Paws and Prayers Rescue Blog

There is no way to tell the story of Russell from beginning to end as a short story.  His story is far too long; and far from over.  So I will do my best to keep it as short as possible.  I'll divide it into chapters so it doesn't have to be read all at once.  The 7 chapters of Russell's Story will be posted semi-monthly.

Mandy and Buddy

My family started fostering dogs for Paws & Prayers in June of 2011.  We had high hopes of doing good things.  We felt that we had the skills and the experience to bring unwanted dogs into our home; give them a better life than they would have had at a shelter and get them into a forever home.  It seemed like a worthy cause and a challenging endeavor.

Molly

We have two Beagles, Mandy and Buddy, and felt we would like to help by fostering Beagles.  We saw that there were many available at shelters.  Paws & Prayers gave us our first foster; a female Beagle named Molly. She was both the challenge and the joy a first foster should be. As a challenge, she had a few accidents in the house, barked and tried to chase every animal she saw from dogs to deer, got into a couple of fights with Mandy, and had trouble learning to walk straight and forward on a leash.  As a joy she loved attention, cuddled with us to sleep, and after just a few days; began not having accidents and walking better on a leash. After a little over a week, Molly was adopted and enjoys a loving home and has a Beagle brother to play with.  I don't think we could have had a better first foster than Molly. She gave us the perfect mix of challenge and joy that made us believe that fostering dogs would be great for our family.

I mention Molly because she was our first foster.  Our second was Russell.  He was a Beagle and from a shelter, but those were the only things he had in common with Molly.  Fostering and getting Russell into a forever home would turn out to be the biggest challenge we would ever have.

Russell came to us in late June of 2011.  He was at the Ashland County Shelter.  Michelle, a volunteer at the shelter, wanted Russell to get into foster care very badly.  He had been at the shelter for three months and had not gotten much interest from potential adopters and was becoming more withdrawn.  He ended up at the shelter after his owners had moved from their home and left him outside, tied up, with no shelter and no food or water.  Neighbors, in the relatively rural area with homes not real close to each other, had not realized the owners had moved until after Russell was on his own for about two weeks.  Remarkably, Russell survived without getting any serious illnesses from eating grass and drinking whatever water was available.

Russell in foster care with Bob and his family in August 2011

At the shelter, Russell got a few walks daily from volunteers and given basic vaccinations and nourishment.  Like so many shelters, Ashland's outdated and underfunded facility relies heavily on volunteers and donations to survive.  They work very hard to medically evaluate and treat, give safe and comfortable shelter, evaluate a dog's demeanor and personality, and most of all; get them adopted to the right family.  Despite their hard work, Russell was not getting enough interest to get adopted.  Michelle felt strongly that this quiet, gentle dog was just not endearing himself to anyone enough to get adopted.  He was not the tail-wagging, jumping-in-your-face, "pick me, pick me" dog that most people are looking for when they come to a shelter.  His history of being abandoned by the humans he trusted had most likely made such an impression on him that he was not going to openly show love.  He needed time with a family in a home, to open that place in his heart that would allow love back in. Michelle saw the potential in Russell and passed that on to Sheri, another foster from Paws & Prayers, who made arrangements for our rescue to pull him and my family to foster him.

To be continued . . .


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Content By:  Beagle Bob

"Beagle Bob" Dietrich is a foster parent for dogs along with his wife Vicki and son Robert.  Bob is a full time Fire Fighter/Paramedic, Vicki is a high school math teacher, and Robert is a full time college student.  They have two Beagles, Mandy and Buddy. 

Images:  Provided by Beagle Bob