She also reminds me that I need to say thank you because at this moment, I’m at 101% of my fundraising goal for the 2015 Savings Pets Challenge. The challenge [link redacted after campaign ended] continues until Friday, June 5th at 1:59:59 pm ET, and believe me when I say that ANY amount is welcome, so don’t feel shy if you want to give five dollars or five thousand (heh!). (Freida says $5 buys FOOD and she LOVES FOOD!)

Help a fundraiser out

I never do these things because I’m convinced that I will raise zero dollars. But how can I not at least try to help this organization that has saved around 7000 who have no voice?

Well, FLINT has a voice, trust me, but he mostly uses it to say, “Let me in!” “Let me out!” “Let me eat!” “Let me eat more!” “Play with me!” Even though he’s loud and persistent, thanks to our rescue group, his voice wasn’t silenced forever a couple of weeks ago.

So I joined the team of fundraisers to try to make sure there are more Flints, more of all the dogs it’s been my pleasure to foster, and another 7000 dogs and cats, too.

Is that worth $5 to you? $10? Matching my starting donation of $50? I can promise you, NO AMOUNT IS TOO SMALL. I’ve seen what this group can turn even five dollars into. It looks like a LOT of this.

You can donate to my fundraising page by clicking here [link redacted because campaign has ended]. Thank you!

Whimsy and the spin cycle

Over the last year, I’ve done a LOT of laundry. So when we moved into Houndstooth Hall and I began unpacking boxes and finding things I hadn’t seen in a while, I decided to create a fun wall in the new laundry room. (Well, I thought of it. Tom made it happen.) This is the first time Tom and I have ever had a laundry room inside any home we’ve lived in during our marriage. In our apartments, they were in exterior rooms; in our houses, in the garages. It’s kind of awesome.

The wooden paper towel holder was a gift from my brother back in the 1980s and has been in all my kitchens since. But because of the tiled backsplash in the new place, I couldn’t hang it. It’s perfect here, though! The cross-stitched pig is from my mother, and probably the pig couple and the Welcome pig are, too. The pigs with bells were finds at an antique store and are made from 1800s quilts. And the other pigs pictured here are probably all from Lynne.

Most people think pigs and dirt go together. But let me tell you, precious dogs and cats can create a LOT of dirty linen. I’ve been their laundress for over a year because I love them all.


A week’s worth of transport laundry. Now it will be done at the rescue clinic by kennel techs and volunteers and I LOVE THEM as much as dogs and cats! =)