So this is Miss Lucy... she was our first accidental foster kiddo. I just happened to be strolling through the SMHS, and I happened upon a male harlequin great dane up for adoption. If anyone knows anything about me, that is like my DREAM DOG! What can I say, I just love the big'uns. So anywho, I hurried and called Mike and told him what I had found! I had been talking forever about adding a third member to the family, and it was like a small answer to my prayers. Unfortunately, by the time I talked to the adoption counselor, walked out and got ahold of Mike to tell him to get his butt to the Humane Society, and then walked back in... someone else had adopted him!! Literally, it was like 20 minutes later! I was devistated!! Actually, I was downright pissed... I had told the adoption counselor I wanted him and I just needed to call my hubby first... but that's a whole other story. Looking back on it, it was a good thing we didn't take him because when we came here to Japan, we could only have 2 pets and a Great Dane alone would have been pushing it, let along a dane and two labs!
So, as I was pouting and moderatly verbally abusing the adoption counselor, she tried calming my jets by telling me they just had a person bring in a dane that was in the holding area because she was sick. I asked the girl if we could take her home as a foster and get her all better to see if a dane would even fit in out life, and she said she would check with the manager. The manager gave us the thumbs up and we got miss Lucy Goosey!! The lady that found her said she was running along the main highway, I-10, and looked as though she was young and just had a litter of puppies. She was around 3 years old, and in need of a spaying. The operation was done and the next day we got to bring her home!!
From her pics, you can see that this young lady was ALL LEGS! Now for anyone with a moderate amount of intelligence knows when they hear the words Great and Dane put together, this must be something pretty darn large... well, for poor miss Lucy this was not the case. She was grossly underweight, barely tipping the scales at 60 pounds, which was about 30+ pounds underweight for her size. She was a petite gal, but definately needed some lovin', which we had plenty to give.
I brought her home and she DWARFED our labs. My female lab Chloe out-weighed her by 10 pounds at this point, and you can see from the pics about that Lucy towered over her. It was like having a small pony in the house. When he layed by out feet and stretched out along the couch, she was AS LONG as the couch, and man, did I love her. She was the most gentle-tempered, sweet, loving dog I have ever come across. To this day she has been out best foster by far, and we've had a few.
So Lucy had been spayed before she was given to us, and was still healing from her operation. One night I noticed she had a fairly large hematoma growing under her skin, which was basically just a ball of fluid collecting due to trauma of the operation, and brought her to get checked out. She was scheduled to be brought in and have the lump drained and cleaned in a couple of days. That night, which was a saturday, I got home late from the Shed and it was raining out... well, I let all three of the pups in from the back yard, and doesn't Lucy look like a kid on skate for the first time and went skidding across our kitchen floor.
All I heard was a "SPLOOSH" and up the wall went a streak of blood and fluid. It was like someone threw a water balloon against our wall. I checked her wound, it was wide open and she was dripping blood. Her muscular wall was still in tact, but the outer flesh was bleeding. I piled her into the truck at 1am and we took her to the emergency clinic. 10 staples, some pain meds, and almost 3oo dollars later we were finally home... at 3am.
She recovered just fine, had the staples taken out a few days later, and was fine after that... but wow, it was totally scary!
It came to the day to bring her back and I was a total wreck. Mike and I had to go to NY for my dad's b-day, and there was nothing I could do about it. As I dropped of Chloe and Charlie at the kennel, I wanted to leave Lucy with them. I wasn't ready to give her up. I was a wreck the whole way to the humane society, and tried to talk mike into turning around and bringing her to the kennel so I could have her when we got back... but it didn't fly. We ended up dropping her off and I cried like a baby. I was honestly in love with that dog and wanted her as a part of my family. Hindsight tells me it was a good thing to let her go, but she was an awesome addition to the fam. I threw a fit and tried to get her back, but unfortunately she had been sent to another foster family to stay until the Humane Society had it's big fund raiser for the year.
Apparently once a year the HSSM will auction off some of their more sought-after dogs. Those that are young and of good roots, like pure-breds, puppies, and other rare finds. It was called the Tiki Bar Goes to the Dogs and was held at the Beau. Tickets were 60 a piece, and I didn't have the heart to go and see her get auctioned off...
Come to find out, the people who had fostered her next also fell in love with her and they kept her. I was glad that she wasn't sold at the auction, but still a bit heartbroken about the way I had to leave her. We had numerous fosters after her, but she'll always be my first and my favorite!
