My name is Mocha,

 I was a lucky girl, rescued from a shelter.  I was a casualty of the economy and my first parents couldn’t keep me any longer.  Then a nice lady by the name of Julie rescued me and took me to my foster parents.  I really like being in a house and sleeping on my own bed.  I get a foster sister too.  We have fun playing around the house and going for walks.  We walk together really well for about 20-30 min.    Unfortunately, I have a bum left leg.  That is being checked into by a vet check soon.  Possibly a tear in my knee.  My foster mom says I’m a real tropper.

I have really good manners, know commands like sit, lay down, shake and wait by the door. I love riding in the car, you hardly even know I’m in there because I’m so quiet. My only downfall is that I like alot of attention.  I think once I feel comfortable in my forever home, I will be more settled in.  

Oh you have to look at the top of my head I have two spots that look like antlers are going to sprout, my foster dad says I look like a nubbin buck.  I don’t mind.  He brushed me the day after I came to their house and gave me a bath.  I enjoyed all of that attention and felt so much better.

Thanks LEARN for giving me a second chance.

Mocha

Hi my name is Donut. 

You may remember a few weeks ago my sister Muffin found a new home.  My family had to surrender us due to allergies in the family.  They owned a bakery, so our names reflected that.  My name doesn’t match me, I am more of a Roscoe or Rocky, but I don’t mind the name thing, I just like being around people.  I am my foster mothers “shadow”.  I had surgery the end of June for a large lipoma (fatty tumor) on my flank.  It took a while to get the incision healed, and I’m almost there, finally.

I am a big, lovable, 5 1/2 year old; 88#, all black, and have deep brown eyes.  I have pretty nice manners in the house; I know sit, stay, come, down, shake and “treat”.  I am housebroken, and will go in to the crate, but I do not like it.  I do bark loudly at new sounds and am pretty excited when company comes to the door.  I am trying to learn to be more laid back about this.  I love to go for a walk, ride in the car and chase the ball.  I am still trying to figure out my house mate, the cat, so I bark at her and chase her when I get the chance.  It’s lots of fun for me, but not so much for the cat.  I get along well with my foster sister Petey (dog), but am way too active for her taste.

I’m ready for a new home, so check out my handsome photos, and give me a call.

Raven is a petite, black 5 ½ female who is showing me that fostering is a cinch.  She is very gentle, sweet and loves being ‘part of a family’.  Upon meeting her foster family, she put on her charm around her two foster brothers, kids and myself and won us over in no time at all. 

I took her to a dog park with water and found out she was in true dog heaven, she is your typical lab ‘water dog’.  She ran off leash very well and did the faithful lab ‘look back’ to make sure I was right behind her. She likes to fetch, knows all the basic commands, loves to be close to you and melts your heart when she looks at you.  If you need a swimming, walking, family companion kind of gal she says ‘come and get me, I’m all yours for the taking’.

Big and friendly, Boswell comes to us as a stray from Cedar Rapids . This is a very gregarious guy! He wants very badly to play with anyone coming his way and is friendly to all. He is in need of some training as he tends to jump on people when introduced. He is very smart..so this supervision should come easy to him. Now ready for adoption, Boswell would do best in a home with a lot of activity……….especially if he had a human that would love to walk/run with him. He would also love to have a canine companion as he is always wanting to visit with the dogs that surround him. Come with the family and meet this happy guy! He knows the way to the play-yard!

 UPDATE; BOSWELL HAS BEEN GETTING SOME ONE ON ONE ATTENTION FROM ONE OF OUR VOLUNTEERS AND IS LEARNING HOW TO BE PATIENT. HE IS SUCH A WONDERFUL DOG AND HAS BEEN OVERLOOKED BY MOST VISITORS AS MOST BIG BLACK DOGS FOUND IN SHELTERS ARE. BOSWELL IS COMPLETELY HOUSEBROKE AND WANTS NOTHING MORE THAN TO HAVE A FAMILY OF HIS OWN. HE HAS BEEN WAITING QUITE A WHILE AND HE DESERVES ONLY THE BEST. INSIDE HOME ONLY FOR THIS SPECIAL DOG! Boswell really is a very good dog.  He knows sit and comes when is called.

Contact Maria Ritchart at the Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control at 319-286-5993

or Jana Crane at 319-213-2130

Email addresses are mritchart@msn.com or cjcrane@imononmail.com

Dear L.E.A.R.N.,

We received our newest issue of The Retriever Newsletter and were we surprised to see our Lady on the second page! We adopted Lady in the beginning of 2008 when she was one years old. She’s come a long way in the past 2 years. So our family thought we would give an update on how she’s doing.

