It was about six months after our beloved Uncle Bob had to be put down, all the way to summertime and our busy party and picnic schedule as clowns. We hadn’t intended to get another dog, as we had rescued a little-girl mutt puppy who had been unceremoniously dropped off on the road near our driveway. We actually live at the proverbial “end of the road,” bordering the National Forest where irresponsible people come to dump off their unwanted dogs, cats, puppies and kittens. I call it “Evil Stepfather Syndrome.”

They usually die of getting hit by a car, or of starvation, or end up getting shot when they raid a neighbor’s chicken coop or trash looking for something – anything – to eat. We’d kept this puppy because she was so small, and we were dog-less. Not like someone’s big old hound or Doberman that we’d rescue if we could and turn in to the shelter. You never know why people dump their dogs. And hounds will just follow their noses out of your life in no time anyway.

But my husband had picked up a newspaper for the County Seat where he was to be clowning at a big company picnic at a recreational park near the lake the following Saturday. He just wanted to see the advertised announcement, as the picnic was for the largest employer in the county.

Did I say this was a rural (total population: 38,000), Appalachian North Carolina county? One does not often see high-dollar dogs that aren’t some kind of coon or deer hound, fighting Pit Bull, junkyard mean Dobie or Shepherd, or the occasional old lady yapper dog (Pekingese, Chihuahua and such). My daughter has always jokingly referred to them as “punting dogs.” As opposed to hunting dogs, that is…

While leafing through the paper trying to find the ad, a picture popped right out at us. There in the weekly “Adopt-a-Pet” county animal shelter sidebar was a young, black, sad-looking hairy dog that looked suspiciously like a standard poodle. What the heck? We didn’t even know anyone in the county HAD such a swanky dog, much less that there was a homeless one pining away in a cage down at the shelter!

We tried for about five minutes to rationalize ourselves out of it. It’s a mini, the picture just looks standard. It’s a bad dog or it wouldn’t be in the pound. Maybe a biter. Or a cat-killer… it didn’t work, of course. If that was really a standard poodle we were duty-bound to get him out of that cage!

My hubby called the shelter and got some worker on the phone Friday night, asked if that was really a standard poodle. The worker said he thought so. Of course the next question was, “what the heck is he doing at the shelter?” The worker said he didn’t know. So hubby said he’d come to the shelter right after his clown gig the next day to check it out, and the worker said someone would stay until 2 p.m. to accommodate his schedule.

The person who stayed was the director of the shelter. My hubby walked in with full dress tramp clown costume, face, giant shoes and bowler hat, and asked to meet the poodle. Sure enough, there was this spectacular standard about 6 months of age, in a cage. Of all things (poods hate cages, we’ve had ‘em destroy entire clip shops that try it!).

He approached the dog gingerly, as we knew nothing about why he was in such dire straits. The director said the dog was vicious, would bite. He put his face close to the chain link so the dog could see and smell his makeup, then put his hand right up to it while looking that dog in the eyes. Beau’s eyes grew soft and he gingerly licked the hand and lowered his eyes, immediately having recognized a friend. So we took him home.

Turned out the lady who’d bought him (a $700 dollar, AKC registered poodle in a region where poodles don’t count) was paying the shelter extra every week to not kill him, telling them they had to find just “the right people” to give him to. She lived alone and had undergone serious back surgery, simply couldn’t keep up with him – he was a puller.

The shelter director said he knew as soon as my husband walked in with clown-face that we were “the right people” for this dog. Made it easy for us to take him right home that day. And we were never sorry. Beau raised another stray mutt and a couple of kittens too – he was a wonderful ‘Mom’, took the job seriously.

Beau is no longer with us, but we had him for 9 years. We’re now on the list for further rescues. Thought about volunteering to foster (keep homeless poodles until someone wanted them), but once they’re in our hearts how could we let go? I’ll keep you all up to date on how that’s going, and once again refer readers to the poodle rescue links below.

In view of this story, I’d also suggest contacting your area animal shelters in case they happen to get a poodle (and don’t know about poodle fostering). And don’t neglect to share your own rescue stories!

Poodle Rescue @ Standard Poodles USA

Florida Poodle Rescue

Poodle Rescue of New England

Coastal Rescue

Carolina Poodle Rescue

Norcal Rescue [Northern California]

Nebraska Rescue

We purchased only one poodle puppy in our long career of being “Poodle People.” That was Kenya, our female black. The rest were rescues, and we’re currently on the list for more. How we managed to end up with these beautiful, dearly beloved dogs makes for some fantastic stories.

