Angel
was a 3-year-old female Wheaten who was given up because her
owner’s new fiancé did not like Angel. The owner was planning
to euthanize Angel, when a co-worker stepped in and offered to
take Angel off her hands. Angel was afraid of this Good
Samaritan’s other dog, so the new owner began looking for
another home for Angel after only a few days. A friend of hers
contacted WIN, but by the time we got in touch with the owner,
she had already given Angel away to another family. This family
had just lost an elderly Basset Hound to cancer and decided to
adopt Angel to fill that void. I had some misgivings about an
on-the-rebound adoption like this, so I asked that my name and
phone number be given to the new family in case they ran into
some problems and needed some support.
Less than two weeks later, I received
another call about Angel. The new family had an invisible
fence that had failed to contain Angel on quite a few
occasions. They were also beginning to realize that there was a
huge difference between an elderly Basset Hound and a
three-year-old terrier. A Wheaten simply was not a good match
for them, and they wanted to give Angel up.
Angel arrived at my house on December 23rd,
having been through three homes in three weeks. She was
understandably confused, but seemed to be a very sweet dog. She
was not crate trained, so I immediately began to work on helping
her to develop a positive association with the crate. I was
amazed at how quickly she took to it; within a week she was
entering the crate freely as if she had been doing so all of her
life. She was a bit overweight, so I put her on a reduced
calorie dog food and carefully monitored her food intake. The
original owner had not provided her veterinary records, and
everyone who had attempted to obtain them had failed. The
owners who had surrendered her had taken her to their vet, and
they had started her over again on the core vaccines, since her
vaccination history was unknown. I took her to my vet for one
booster shot and to be microchipped, and shortly after that
started working on finding a new home for her.
I found a local candidate who looked very
promising, but the adoption fell through at the last minute when
the woman decided that she could not take on another dog at that
time. I started looking for another candidate, but was having
trouble finding anyone suitable. I didn’t want to place her in
another home with an invisible fence, and I wanted to be
especially careful about where I placed her because she had been
bounced around so many times already.
It was about this time that an application
came in from a young lady in Dallas, Texas. 
Her parents had adopted a dog from WIN a few years earlier. She
had just moved into her own duplex and wanted a dog of her
own. Gwen knew the family and wanted to place a female with
Gillean, to minimize the possibility of conflicts with the
parents’ male Wheaten, because the dogs would be visiting each
other fairly often. I had not thought about dong a
long-distance adoption, but after speaking with Gillean, I knew
that she would provide Angel with just the kind of home that she
needed.
I took Angel to a groomer for a makeover,
and then on Monday, January 17th, I took her to
Philadelphia International Airport and got her on a nonstop
flight to Dallas. Goodbyes are always tough, but it is even
harder to hand a dog over to the airline personnel, rather than
directly to a new owner. But I knew that this was what was
best for Angel, and that in a few hours’ time she would begin a
new life that would be far better than the old life she was
leaving behind.
Angel arrived in Dallas on schedule, and is
adapting very well to her new surroundings. She has been
introduced to Gillean’s parents’ Wheaten Houdini, and has also
met two other Wheatens in her neighborhood. Angel has been
through a lot of upheaval in a short amount of time, but I am
confident that she has found the ideal home that she so richly
deserves.
Special thanks to my dad who looked after
Angel when I was working and helped me to get her to the
airport.
Rob H.
Cherry Hill, NJ
Last Updated
03/11/2005
©2004 WIN Rescue
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