There is a long story behind us deciding to bring home a senior small dog in 2009 to foster, but the short of it is we had lost one of my last dachshunds that I'd bred and after several months I had begun looking through Petfinder. Not really LOOKING, just looking. And normally I had the parameters set to ignore seniors (I guess I knew even then where my weakness was), but one day I forgot to set them.
And lo and behold at the local shelter in Waco there was a very senior dachshund listed. I talked it over with Randall and we just couldn't swing bringing in another dog as an adoptive - we were still reeling from my medical bills resulting from my mouth cancer diagnosis a couple of years earlier. But after looking through the shelter's website, I saw they had a foster program. I also glanced through the other seniors listed and saw this little black and tan dog sitting in a water dish with his tongue hanging out...and that's where it began...
Talking with Liz, the foster coordinator, at the shelter, she told me the senior dachshund had been taken in by an employee, but that Elvis was available and really needed out. He was a puppy mill refugee with a host of medical problems starting with a heart murmur and ending with a high heartworm positive rating and a host of issues in between. Would we consider him? After some conversation, Randall and I decided that yes, we would bring Elvis in. So down to the shelter we went.
Poor Elvis. So obviously terrified. So obviously unhealthy. Our hearts went out to him, and home he came. We knew then that he was most likely a hospice case (which was finally confirmed by the shelter), and really no one expected him to be with us more than two or three months.
But Elvis was like the Little Engine That Could. He not only survived for two years, he thrived and he learned to love and trust and enjoy life. And where we were able to give him a new lease on a life he didn't know he was missing, in turn he set us on the path of forever loving and cherishing seniors and committing to adopt and foster nothing but senior animals.
There is much more to his story and the paths we took on the blog I kept while he was with us. You'll find them linked on the main page in the blog roll...there was the initial blog here on Blogger and then the final series on the Wordpress blog. You can read about our journeys together.
And when Elvis left us for the Bridge, he left us with an important task...to advocate for the senior dogs and cats in Texas shelters and rescue groups who are looking for loving and forever homes.
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