They called her "dog"

She has spent all four years of her life on the end of a chain at an Indian reservation. No one was there to bring her inside during storms, to tell her she was a good dog or to take her on a car ride. She survived on scraps of food that sometimes were left within her reach.

No one ever named her. They just called her "shunka sapa" (Lakota for dog). When she was rescued from the reservation she was thin and dehydrated. When she was rescued from that chain what we found was not a scared, sad dog but instead a dog who was grateful and happy and ready to start a new life.

Now named Sioux ("Sue"), she is well leashed trained, sits on command and loves attention. She gets along well with dogs and cats. She is scared when crated- after being kept on a chain for four years, she certainly doesn't want to be 'forgotten' again. She has memories of starving so she will not share her food with other animals but is not aggressive toward people about it.

Sioux thinks life is pretty good now...she has no idea how much better life will be when someone takes her home! Talk to her friends at Stillwater Animal Welfare if you think you can give her the wonderful happy ending she deserves.

Happy Tale: Harriet finds happiness

Harriet had a very rough life before she came to us- she was missing large patches of fur, was infested with parasites and had been a street cat desperately trying to protect her kittens from the neighborhood dogs.

Now Harriet gets to take it easy and have the life she deserves. She was able to go to a great home with a senior citizen thanks to one of our Free Cat Friday events. Here is an update from her owner's granddaughter!

"I visited Harriet at my Grandparents' today. She's very fat and sassy. She's got her own heated barn to stay in, but she'd rather lay outside on the lawn mower so she can see inside and watch my grandpa sleep in his room. He says she even climbs up the 8 foot ladder to get up on the roof sometimes. He definitely loves her, he even calls her his pocket cat. If weren't for Free Cat Friday, he wouldn't have been able to adopt her. :)"

Happy Tale: Mary Kate and Ditto

Mary Kate and Ditto were two puppies out of a litter of Chihuahua/Poodle/Yorkie puppies we placed in March of this year. These two found a great home together and are now named River and Simon.

Even though little River doesn't even weigh 4 pounds her family says she calls the shots!

What lucky pups to be part of such a loving family!

Happy Tale: Little town dog moves to the big city

Keegan is a Brussels Griffon who came to us a very shy little dog who was in desperate need of a kind owner to show him how wonderful life with people could really be. Thanks to www.petfinder.com, his new mom found his profile and fell in love, flight arrangements were made and before too long he was enjoying life in New York.




This lucky dog has a wonderful life now. Thank goodness for Keegan's awesome new mom who gave him his fresh start!

Lyla's lucky break

When Lyla and her two farm dog buddies were surrendered to Animal Welfare they appeared healthy aside from the usual maladies we have to remedy (eliminating parasites, updating routine vet care). And after our routine vet care, her buddies were healthy- both of them found good homes.

But after admission to our adoption program it became obvious that something serious was wrong with Lyla. She wasn't using one of her back legs. The next step was X-rays. The problem is that we don't have the budget for X-rays, and we certainly don't have the budget to correct the problem the X-ray might show. She was in too much pain for us to wait very long on a decision. We couldn't stand the thought of losing this sweet old soul before she really got a chance at life.

And then Lyla got lucky. A veterinarian offered to do the X-rays for free (which is what we could afford!). The X-rays showed injuries so severe the vet wasn't sure how she Lyla could walk at all, the X-rays also showed that our sweet Lyla had been used for target practice- she was full of BBs. Her sad history made us even more determined to save her but the quote for the surgery was well over a thousand dollars. Once again, the same veterinarian was kind enough to work with us and Lyla got her surgery. She spent the next several weeks recovering in a foster home with a veterinary student. Now Lyla is back at the shelter and she is working on using her leg that had been painful and useless for so long that the muscles had atrophied. Lyla story is not typical of shelter dogs, especially not in Oklahoma. But thanks to some wonderful people Lyla got lucky.

Lyla is just one step away from winning the shelter dog lottery. All she needs now is a great home.

Bath time!

One activity we always need volunteers to help out with is bath time! The dogs (and sometimes the kitties!) come to us in need of a little make over.

Big puppy Jordan gets a mohawk




Big puppy Jordan gets dried off

They need help looking and smelling their best so someone will fall in love with them and take them home! So wear old clothes, get ready to get wet and come in and help out!