Cats may not have a monopoly on multiple lives – there’s now good evidence that some Border Collies are just as lucky. Saint, a yearling pup with golden eyes and a terrific sense of timing, is Exhibit A.
Saint came into Contra Costa Animal Services’ Martinez shelter as a stray. When tested to verify his temperament, he received mediocre scores. That’s not unusual for a quirky breed renowned for its intelligence and independent judgment, but also bred to work livestock from dawn to dusk. Border Collies are at their best when they have some control of their surroundings, and in an animal shelter they have none.
Due to those poor grades, Saint was designated “rescue-only,” meaning that he could not be adopted out to the general public. Any hope for him rested with the rescue community. Rescue groups save animals from euthanasia in shelters by placing them in foster care until appropriate permanent homes can be found. If one of these groups didn’t take Saint, he’d almost surely be “put down” by lethal injection.
The Martinez shelter handles thousands of animals every year. Some arrive through dire circumstances, like a master’s demise. Too many others are abandoned or discarded for flimsier reasons — through divorce, change of apartments, or simple loss of interest. There’s even the apocryphal story of a dog dropped-off because he didn’t match the new drapes! For most shelter animals, their worst sin was choosing the wrong owners.
The shelters and the many rescue groups that draw animals from them work hard to minimize the death toll, but the system remains out of balance. Every year far too many former pets leave through the back door, lifeless, rather than bounding out the front to a new life.
Rescue organizations are chronically short of foster families to care for pets while they seek adoptive homes, so they can’t save every animal that faces euthanasia. Saint was passed over, and the time soon came for him to be humanely killed.
As he entered the execution chamber, though, Saint wagged his tail and trustingly approached the shelter technician. He sat in front of her and extended his paw in greeting. She took it and bent down toward him, syringe in hand, steeling herself for her difficult task. (Nobody works at the shelter because they don’t care about animals, and this is dreaded duty for the workers there.)
And then Saint looked her in the eye and licked her cheek – as if to comfort her distress. “That’s when the tech thought: This dog is not going to die today,” says Sue Underwood, a volunteer leader for the shelter who works tirelessly to find homes for doomed animals. “Occasionally, a dog or cat so tugs at the heartstrings that we just have to find a way for them to live.”
Sue got on the phone to Border Collie Rescue of Northern California, not previously contacted on Saint’s behalf because he’s mostly a rich chocolate brown, rather than the common black/white mix. Border Collies have long been bred for their herding instincts, rather than conformance to some arbitrary appearance standard, so the group sees a wide range of colors – from mostly black or white to red, brown, and even blue merle (gray). We’ve also been known to handle so-called “borderline” Collie mixes.
So we agreed to take charge of Saint’s situation. It soon became apparent that he is playful, affectionate, and irrepressible – traits typical of the breed. Border Collies aren’t for everyone. They need serious, regular exercise and won’t tolerate boredom. But if you integrate them into an active family routine – say, with a daily run or strenuous dog park romp – they are fun-loving, loyal, and attentive companions.
Saint has been placed with another shelter volunteer as her foster dog and is safe for the moment. He’s not yet out-of-the-woods entirely, but he’s been “clipped and chipped” – neutered and microchipped for easier identification in case he’s ever lost again.
Border Collie Rescue and other such groups are always looking for foster families. “If we’re ever going to get the pet population into equilibrium and end euthanasia of companion animals, foster families will play a crucial role,” says Sue Underwood.
Some people fear that they won’t be able to give up the foster animals when adoptive families are found, but that rarely happens. Naturally it’s sad when they depart for their new homes, but you get the soul satisfaction of having done a wonderful thing in the world – you’ve saved a life. And that good feeling lasts.
Saint’s story is a real cliffhanger, but every animal consigned to the shelter has some series of events that landed them there, in harm’s way. Kindly pause for a moment to consider what all this means for you. Do you have some love to share with animals on a foster basis? If your heart answers “yes,” or even “maybe,” please get involved in this important work.
UPDATE: Saint, it seems, worked his magic again on his foster family, which recently decided to adopt him. Many other equally delightful and deserving pups await your call.
Tom Cushing is an attorney and a rescue volunteer for Northern California Border Collie Rescue. To learn more about rescued Border Collies available for adoption, please visit the group’s website at www.bcrescuenc.org.
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