What did you miss? 2/24-3/1

We are summarizing Literary Characters' Week today, although we do still have a little something planned for tomorrow. Before I review what we've shared and point you in the direction of our posts, I have to share a video.  This story brings together both the theme of the week, dogs as characters in books, and the impact of dogs on reading.  R.E.A.D. stands for Reading Education Assistance Dogs, and they are really making a difference with struggling and reluctant readers.  I'm not sure if Wiley will ever overcome his anxieties enough to be a part of something like this, but it is truly amazing.  Click on the picture below and watch the video, especially the first half.  It has all kinds of happy endings for everyone involved.

 

 

Now, on to the weekly round-up. On Sunday we had some deep and meaningful snuggling.  From there we launched Literary Characters Week on Monday with Huckleberry Finn.  Huck's story is a heartwarming tale of a lovable pup finding a great mom wiling to invest in him. Stanley (and Stella) were next, and their story was so encouraging. It took the combined efforts of a local pound, a local rescue group, foster families, and social media to bring Stanley to Niki, and now she can't imagine her life without him. 

His story reminds us that every little bit of effort counts.

Wednesday was a big day for Wiley as he made his debut as Sherlock, and on Thursday I shared a grab-bag of some of my favorite pictures of dogs named after literary characters. Finally, on Feel-Good Friday I invited readers to join me in remembering the television series Wishbone. If you don't know about it you have to check out the post. If you do remember it, I have an episode posted there for you to enjoy!

Now, don't forget about our big Photo Share starting this Wednesday. I need pictures of your sleeping pets. For photo shares I take pictures of any legal pets, even if they're not dogs and even if they're not rescues.  You can see to how submit your photo(s) right here. We have several options to make it easy on you.

As always, this blog depends on your rescue stories. Please share and encourage others to do so as well! Happy weekend!

Feel-Good Friday: What's the Story Wishbone?

We couldn't wrap up a week of Literary Characters on the Rescue Dog Blog without talking about Wishbone.  It's a little different than our other Feel-Good Friday posts, but I feel the need to share everything that's right about television when television is done right.

Wishbone was a series from the 1990s that aired on PBS. For those of you who don't know, each episode featured a daydream of Wishbone, a Jack Russell Terrier, as a character in a famous work of literature.  

I guess Wishbone had a bigger costume budget than Wiley has.

 I had to look up the exact years (1995-1998) but I had a pretty good guess that it was the mid-90s, because I was in college at the time studying to be an English teacher.  My mother ran a small daycare out of our house, and that's how I learned about Wishbone.

I watched it every day, and found myself shushing the kids if they got too loud. I imagined how much I would have loved something like that when I was a child, and pictured future English classes in which I could show little clips of Wishbone just for fun.

Wishbone tackled intense roles, from Romeo to Silas Marner, and didn't only portray the fun and fluff.  Alas, Wishbone has given way for a talking sponge and crime fighting turtles and other less literary entertainment.  Fortunately, YouTube has a plethora of Wishbone videos, and I'm linking to the Romeo and Juliet one right here.  I'm currently studying this play with my students, but I also picked this one because it involves Wishbone falling for a shelter dog, which of course turns out to be a star-crossed love affair.

I have never shown an episode of Wishbone to my students, because the episodes really haven't been available. Thank you World Wide Web, and my students will thank you too. Now I know exactly what to do with them on those noon dismissal days when the class periods are only 20 minutes long.

I hope you're inspired to do a little reading this weekend. Make sure you put the book down just long enough to share pictures of your sleeping pets and your rescue stories!

Literary Grab-bag

This week we've brought you Huckleberry Finn, Stanley and Stella, and Sherlock Holmes. Today we continue Literary Characters' Names Week with a round-up of some dogs I've seen on Instagram and some other dogs I know have literary names.  

Since I'm currently teaching Romeo and Juliet, I thought I'd share Romeo first. What a beauty. Of course I am partial to Aussies but still, Romeo is a good-looking dog.

My other classes are studying Classical Mythology, so here is a shout-out to Zeus. Doesn't he look like the God of All Gods?  The God of Thunder and Lightning? hahaha   What a face. Very cute.

This is Ares, named after the Greek God of War for those of you who have been away from the mythological world for awhile. Ares (dog Ares not the god Ares) is a brother to Isis, and seems very warlike here as he is pestering a two-year old to pet him while he sits on her lap.

Next we have Echo.  I'm not sure if her family picked her name based on the Greek story,  but when I was in high school my brother found a kitten. I was studying Greek Mythology in English class with my favorite English teacher,  Miss Stellfox, and felt inspired to name the kitten Echo. Since my Echo was an allusion, I'm choosing to see this Echo that way as well. Plus it gives me the chance to share her beautiful face.

And here we have Daisy, on the right. Daisy's mom is an English teacher who was giving a nod  to F Scott Fitzgerald when she picked the name Daisy. Daisy Buchanan is the physically beautiful but morally ugly female protagonist in The Great Gatsby. 

In the picture above, Daisy is pictured with her "Uncle" Guinness. Guinness is named after the famed Irish beer. Hmm, dogs and beer. . . I'm sensing another theme week soon!

Get me your sleeping pets pictures for next week, and don't forget to share your rescue story if you haven't yet.

Sherlock Wiley

 Wiley has officially declared himself a crime investigator.  Now just so you know I've been telling him to get a job ever since he destroyed his first roll of toilet paper, so if he can make some money this way that would be great. I asked him if his inspiration was Scooby Doo, and he got really mad at me. 

 He showed me exactly what he thought of Scooby. 

 He said Scooby doesn't take the job seriously enough.  This is Wiley's take at looking very pensive and serious.

 I really wondered what made him think he could be the next Sherlock Holmes. It turns out he got ahold of a story that was making the rounds on the internet all week. Peach, a canine police dog in England, was listed on official police documents as being at the scene of a crime. 

