03/19/2017
Ben needs a place to stay. He's adorable and sweet-tempered. Do you know someone who might like to foster him? Maybe provide him with a new home?
We're calling him Ben for now. He came our way a couple of weeks ago when a social service agency contacted us about providing dog walks. But Ben needed more than walks!
His two elderly owners had been removed from their UWS address to a nursing home and he had been left behind. Days passed, we're not sure how many. And he was a stinky mess, with intestinal infection and a cough.
Several parties interceded to get him medical care and proper boarding, and then others stepped in to foster short-term.
Unfortunately, they cannot continue to foster him after April 8th.
During the last couple of weeks, we've gotten to know him some. He's 9 years old (we were able to trace medical records up to 2012), very friendly and social. He has very long toe nails and very tender pads, suggesting he hasn't been outside much for walks in recent years. But he is housebroken. (And he has been on walks in the last couple of weeks and his pads are toughening.)
At first when the foster family took him in, he was a little hyper (as can only be expected), but in a matter a just a few days he calmed down considerably.
When I visited yesterday, I saw him lying next to his foster person on the couch while that person used the laptop. I also saw him camping out voluntarily in his new crate, enjoying the company of the family's other dog, and saying hi to the toddler next door. He loves his toys.
Finally, full disclosure: in cases such as these where the owners are still alive but severely disabled and money is tight, the social service agency will need a judge's order to legally remove Ben from his home and the agency is working on this.
As Zooey and I became more informed about this case, we learned that there is a great gap in care for animals caught in this horrible predicament. A great non-profit named PAWS helps some people but it has income requirements that leave others out. And funding for the Mayor's Alliance has been cut back.
So we'd like to make an additional appeal for money, even if you can't foster. We would deliver the money directly to the Social Service Agency person and careful receipts would be kept.