There was a story on the Daily Dodo yesterday that just says it all when it comes to us humans and our love for dogs. Now we don’t know the name of the Dad but so what! It’s a wonderful story nonetheless!
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Dad And The Dog He Didn’t Want Now Have The Sweetest Bedtime Routine
“He fell in love” ❤️
By Stephen Messenger, Published on 7/27/2020
Believe it or not, there was once a time when Alice Garrido Gallardo’s dad didn’t want another dog at all — but now he pretty much epitomizes what it means to be a proud pet parent.
He and his pup, named Jean Grey, have the sweetest bedtime routine to prove it.
Alice Garrido Gallardo
Jean Grey started out life as a stray and was rescued by Gallardo’s friend. When Gallardo suggested to her dad that they adopt her, he was opposed to the idea at first.
“We had lost our old dog and he didn’t want to have another one anytime soon,” Gallardo told The Dodo. “He was still grieving.”
Gallardo, however, wasn’t deterred. She decided to arrange an introduction between Jean Grey and her dad. And sure enough:
“He fell in love the day I brought her home,” Gallardo said.
Alice Garrido Gallardo
As time went on, his love for the dog he didn’t want only grew stronger — and he found the most wonderful way to show it.
“He began to put her to bed every night,” Gallardo said.
Photo Credit: TikTok/alicegrgl
Each and every night now, Gallardo’s dad tucks Jean Grey into bed, placing a pillow under her head and toy close by.
“I love to see them, my dad being super loving and affectionate,” Gallardo said. “I love to see them and know that they love each other very much.”
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I used the sub-heading: “One can never turn off one’s heart to love.”
To give that statement slightly more detail I should have said: “One can never turn off one’s heart to the love of a dog!”
Potato the corgi never misses an opportunity to say hi to her neighbors. So when social distancing started in Portland, Oregon, Potato’s parents, Cee and Pan, knew their dog wouldn’t be getting the kind of attention she was used to.
Instagram/potato_corgo
“She loves everyone — any dog, any kid, any adult human, doesn’t matter,” Cee told The Dodo. “Even dogs who snarl at her she’s like, ‘It’s OK, I’ll check back in five minutes.’”
“She’s in a polyamorous relationship with all of the mail, UPS and FedEx delivery people but the UPS man is her primary partner,” Cee added. “If you’re having a picnic at the park she will invite herself to your blanket and join in on the gossip.”
Instagram/potato_corgo
Potato knows a number of tricks, including how to ring a bell when she wants to go outside to the yard and socialize with the passersby. Cee, who works from home running a web agency, is always there to keep an eye on Potato when she goes out. And they noticed right away how difficult it was for Potato when her friends started ignoring her.
“Potato takes her job of getting pats through the fence very seriously and honestly seemed depressed that people stopped saying hi to her when social distancing started,” Cee said. “People kept looking really guilty when we’d catch them patting Potato through the fence, or others would ask if they could still pat her.”
Instagram/potato_corgo
To put an end to the confusion, they decided to make a little sign letting everyone know that it was still OK to give Potato the pets she craved, along with a few facts about her. “She’d bark at people she knew who normally would pat her when they’d walk by without saying hi,” Cee said. “So we wanted to make it known that it was consensual for us to take that slight risk of exposure.”
They laminated the sign and tacked it above Potato’s favorite spot on the fence. Potato was instantly happier.
Instagram/potato_corgo
The sign reads: “This is Potato! She’s friendly and yes you can pet her, even now with the virus. She also loves every dog so feel free to intro your dog!”
The sign has done more than cheer up Potato — it’s helped to connect Cee and Pan with neighbors they hadn’t met before. “People approach us more if we’re in the yard, or they send us little notes on [Potato’s] Instagram account,” Cee said. “There’s also an older neighbor lady who specifically comes by every single day to give her treats. It’s pretty wholesome.”
Now this is a story about a specific event, taking Sadie to the vet. But there’s a more fundamental theme to this post and that is the role of music in our lives and in the lives of our dogs.