The prosecution then sent a request for "PC Peach"to fill out a witness statement, not realizing Peach is a dog.  The officers had some fun with this, deciding to fill out the report on Peach's behalf. Check it out:

Well when I read this I could not stop laughing. I saw it for the good-natured joke it was, although I'm not sure the prosecution feels the same way. You can read the full story in the Daily Mail here.

Wiley, however, was affronted at the implication that a dog's witness statement would be so simple and silly. He is determined to be viewed with more respect, and I suppose that's why he's going for Sherlock Holmes instead of Scooby Doo. He approached his first case with caution.

 

He took some notes and consulted his assistant. 

And then he got kind of tired and decided to rest.

Then he regrouped. He said "Watson-I have an idea. Get me my detective clothes!" 

Once he was suited up, he was ready to solve crime and look damn good doing it.

And so folks, there it is. Wiley has become a part of Literary Characters' Week on the blog, joining Huck and Stanley.  He is now going to be an investigator, and he will happily serve you in whatever capacity he can, although his specialties are locating tennis balls, carrots, and especially toilet paper. He will find that toilet paper no matter where it's hidden.  

 

 Too bad he wasn't available a few weeks ago to figure out who did this.  However, what he's really looking for is . . . your rescue stories. HA! How do you like that segue?  Get me your personal rescue stories, and don't forget to contribute to our next photo share, which will be posted next week. The theme is sleeping pets. Any kind of pet is welcome, even if it's not rescue. Sometimes we just really need to look at cute pictures of animals, period. Case closed.

Stanley (and Stella)

I've officially declared it a theme week here on the Rescue Dog Blog. What's the theme?  Literary characters.   Hey-I'm an English teacher ok?  I wish blogging paid the bills but it just doesn't cut it.  

Yesterday we had Huckleberry Finn as our rescue. Today I present to you. .  . Stanley.  As in Kowalski. As in A Streetcar Named Desire. 

 His shelter name was Conner, but when Niki brought him home to her other dog, Stella, she just couldn't pass up the chance to rename him.  Here he is when he was still at the pound:

Will you look at that face?  Poor Stanley was in the pound for about six months, put on "the list" and taken off again quite a few times. Just when it was almost too late a rescue organization called Big Hearts Little Paws in Scottsdale, Arizona saved him and put him in a foster home. 

 Niki wasn't looking for a second dog but when she saw Stanley's face on Facebook she knew he was destined to be part of their family. They were a little nervous about how he would fit in with Stella, who is in Niki's words, a "senior Diva,"  but take a look and see how that worked out.

Here's a very interesting fact. Stella is a pure-bred Chihuahua with a sticker price of $1200.  Just for fun Niki had Stanley DNA tested last month. The results came back 100% pure Chihuahua. No difference between him and Stella.  I really need to share this quote from Niki: "Since we have had Stanley, he has opened our eyes to how fantastic shelter dogs are. I can't imagine buying a pet from a pet store. Never!"  PLEASE please consider Niki's experience. You can be breed loyal and still rescue!  Niki cannot imagine their home without this guy:

He and Stella make a fabulous pair, although I think Stanley might have gotten into some happy pills here:

We are not quite finished with this story yet. Niki has opened her home as a foster mom, and it's a story worth hearing, but a story for another day.  Today just think about how Niki saved Stanley's life, how Stella got her groove back, and the fact that there are pure-bred dogs waiting for you in shelters all over the country.

What is your rescue story?  Share it with us, and share photos of your sleeping pets for next week's photo share!

Huck

I'm so excited to share today's rescue. First of all, the name alone is EPIC.  Huckleberry Finn.  It sounds beautiful to an English teacher's ears. My whole life I have kept a running tally of literary names that I would like to use on a dog. Wiley's personality matched exactly none of them. lol

This isn't about Wiley, though, this is about Huck and Ashley. Huck's name in the shelter was Bear, but like so many of us rescue parents do, Ashley picked something else. She said she thought, "What better name for a dog that was once a vagrant and has been adopted into polite society?"  Darn it! Why didn't I think of that!?!

Anyway, Huck's got a big case of anxiety.  He doesn't like to be left alone, and luckily Ashley doesn't have to leave him very often. She's got a supportive husband and mom, so Huck has supervision most of the time. Huh, Huck reminds me of Leroy.

Now some people would say why go to all that trouble for a dog?  We all know why. Huck's positives far outweigh his negatives. We don't give up on the people in our life who have anxiety (or in any case we shouldn't) and Ashley is prepared to do whatever it takes to make Huck happy in his furever home.

I think his tail is wagging in this picture!

Huck likes to sit in the front bay window and watch for the mailman, whom he loves! He likes to go on runs, climb trees, scale fences, destroy toys, sleep under the bed, and lick feet. I hope no one is ticklish in their house. My parents' dogs sometimes lick feet and I cannot deal with it. I start laughing before their tongue touches my foot.

Huck has a lot of fears, including the word "rope."  By the time Ashley rescued him he was about two years old, so who knows what he endured before finding such a great home? Looking at the beautiful pictures Ashley has shared, I think we can assume the people in his life now make him very happy. I think he's smiling in most of these shots!  Much thanks to Ashley for sharing this story, and to her and her family for saving Huck's life and making him so content.  Just look at him:

I think it's a good time for one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes: 

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.” Oh Mark Twain, you cynical so-and-so.  How I adore you.

 

 

Ok people, get me pictures of your sleeping pets for our next photo share. You know the ones I mean, the ones that make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like Huck up there. Or the ones that make us laugh out loud.  I'm waiting.   If you haven't shared your rescue story yet, please do. If you have, share this site with someone who hasn't and encourage them to contribute.