When we visited Lady for the first time, we were warned that she was very shy of men. However, she responded positively to my husband right away. Her foster mom said he was the first man she was comfortable with this quickly. From that point she knew we were meant to be her forever family. As the article said, Lady was a sick pregnant girl when she was rescued, we knew she would need a lot of love and time before she felt safe. The first few weeks she had to be kept quiet as she finished healing from heart worm. But once she was healthy to be active again the true puppy came out of her. Although there where lots of challenges with her (almost 6 months before I could leave the room without her following behind) it was so rewarding to watch her become the silly, playful girl she is today.

She is almost 3 years old now and she loves to play at the dog park with her sister Sadie, a 6 year old yellow lab. Sadie loves to fetch a ball and Lady loves to chase her. Our family will joke about how Sadie is training Lady. All kidding aside it’s probably true. If Sadie is interested in it, Lady will be right behind her! They love to wrestle and play tug o war with each other. When we see the sassy face they make at each other, we know it’s game on!

Lady is a joy to be around and we want to say thank you to her foster parents for seeing her potential and L.E.A.R.N. for taking her in. We are so glad she is part of our family! We have attached a few pictures – enjoy!

Sincerely,

Joni and Michael Chmiel

Hi!  My name is Glinda! I’m a 2-3 year old yellow lab who has had quite a big life so far, for such a young dog!

To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure about a lot of the really early stuff…  most of what I remember is from just these past few months.  You see, I was found as a stray in Aurora in early July.  To say I was in pretty bad shape at that point is putting it mildly.  I had demodectic mange, fleas, and really bad skin and ear infections. 

But thanks to the kindness of a Good Samaritan who picked me up and brought me to the wonderful folks at the Orchard Animal Hospital in Aurora , I’m doing GREAT now!  I stayed at the Animal Hospital for about 5 weeks, and since then, I’ve been staying with my foster mom in Arlington Heights .  My mange is completely healed and gone (4 clean skin scrapings, YEA!), and my skin is so clean and clear and soft now!  I even have almost all of my golden fur back!  My ear infections are under control…  we think that just a couple more weeks on the medicine and I will be good as new!

I’m taking all this in stride, because really, all I care about is being around people who love me.  I love to play ball and to play with my doggie foster brother and sister.  Mostly, though, I love to be petted and to just hang by my foster mom.  I’m a pretty mellow girl, she tells me.  Go with the flow, that’s my motto.

I would love to find my forever home, because everyone tells me I am a really, really sweet girl.  I love people and dogs and even cats (mostly I just ignore the cats), and I’m also really good with kids.  I’m housebroken and crate-trained, spayed, and microchipped, just in case I get lost again!  And I’ve had all my shots. I’m learning some commands…  so far I know how to “sit” and “wait”…  and I am very good at coming back to you when you call my name.

If you’ve been looking for a mellow gal that loves life and loves to be near you, then maybe you would want to come and meet me!  I would love to meet you!

Love, Glinda

CONTACT INFO:

Lynne Gillis
Best way to contact is via email:  lynne6459@comcast.net (I will respond within 24 hours)

We are super friendly, super nice polite ladies. We get along with other dogs and all children and adults.
 
We currently live with our family who is sadly breaking up and will be forced to move. They have two young boys (age 5 and 7) and we were very well behaved inside the house and with the children. We have been loved and pampered a lot, and giving us away is not an easy thing for the family to do. It is a bit difficult for Cookie to do stairs. But that is the only vice.

We do get anxious when spilt up, so it is preferred that we are kept together when finding another home if at all possible.

Please help give us a loving home, and we will give you lots of love back in return!

Please contact Sharri Hust at 414-333-7373

Hello Labbie Lovers!!

My name is Cooper and I am a very active young purebred boy. Only being 1 year old, I love to play and romp around with my 4-legged foster brother and sister!! My previous owners surrendered me because they were about to have twins added to their family of five.

Because I have previously lived with small children, the little ones do not bother me. I currently live with cats, and do not chase them if they do not run away. And for the other dogs in the house, I enjoy very much to run around with them and get them to chase me.

I have been trained and am willing to show you everything I learned!! I walk well on a leash, ride great in a car, and know my basic commands. Will you be the one to whom I show it?

My perfect family would be one that is willing to work with my high energy (walks every day, fetch in the yard until I am tired out, and most of all…patience). I do settle down in the house, if there are no distractions, and sleep at your feet. I am so cute that you will not be able to resist my charming eyes when I look at you and your dinner plate. I need a family who can teach me to have great recall, outside of a fenced-in yard. If you can do all of these things for me, please give LEARN a call and ask for the very handsome, Cooper!!