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Dog Is Terrified Of Vet — Until He Decides To Sing To Her
From the Daily Dodo, May 22nd, 2020
Photo Credit: Kaeley Simek
Sadie was rescued from a local shelter when she was around a year old, and when she joined her family, she was quick to let them know that she was always down to have fun.
“Her personality is SO sassy and playful,” Kaeley Simek, Sadie’s mom, told The Dodo. “Ever since we gave her her first toy, she loves to play as often as she can. She is very high-energy and pretty much up for anything.”
While Sadie is usually the life of the party, the one thing that doesn’t make her smile is having to go to the vet.
“Sadie was not scared of vets when first rescuing her, but once she realized that she always goes there to get shots or if she has pain, she quickly learned it is not a fun place to be,” Simek said.
Photo Credit: Kaeley Simek
Sadie didn’t have great vet experiences when she was first rescued, and after that, she was absolutely terrified every time she realized that’s where she was headed. Her mom desperately wanted to find a vet who would understand Sadie’s anxiety and try to work with her to overcome it — and that’s when they met Dr. Noah.
“We started going to Dr. Noah of Dr. Noah’s Ark in Shorewood, [Wisconsin], in September of 2019,” Simek said. “After the bad experiences, I researched heavily a vet who would take time to understand and accept scared/reactive dogs. He was very highly rated and I also saw many reviews that [said] he doesn’t wear the ‘white coat’ at appointments, which can be a huge trigger for dogs.”
At their first visit, Simek explained Sadie’s anxieties to Dr. Noah, and it wasn’t hard to see how scared she was. That’s when Simek learned that Dr. Noah’s secret trick was singing to his patients.
In order to try and calm them down and make them feel more comfortable, Dr. Noah serenades the dogs who are scared or nervous — and most of the time, it totally works.
Photo Credit: Kaeley Simek
“The first time we went to him, he sang to her and she ended up on the floor kissing him and he was able to give the two shots she needed,” Simek said. “He has sang to her ever since.”
Dr. Noah understands that going to the vet can be overwhelming for some pets, so he does his best to create a positive experience for them the best way he knows how — through music.
“He heavily believes that music can completely change the mood,” Simek said.
For Sadie, it’s definitely been working. Even though she’s still scared when she first gets there, she definitely trusts Dr. Noah more than any other vet she’s been to, and with his help and his music she’s slowly learning that the vet isn’t actually so scary after all.
“She still has a lot of fear about the vet but he takes the time to sit down with her and we go for happy vet visits weekly so she can have positive associations,” Simek said. “He has the biggest heart out of any vet I’ve ever seen.”
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It’s very clear, from this story and many others including our personal experience of dogs, that dogs’ emotional responses are advanced and in many ways their emotions are familiar to us humans.
I’m going to include two videos.
The first is from 2012 and is a very short extract from the BBC Horizon video: Can dogs sense emotion?
And the second is a longer video but still only 18 minutes.
That second video shows the remarkable qualities of the dog and the similarities between the dog’s brain and the human brain!
Not only did Cengiz rescue her beloved pet from the streets years ago, she also maintains a cozy little oasis in front of her pharmacy for all the homeless dogs she’s unable to adopt herself.
Cengiz does it out of kindness, not for attention — but evidently word has spread among the local strays that she’s someone who truly cares.
Photo Credit: Banu Cengiz
Last week, Cengiz was at work like usual when she noticed a dog outside acting unlike the rest. Rather than, say, lounging in the beds she kindly provides to them, this pup was standing expectantly at the door.
“She was looking at me,” Cengiz told The Dodo. “I said, ‘Baby, is there a problem?'”
She welcomed the dog inside and realized there indeed was a problem: The poor pup was bleeding from a small cut on her paw.
She was asking for help — and as seen in a sweet video of what happened next, Cengiz was more than happy to provide it.
Photo Credit: Twitter/Badores
The pharmacist cleaned the pup’s wound with antiseptic and, when the bleeding stopped, gave her antibiotics. All the while, the dog appeared to understand Cengiz’s good intentions, acting like the perfect patient.
“When I was done, she laid down as if to thank me,” Cengiz said. “She was saying, ‘I trust you.'”
