This is going to be a series  of blogs about our dogs and why we rescued them from deplorable and abusive homes and hoards. I’m doing this series because I know there are some big changes coming in the next week or two. The pictures below is of Parker when we first rescued him and recently.

Parker’s Story- A Handful Of Cuteness

I’m sure many who knows me personally and on my Facebook pages knows about my dogs and how we rescue them from bad situations such as hoarding groups, high kill shelters and so on.  We’ve rescued boxers, pugs, cats, mixed breeds, birds, horses, goats, rabbits, lizards and other animals that didn’t ask to be put in dangers way.

Usually when we rescue an animal, we always look for a good home for them and homes are screened and the people interested are also. When rescue them, find good homes and that makes it so we can rescue another animal that’s being abused.  But, about 5 years ago, we decided to not re-home our pugs and our mixed pug/pekingese. And that is for the most part because Jasper, Parker and Henry became more than rescues, they became family. We always feel that all animals are more than animals, they are family. Well, not snakes and spiders.

We rescued Parker in October of 2013. That’s by the boarder of Mexico and 2 1/2 hours from Tucson.  My parents lived in a tiny little farm town called Elfrida, AZ. My mom and sister Brenda adopted a few puppies from this group. I asked my mom if she would get me information on the hoarding group. She did and these people at I would say well over 50 dogs and I have no clue on how many cats. These people had Pekingese’s, Pugs, Chihuahua’s and not sure what else. The county told the people that they had to get rid of all but 10 of the dogs and all males had to be fixed. I called the lady and told her that I’m going to go visit my parents and if they needed homes, then I may bring a couple back to Utah and re-home them. I had no intention of keeping them.

Douglas, Az is about 12-14 hours from where I live. But, I went anyhow. I met the lady and I was shocked at the conditions. All of these dogs lived in horrible condition’s and it made me sick.  After seeing the condition’s, I realized I couldn’t take more than one back. That’s because the medical needs for all of those dogs could be dangerous for my dogs. So, I did find Parker. He had one eye that he was blind in and he was in decent shape. With my husband and I living in a condo, we couldn’t take that many animals. St. George only allows 2 dogs and I had to get a special permit for Parker.

Since I volunteered for a rescue group in Arizona I was able to use the 501C3 status as a non-profit.  But, we brought Parker back with us. He was terrified of everything. He had extreme separation anxiety. In 3 days, he ate doggie doors, door frames, escaped out of enclosed and locked crates.  We took him to our vet and they told us that Parker was castrated like cows are castrated. The vet told me that they only seen that in one place and that was in Douglas, AZ.  When I told him that’s where we got him, he wasn’t surprised. While we were at the vets office we also made sure that he had all shots. The lady said she gave them shots, but there is no way I would believe that.  When the vet said he was castrated, it broke my heart. I couldn’t let Parker really hang out much with Jasper and Patsy. I’ll go into her story also in this series. I just want to give each of the dogs, their own story.

Anyhow, since we intended to find a good home for Parker, that was almost impossible because of his anxiety. He was highly destructive and afraid of anything and anyone. For the drive back home from Arizona, he was in my arms and had his face hidden in the crook of my arm. he wouldn’t eat, drink or anything for the 14 hour drive. He was terrified. Once we got into St. George we only had 5 minutes till we got home. But, as soon as we got off of the freeway, Parker lifted his head up. He must have known we slowed down and stopped at the light.

I told my husband that once we get home, we need to make sure to put Parker in the dog crate that we brought with us in case he tried to dart. We only used the crate while we were in the hotel in Tombstone and we learned really fast that Parker runs and hides. He ran under the bed and positioned himself so we couldn’t get him. Once we finally caught him, we made sure to put him in there and then drove the 3 hours to Phoenix and we got him a harness. While he was in the crate, he was literally trying to escape and he was flinging his crate with him in it all over the back of the car.  Since he was doing that, we had to get a harness where we can hold onto him and it hand a handle.

It took us a year to get to the point where he wasn’t afraid of us. He still trembles if we raise our voices and he hides.  Every time we thought he was ready for a new home, he was so afraid to even interact with anyone unless it was our family. My sister Joyce wanted him and we did let her have him. Joyce absolutely loves Parker. The only problem was her husband is a truck driver and Joyce and Ira took him on the truck with them for a few weeks. When they came home from being on the road, Parker was skin and bones. That was because he was very nervous and he is terrified of noises.  Semi trucks are very loud when it comes to airlines, horns and all of the road noises. From my understanding he was doing what he did when we first rescued him.

Even though my sister loves him, it wasn’t good for Parker. He was starving because of his anxiety. He didn’t want to even go potty when the truck was stopped. Now, my sister has visitation rights lol. Even though Parker loves Joyce, we realized that we could never re-home Parker. We’ve had Parker for 6 years now and he isn’t going anywhere. Parker is our problem child. The lady that we got him from said Parker was 8 months and he looked like he was still in his puppy phase.

I want to close this by saying that if anyone is looking for a pet, please try to rescue one. Animal shelters normally have all types of animals. I know many people wants puppies, but if you can save an animal, please give it a try. I’ve found that instead of me rescuing them, they rescue me.  There are many who will tell people to adopt instead of shop. There are benefits to both and even the animals in pet stores need to be rescued. I’ve bought before and usually it’s because I know the people who are breeding. But, I will always choose to adopting since shelters will kills animals if they aren’t adopted really fast. Usually they give them 5 days.

In the next day or two, I will share another rescue.