Lots of labbie kisses!!
Cooper

 In June 2002 we agreed to foster a heartworm positive Lab who was incredibly hyper, even for an adolescent Lab. The doofus wound his way into our hearts and we ended up adopting him. He was a wonderful dog, but was very anxious around other dogs and would become aggressive when he felt threatened. We began behavior modification to help him learn what to do when he felt anxious and for some reason, I thought about the anxiety wrap article. I picked up an inexpensive child’s t-shirt, slipped it on Beamish, and was amazed to see his eyes soften and his body relax instantly. He was able to focus on me and worry less about the other dogs in our obedience class. He wasn’t completely cured, but the t-shirt definitely took the edge off his anxiety which allowed him to concentrate on our training program. If I took the shirt off before the end of class, Beamish would start to rev up and become anxious again, so we left it on pretty much whenever we were out of the house. Why would such an odd thing work? Two very different sources have researched the issue.

The first source is TTouch practitioners. TTouch was developed by Linda Tellington-Jones as a way to help train horses, help the horses and owners bond, and relax the horse’s mind and body. It was quickly adapted for use in companion animals. TTouch uses a system of specific touches, lifts, and stretches to improve blood flow, relax the animal, and increase body awareness. One of the tools used to continue TTouch benefits for longer is a body wrap. Getting in TTouch with Your Dog by Linda Tellington- Jones illustrates several techniques for wrapping an ace bandage around a dog to enhance “your dog’s sense of his own body and makes him more confident in his movements and behavior.” From the TTouch concept of a body wrap comes Susan Sharpe’s Anxiety Wrap. (http://www.anxietywrap.com) Her Anxiety Wrap is a simpler and more attractive alternative to ace bandages and allows what TTouch calls “maintained pressure” to continue to soothe the dog.

 Autism researchers and Temple Grandin, the author of Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports of My Life with Autism, are the second source of research on why pressure soothes. As an autistic child, Grandin was often overwhelmed by physical touch, but was extremely comforted by wedging herself under couch cushions. Later she developed a “Hug Machine” after watching how much calmer cattle are while being gently squeezed in a chute. The constant and controlled pressure are very effective in soothing her anxiety, as well as the anxiety of people with autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders world wide. The Hug Machine appears to ground people and help them to focus better. 

After hearing Grandin speak at a dog training conference, I began to realize that Beamish’s snug t-shirt was a way to give him the maintained pressure and contact that he desperately craved. A snug fit is important. If I put Beamish in one of my large t-shirts there was no change. But when I discovered that a size 5T shirt, put on backwards (so the tag was under his chin), fit my 68 lb dog just about perfectly he had enough pressure to soothe him. Susan Sharpe mentions securing adult t-shirts on dogs with duct tape, which is effective but not very attractive.

Not all dogs will benefit from a body wrap, but it is certainly something to consider for dogs who have generalized or specific anxiety. Wraps are most commonly suggested for dogs with thunderstorm or noise phobias, but can also benefit dogs who suffer from motion sickness, separation anxiety, hyperactivity, fear of grooming or touch sensitivity, and some forms of aggression and antisocial behavior. Of course for all of these issues, with the exception of motion sickness, a wrap will not be a cure-all and behavior modification, under the supervision of an experienced trainer, must be addressed.

Jill R. Miller ©2007

Hey there labbie lovers,   I would be Dakota, or as my foster dad calls me “A Lean Clean Machine.”  I overheard him tell someone that I should have been called “Fabio”  because I am so handsome and well put together. 
 
Anyway,  I am a 5 year old male Yellow Lab that absolutely loves to be around people. Someone recently called me “Mr Happy”.  I listen very well and know the usual commands.  Riding in my foster dad’s truck is at the top of my list of things to do.  I do not mind the crate at all and simply find it a safe place to be.  I am a real tall boy,  but my foster parents think I am a real stud!  I love to go for walks,  I even give a gentle “woof” when it is time to go outside to my thing.  I do not mess in the house,  I eat normally and do not gorge my food at all.  Toys are ok,  but to tell ya the truth, I am just happy being where people are and hangin out.  My foster dad takes me outside all the time when he works around the yard and never has to tie me up.  I always stay very close to him.  I do walk great on leash as well.   I get along with other dogs and cats very well.  I am not afraid of loud noises; in fact I had a hoot during the 4th of July this year. 
 
If I were you,  I would end your looking right here,  I am the Lab for you,  Kisses are free indeed!  I just want to be in my forever home real soon.  Check me out, pleaz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks
 
Dakota,
(aka Fabio, aka, Lean and clean, aka Mr Happy)