For the remainder of the day, Cengiz’s pharmacy served as a little recovery area of sorts, giving the weary dog a chance to rest in peace.
Cengiz gave the dog food and water, and use of a dog bed she keeps inside.
She’d come to the right place — and she knew it.
By closing time, the furry patient appeared to be on the mend, her eyes and energies compelling her back to the street outside — sadly, the setting of life to which she seemed well-acquainted.
Cengiz had helped the dog more than most. Yet she still wished she could do more.
Photo Credit: Banu Cengiz
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t take her home,” Cengiz said, no doubt a frequent lament for one so compassionate in a region where strays are far from uncommon. “I’ve been dealing with street animals for years. I feed them and heal them, and help them find homes when I can.”
In the meantime, the little refuge in front of her pharmacy serves as the next best thing. It’s Cengiz’s way of letting less-fortunate dogs, like her patient that day, know they’re still loved.
“I do it because they feel. We need to help those who need it,” Cengiz said. “People should teach their children to love and respect animals and nature. Then we can all live together in a beautiful world.”
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It’s stories like this that make my day. Plus sharing them with you means a great deal and is the reason I stay with Learning from Dogs. To that end it won’t be very long before this blog is 10 years old!
This has nothing to do with dogs but it’s a beautiful story none the less!
I follow the Daily Dodo as it most frequently relays lovely stories about dogs.
But not always.
On the 28th May Lily Feinn wrote about the way that dozens of motorists avoided a bald eagle on the freeway and one in a particular, Dandon Miller, a motorcyclist, did much more than that. He saved her!
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Guy Sees A Bald Eagle Caught In Traffic — And Saves Her Life
“It was just amazing to hold that bird and for her to be calm like that.”
BY LILY FEINN
PUBLISHED ON 05/28/2019
Dandon Miller’s favorite piece of clothing is a red and black flannel. He’s had the shirt for eight years and wears it all the time — but he never thought it would one day come in handy when saving a life.
On Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Miller was on his way home from Philadelphia when traffic slowed in front of him. Miller pulled his motorcycle off to the side of the two-way highway and was shocked when he realized what was causing the traffic jam.
“I looked down to see why everyone was stopping and there was a bald eagle in the middle of the road,” Miller told The Dodo. “Another person was there and they kind of nudged her a little bit to see if she would walk off the road or fly away. She spread her wings open and was not going to go anywhere.”
Dandon Miller
An avid animal lover, Miller knew he had to help the injured bird get out of harm’s way.
The large animal was too hurt to fly, but her powerful talons were reason enough for Miller to take off his favorite flannel and throw it over her. To Miller’s surprise, the eagle remained sedate as he wrapped her in the shirt.
“I picked her up and she was very calm,” Miller said. “She got a little worked up when people started wanting to take pictures, but we were able to get that under control.”
Dandon Miller
Once Miller moved the eagle out of the road, he called 911 and eventually got in touch with Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, a local rehabilitation center for wild birds. Miller held the 15-pound bird for about 45 minutes while waiting for rescue staffers to arrive. But the time seemed to pass quickly.
Dandon Miller
“I wasn’t really thinking about it when I was holding her,” Miller said. “I was just trying to keep her calm and make sure she knows she’s secure, and I wasn’t going to drop her or anything.”
“It was just amazing to hold that bird and for her to be calm like that,” Miller added. “Just amazing.”
Dandon Miller
After a few days of treatment, the rescue is confident that the bald eagle will eventually be able to be released into the wild.
“She had a mild injury to one eye and soft tissue injuries, but no broken bones,” Rebecca Stansell with Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research told The Dodo. “Her wounds were treated by our wildlife veterinarian while the eagle was under anesthesia. The unexpected can always happen, but we are optimistic that she will make a full recovery.”
As for Miller’s favorite flannel, it has certainly seen better days.
The shirt now has a few large talon holes in it, but Miller knows it was for the best cause — and he will definitely be wearing it again.
I can’t really imagine what it felt like to hold that eagle in your arms for 45 minutes. Especially with all the traffic rushing past. But for sure it felt more than amazing. A beautiful wild eagle!
One can’t have too many opportunities to meld with the natural world.
Learning from Dogs 