A Poodle Named Dream Adopts an Aussie Puppy in Need

Dream already had one puppy of her own, but when another turned up at the rescue needing a mother, she brought her into her family.

A four-year-old Poodle named Dream turned up in an overcrowded shelter in the high desert near Lancaster, California -- dirty, matted, and skinny. Shelter workers labeled her a stray. They didn't even know she was pregnant, but she was, and she gave birth to two tiny puppies on Dec. 2. 

One died right away. The other fought to survive, as Dream, so sickly herself, did her best to nurse him. The pair needed to get out of that shelter and get some real help, and that's when a kind soul spotted Dream and her puppy and pegged them for transfer to the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe, California. 

It was there her life would change. Not only did Dream and her puppy -- staff named her Cupcake -- get placed in a great foster home right away, but Dream gained a new reason to live: Candy, an Aussie mix puppy who was having a rough go at life. 

On Jan. 10, not long after Dream and Cupcake found their foster home, the Helen Woodward center brought in a mother Aussie mix named Karly and her seven puppies. One of them, Candy, was tiny compared with the rest. She had been getting trampled, struggling to get her mother's milk, and she was left stunted, weak, dehydrated, covered in bite wounds, and suffering from a nasal infection. 

The center's veterinarian, Stephanie Oba, took Candy in, fostering her separately and giving her round-the-clock care. She would get better, but she still needed one thing. She needed a mother. 

Someone on the staff had an idea: What about Dream? Her puppy Cupcake was Candy's age. And the pups looked nearly alike, despite one having a Poodle mom. What if Dream accepted Candy as her own?

Foster Pam Fleischman agreed. Dream met Candy, and immediately took her in. She treated Candy as "though she were the baby she had lost," reports the center.  

“Dream has been an amazingly good mother," said Fleischman. "She is content to spend most of her time lounging with Cupcake and Candy and attentively caring for them. We’re looking forward to seeing how the puppies’ personalities develop during the next month. They are both angels and immediately became the best of friends.” 

This story had a happy ending, but it's not over. Cupcake and Candy will soon need their own homes. The two dogs will be fixed in a few weeks and will be ready to be adopted after that, according to the center. If you're interested, please contact the Adoptions Department at 858-756-4117 (ext. 1) or visit the Helen Woodward Animal Center. 

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Video We Love: When a Dog’s Dream Comes True

An oldie but a goodie. I’d never seen this before, and it made my morning. Enjoy 30 seconds of great big fun, and may all your dreams come true!

(A shout out to the folks at Life with Dogs for resurrecting the video today on their site!)

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Dream of a Green Christmas with Fun Eco-Friendly Giveaway

It’s not easy being green — at least if you’re a dog. Eco-friendly pet products haven’t exactly been growing on trees. Fortunately, that’s starting to change, and we’re going to share that change with one lucky Dogster!

The people at Better Buddies and Clean+Green have gotten together to create a great green holiday giveaway for readers of the Dog Blog. The winner will get the following goodies:

One medium Pillow Bed in Classic Stripe (35? x 27? x 5?, MSRP $139)
This bed is perfect for those who love a clean and thoughtful design that will never go out of style! Marigold and sea green pop against warm chocolate, creating a playfully contained personality. Even when sleeping, your pooch will look awfully dapper.

Every Better Buddies Pillow Bed offers:
Extra filling, channeled to support the heaviest of pets
Invisible zipper that wraps around corners for easier handling
Fur wipes off with a brush of your hand
Made for longevity with incredibly soft and durable 100 percent certified organic cotton & hemp
Filled with recycled PET fiber made from recycled plastic bottles

Three cans of Clean+Green in Fabric Refresher, Carpet & Upholstery and Auto (MSRP $9.99 each)

Clean+Green natural pet stain and odor removers are safe for people, pets, and the planet! Using a patented formula, Clean+Green encapsulates and eliminates stain and odor on contact — even skunk odor! — by naturally biodegrading the stain or odor source. The all-natural formula delivers instant results in a safe, nontoxic, eco-friendly solution. Ingredients include cane sugar derivatives, a proprietary blend of botanical extracts, hydrated cellulose, purified water, and a natural aerosol propellant (nitrogen).

Great products! How do you enter to win? Since both companies are based on eco-friendly principles, we thought we’d ask you what you do that’s eco-friendly. It could be something most of us do, like recycle. Or it could be something really big, like installing solar panels.

Write it in a comment below, and we’ll use Random.com to select the winner (at random, if that was not obvious from the name). One entry per household, please, and you must be a U.S. resident. (Shipping reasons. Sorry to our many friends outside the states.)

Leave your comment by Wednesday, Dec. 15, at noon PST. We’ll announce the winner on Dec. 16.

Good luck, Dogsters! Here’s to a green holiday.

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Border Collie Scores Every Dog’s Dream Job: Chasing Gulls

A border collie chasing gulls (Photo credit: Flickr photostream of BuckarooBob)

A border collie in Elmira N.Y. is probably thanking the big dog in the sky today after landing every dog’s dream job.

She won’t be herding sheep or doing police work or guiding the blind or sniffing out bombs like other working dogs. No, Sammi will be chasing ring-billed gulls on Elmira’s stretch of the Chemung River. Apparently the gulls are there in force, making a mess and causing problems, and the city wants them gone.

City manager John Burin assures that no gulls will be harmed while Sammi is doing her job. The 7-year-old dog was a champion herder, and has worked with ducks and geese in the past.

“The dog basically harasses them to the point where the birds want to go some place else,” he says. “Now, where they’re going go we’re not sure.”

The gulls probably won’t too happy, and some bird advocates’ feathers may get ruffled, but for Sammi, life doesn’t just doesn’t get any better than this.

Sources: WETM-TV, TheGazette.com

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