Ginger is a beautiful 8-year-old red Dobie girl, who I pulled from the euthanasia room in a south Florida shelter in December of 2005. Her former owner was going blind, and had to relinquish Ginger, another Dobie named Dutchess, and a Dalmatian. The woman took all their crates, paperwork, toys, food, all doggy paraphanalia to the shelter and was told the dogs would not be pts. (put to sleep) The Dalmatian was pts shortly after she left. Dutchess, a lovely black-and-tan female with stand-up ears was adopted. Ginger, a red girl with cropped ears that flopped, was not. I found out about her in the nick of time.

The shelter rescue volunteer at the time was good enough to give me the phone number of the former owner, at the former owner’s request, so I could get information on Ginger. Ginger had been vaccinated to extremes throughout the years she’d been with the woman and the vet who “took care of her dogs.” Unfortunately, he didn’t convince the woman to spay either of her Doberman girls, and I don’t know about the male Dalmatian.

What struck me as funny at the time I spoke to the woman was Ginger had been a hair away from being pts, and the woman groaned when I spoke to her about spaying. Ginger would be the last of that line, she protested. Ginger almost crossed the line, I thought.

Both females had huge cysts and being Dutchess was adopted out we didn’t know about hers until she showed up at the shelter again, around 8 months later, still not spayed. Another friend and rescue person took Dutchess and cared for her until she was ready to be adopted. I, on the other hand, do not foster well. You see, fostering entails the following: bring a Dobie into your house, love, feed, get to know her…mend her, work with her manners, snuggle, pet and commisserate with her. Then you are supposed to hand her over to a stranger who you only get to know from filling out an application and checking references of vets and other strangers, though sometimes you are lucky enough to get a person who’s a referral. Some of these Dobies come in very broken. Malnurished, skiddish, never having been loved, molded, or felt the touch of a loving hand. Others are so full of themselves, and have energy that has been bottled up for months or years, they spin right into your heart while you are trying to harness some of that energy into getting them to be productive members of canince society.

Fixing broken Dobies takes a big piece of heart. Some people are very good at doing this and some are not. Some people are very good at doing this and at placing the Dobie. Some people are very good at doing this and because it feels like tearing your heart out when placing the Dobie, don’t place the Dobie. I fall into that last category. Though I have been able to place Dobies, espeically one named Mocha, and a few others who I just somehow could do that at the time. These days, I have pretty much retired to the fact that I yam what I yam…

…and figure out what goes over my threshhold, oftens stays over it. That is as long as the Dobie fits in.

Well, Ginger is a very lovely lovely lovely Dobie, and I just adore her. She’s cute and red and has validated the only other red Dobie I had at the time she arrived. He came in skin and bones and had many severe experiences on the street that he still won’t talk about with me. But that’s another story to tell another time. Ginger brought that boy to life and has a special place in my heart and our family. Many family members think of Ginger as their confidante.

Ginger had a breast removed and her lumps removed when she arrived. She was spayed at six, which is late. And now I am facing the consequences of decisions made in Ginger’s former life. I’ve grown to love Ginger, and so has the rest of my family. Ginger’s lumps have grown back, and perhaps they are cancer. The vet thinks maybe, because they have grown along one side of her body along the lymp node line, it is cancer. Right side.

However, she did have one aspirated and it is clear. So I hold out hope. Thursday, she’ll have an x-ray, and if nothing looks suspicious on it, she will have these lumps removed.

So again, I ask for prayers, this time for a beautiful Doberchild named Ginger. She deserves a good thing because she is a beautiful soul.