Mother Nature has been taunting us. Sending daytime temps soaring, then blowing in a light freeze. To boot – a bone-dry, record-breaking February. Not a drop of rain.
As I undertake the annual editing of Asters, I’m glad that I moved summer-blooming perennials in the fall. Apparently, there is an old gardener saying that this helps them get their feet under them.
Someone else needed some help getting her feet under her. Her name is Babe. And she stole my heart.
Babe was destined for China’s dog meat market. Having been used to raise puppies for three years, she was loaded onto a truck with dozens of other dogs and shipped off. Brave activists literally stop these trucks on the highway in confrontations that can get ugly. While eating dogs is not illegal in China, the (barbaric) slaughter of animals without health certificates is. Still, officials look the other way and let these warriors of heart fight it out themselves. Thankfully, Babe’s rescuers were successful. She and many more were pulled from the truck and taken to a shelter where they were quarantined and tested, receiving required vaccinations and health certificates as they waited for a chance at a real life.
Dogs like Babe don’t get adopted in China. It is illegal to keep a dog her size in the city, and there is a bias against anything “used.”
She is a timid girl. Submissive and frightened in new environments. All of this was a lot for her. She arrived in early January with a group of dog and spent another two weeks in communal quarantine where I was one of her caregivers.
At the beginning, she had to be lifted out of her kennel to the yard. She is extremely thin, but her frame is large and heavy.
Over the course of the two weeks, she went from crawling and cowering to full-on play with the group.
When she left the safety of her quarantine for the kennels, it was a setback for her. So she was moved to the senior yard where she lived and thrived in the company of other dogs.
Babe reminds me of our Boris…another one from China.
We weren’t sure he would make it that first morning after his late night arrival. Finding the right home made all the difference. He came by for a photo shoot recently; the transformation is hard to believe.
This is what love will do.
Babe needed a home like Boris’. A loving, patient and quiet home – providing time and stability so she could get her feet under her and learn the ways of a loved family dog.
We found that for Babe recently. And the family says she is blossoming – just like Boris and the plants I moved last fall.
Gardens For Goldens 