Mishka
DOB: 1998
DOH: 4/14/00
Favorite Food: Picky eater
Dislikes: Anyone who may come between her and
her "mom"
One
early morning in October 1999, Kathy was
returning to her apartment building on New York
City’s Upper West Side when she ran into one of
her neighbors. Ronnie, a retired school teacher,
was never up that early so it was quite unusual
to run into her. Ronnie told Kathy she had
planned on calling her so she was glad they ran
into one another. She asked if Kathy would be
willing to take in another dog.
At this point, Kathy had four dogs
in a two bedroom apartment so she initially told Ronnie that
she was maxed out. However, being a softie for all dogs, she
asked “Why, what is the situation?” Ronnie proceeded to
explain how a dog walker had found a Labrador mix walking
down Broadway on the Upper West Side, alone, cold and
apparently abandoned. The dog walker had taken the dog in
but could not keep her and had tried to foster home her
several times with no luck. One of Ronnie’s friends had
tried to foster the dog but she had a bad hip and could not
walk the dog easily.
Kathy offered to take the dog for
the weekend and try to find a home for her. The dog sitter
brought the dog over to Kathy’s apartment. Kathy drove the
dog first to her mother’s house to try to convince her
mother she needed a dog. When that failed, she drove further
up to one of her sister’s houses to see if her sister’s
family could add the pup to their brood. They had been
thinking of getting a dog for the kids.
Her sister agreed to adopt the dog,
however, in one week she was taking her family away for a
week of vacation time. Kathy offered to keep the dog for
those two weeks and then transfer her to her sister’s care.
In the following two weeks, the dog bonded with Kathy and
refused to let her out of her sight. When Kathy and her
sister met to transfer the dog to her new family, the dog
cried and whined the entire way home to her sister’s house.
The next few days, the dog
proceeded to get very attached to Kathy’s sister and her
children while her husband was traveling. When he returned,
the dog refused to let him enter the house or his bedroom.
Overcoming these hurdles, the husband made peace with the
pup. However, the following day, the dog proceeded to
scratch every doorway in the house, tore the curtains off
the kitchen door, knocked plants off the window and finally
bit the husband as he was picking up a doggie toy off the
floor. This all took place in three days. Kathy got the call
to come back and get the dog.