It was 1986 when Uncle Bob came into our life. A good friend was driving her contractor husband’s pickup truck toward town from Jacksonville Beach in a driving rainstorm one non-descript north Florida afternoon. In those days Beach Boulevard had entire stretches of undeveloped woodland in between intensive gated community housing and apartment complexes, strip malls and such. Just across the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway the vehicles ahead were slamming on their brakes and sliding in the water, so she slowed way down while trying to catch a glimpse of what was causing the panic.

You never know. It could have been deer in the road, maybe injured, already dead, or too frightened to get out of the way. Might have been a big ‘gator trying to get from one apartment complex’s bermed pond to one across the highway. There were 4 lanes of wet pavement with a grassy median between them. That’s where she focused, hoping whatever critters were stranded had at least made it safely there.

Then she saw them. Immediately put on her flashers and pulled off the road to the median shoulder. Two of the biggest, most beautiful black dogs she’d ever laid eyes on, romping and wrestling in the middle of the median as if they didn’t care one bit about the storm, the traffic, or the dangerous panic they were causing among drivers on both sides. Traffic was heavy and getting heavier on this 55 mph highway, they had little chance of getting wherever they belonged in one piece.

Heart pounding, hoping to get safely back in traffic before someone rear-ended the truck (two of her kids were in there), she jumped out, opened the tailgate and sternly ordered those dogs into the truck bed. They dutifully obeyed, smiling broadly and happy to go for a ride. She made a U-turn at the next intersection light and drove straight to our house, which was then suddenly very full of very large, very wet, very black, very male standard poodles.

We’d met some toy and miniature poodles in our lives, but never met anything like these guys. Our friend joked that these were what poodles look like before they get put in the dryer to shrink. We were plainly amazed. Our Jack Russell, Gnarly Ted, had died just the week before. We had a dog-shaped hole in our lives for sure, but these were obviously someone’s high-dollar purebreds. We agreed to keep one of them while our friend took the other, until we could track the owner down from the vaccination tags. We figured the vet clinic that had given the shots would know very well whose dogs these were.

We had Bob for a week before the owner came forward to claim them. He was about 6 or 7 months old, full of fun and energy, smarter than any animal we’d ever spent time with. He was well trained to the leash, but loved to romp on the sand and in the surf at the beach. Where our teenage son took him twice a day morning and evening. At first we thought maybe he volunteered so readily because the beautiful dog was a positive babe-magnet, but it quickly became clear he and Bob had fallen hopelessly in love with each other.

When we took him home to his ‘mother’ our son cried. He’d tried every argument he could think of for us NOT giving Bob back to that ‘other’ family. They didn’t look after him well. They didn’t care if he got run over. They didn’t deserve him… but of course, we had to take him back.

His ‘mother’ was a rich single mother who lived in a big house with her 10-year old daughter in one of the gated housing communities along Beach Boulevard, near where our friend had found the dogs. Bob was “the pup” she’d been given by her brother who owned the older poodle. He’d been set to stud, she got pick of the litter. She was trying to keep both dogs while her brother was overseas, but complained that they were completely unmanageable escape artists. While we were there we observed the young daughter’s treatment of Bob, which was disturbingly abusive. No wonder they kept running away, we thought. But we did our duty, and drove home without him.

A week later the lady called us. Said she would trade Bob (who she’d decided she just couldn’t keep) for a birthday party clown show for her daughter. Our son SkyPup immediately volunteered, even cancelled taping of his weekly children’s show on a local television station so he could do the gig. He’d made up his mind that it was his job to save Bob from an uncaring and abusive owner because he and Bob belonged together forever…

And so they did.

That’s how we got our first poodle, and there have been more. I’ve written about the rescue of Beau in another post. And I hope I’ll have another poodle rescue or two to report by the time I’m done reporting the ones that came before. Below are links to Poodle Rescue groups, and to Sandra’s rescue page over at Standard Poodles USA. Do check out some of the great poodle rescue stories linked there, and consider fostering or adopting a poodle or two yourself. They truly are the most amazing, most devoted, most intelligent dogs in existence!

Links:

Poodle Rescue @ Standard Poodles USA

Florida Poodle Rescue

Poodle Rescue of New England

Coastal Rescue

Carolina Poodle Rescue

Norcal Rescue [Northern California]

Nebraska Rescue