Gordon and Wendy Fjeld and Their Animal Rescue Stories

This post was submitted to heighten awareness about animal shelter adoption. Adopt a pet today!

Bubba

Our family’s animal rescue started with a Chow/Spaniel/Retriever mix. We had heard about him from a family member who informed us that the puppy was due to be euthanized in just a few days. The puppy, who we named Bubba, was only 3 months old and had been abused. Here’s the story.

An elderly man would get a puppy and then take his frustrations out on the defenseless animal by beating him with a cane. As each puppy got older it would get aggressive toward the man, at which point the man’s wife would take the puppy to the vet and have it put down.

The vet got wind of the situation and held Bubba an extra week, trying to find a home for him. We heard about him a few days before he was to be put down. We drove over 350 miles, round trip, to rescue the puppy.

When we brought Bubba home he had definite aggression issues, he was terribly afraid of a kennel or dog house and stairs. We think the elderly man would put him in the kennel and kick it down the stairs. We were able to work with him and get him rehabilitated, though most of his life he did have a fear of elderly persons and anyone with a cane.

Our plan was to find him a home after making sure he could be trusted around children and other family members. It took just a week and it was quite obvious that we had found him a home alright; he had made himself quite at home in our house. Bubba was a wonderful family dog who loved to go camping and was an excellent companion for our two children.

All of the breeds he had in him are prone to hip problems or Hip & Elbow Dysplasia, combined with the abuse he suffered when he was a puppy; his hips gave him trouble while he was still comparatively young. To combat this we used a product called “Joint Support” from BioGreen Systems Inc.

In 2000 we acquired a 9 week old rough coat Jack Russell Terror, sorry I mean Terrier who we named Asta. Bubba, then 8 years old, was still able to run and play with Asta, partly I believe, because of the “Joint Support” we gave him to help with his hips. We could definitely tell by his actions that it helped to alleviate some of the pain and stiffness; I feel this helped add extra years to his life. Bubba lived to be 15 years old before he succumbed to old age. Our family misses him very much, but we are happy that we were able to give him a good, long and happy life.

Scout aka Scooter

Two years ago we had the opportunity to rescue a 6 week old kitten. My brother saw a car driving slowly and the two young occupants looked as if they were trying to throw something under the wheels. As my brother got closer the car sped away.

He then saw what they had done. They were trying to throw the kittens under the car’s rear wheels; they had hit and killed one but missed the other. My brother scooped up the scared little thing and brought her to our house so we could take care of her. At the time we didn’t know if she had any internal injuries and we weren’t sure if she would make it through the night.

The kitten, who we named Scout, did live through the night and after a couple of days she regained her strength. The only lasting injury she has is a broken tail, broke right at the base. We figure the kids who were throwing the kittens out of the car were flinging them under the car by their tails and running them over. It makes us sick to see how cruel some people can be to a defenseless animal. The vet said there was nothing they could do with her tail, but that her tail, being broken as it was, wouldn’t cause her any problems. She is doing well, although because of the injury to her tail, she’s not the most graceful or coordinated cat I’ve ever seen. She’s found a place in the hearts of everyone in our family.

The Three Legged Squirrel

One of the most interesting rescues we have done was the time we found a baby Gray Squirrel caught in a rat trap. He had drug himself into our backyard. My son, with thick welding gloves, removed him from the trap and put him in a cage where he stayed for the next couple of weeks. The trap had broken one of his front legs near the paw. He did eventually lose his paw, but after some healing time he was returned to the great outdoors.

With just having three paws he did amazingly well climbing trees and hanging from our neighbors bird feeder. Our three legged squirrel became the talk of the neighborhood! We would always talk to him when we would feed and water him during his recuperation time. Because of this, for the next few years when we would see him in the yard, we would talk to him and we could get to within a couple of feet of him before he would scamper away and head up a tree. I think our three legged squirrel remembered us.

In our home, while traveling with our RV and around our pets we use only the Environmentally Friendly Non-Toxic products from BioGreen Systems Inc. BioGreen Systems’ company policy is to never use animals in product testing. Also BioGreen Systems products are safe to use around both babies and pets. Learn more about the BioGreen product line at http://www.goingreen2day.com also visit our Blog at http://goinggreen2day.blogspot.com