HugABull Blog: May 2009

This is a little late, but again better late than never.

Last month HugABull was invited to attend the Richmond Animal Protection Society's Bully Breed Awareness Day.

It was a GREAT event, good turn out and I think we reached a few people.

Richmond is a municipality with some very strict BSL and unlike some municipalities with BSL Richmond does enforce it and will hand out $1000 tickets for anyone who is caught walking their bully without a muzzle. Let hope that together with RAPS we can change this.

Thank you to the crew at RAPS for inviting us, we had a great time and met some wonderful new friends. Here are some pictures from that great day.

Welcome to Bully Breed Awareness Day

Pictures say a thousand words

Visiting with the crowd

Our Booth

Jeff and his new friend

Chatting with our fans

Our supporters, thanks for coming guys!

HugABullers

It took a while for Sweet Jane to find her forever home but like the saying goes, "All good things come to those who wait" and boy did we all wait. We just knew this amazing little dog would get her dream home, problem was we just didn't know when.

Jane entered our program back in 2006, she joined us from Washington DC, after she was abandoned with a couple of her pups. Once the pups were placed the Washington Shelter didn't know what to do with Jane, they were getting no interest in her and with more adoptable dogs lining the kennels Jane's time they thought could be numbered. They decided to contact HugABull to see if we might be of some help.

Once Jane was in our program it didn't take long for her to get noticed by a young family. They fell in love and Jane went to her new home, all was sun shine and roses until January of 2008, when we got an email informing us that the family was moving and could not take Jane with them. Poor Jane was once again looking for a home.

The second time around Jane was going to have to wait.

Jane was placed in foster care where her foster dad worked very hard with her on manners both in and out of the house. Jane weighed no more than 40 pounds, a pocket pit with her weight in love for people, but not so much other dogs. Because of Jane's issues with other dogs, we knew the city was not going to be a place where Jane would be happy, she needed to be where she could be alone with just her family and guests, but in the meantime lots of practice out and about in the big city was good for Jane.

A year and 4 months later, Jane was still in foster care, then came Wendy! A manager of a large horse breeding organization with a 100 achers out in the Valley. Jane and Wendy met, walked, ran, met the horses and all the while we held our breath, praying please be the one!

less then a month later.... a couple updates from Jane's mom.

Hi, Jane has been off leash for 3 days now and keeps closer and closer to me. She runs so hard she is cutting the grass. Unfortunately she has learned the joy of sliding through nice soft horse pies from them being on grass.So now we go for our walk and stop at the barn in the wash rack and have a bath.She smelt so bad I could smell her from 10 feet away.She was excellent for her bath and lots of hot water and soap took care of the problem.Tonight she didn't even bother going in with the horses.We have a shed up top that has a lot of rats so tomorrow we are heading there as I'm sure she will help with the problem.She is the best dog I could of ever adopted.Thankyou so much again

Tonight was a great night.Normally I don't let Jane off leash till we are out across the bridge but today when we came back she came all the way home off leash.I told her to keep close when we came across the bridge and she stuck right by my left heel.Do you think she had learned a lot more in another life.If I stopped she would sit down beside me.It was unbelievable.She is so smart.Someone at some point must of taught her to heal.If you had seen her you would of been so proud.I was.When we are out back by the horses I tell her to lay down and stay and then I will walk off about a 100 yards and then call her.She does it perfect every time even if she is laying by the fence and horses come up to her.She is getting better all the time.Thankyou again for all the trouble you went to getting us together.Hope to have pictures soon.

Wendy

Running off leash on a 100 achers all of her own with a mom that loves her... this is more than we could have ever imagined.

Thank you to Wendy who opened her heart and home to this sweet, loving but sadly overlooked young lady. We know that for the rest of Jane's days she is going to running free, happy and safe and that is all we could have ever wanted for our Sweet Jane.