This is the story of my foster dog, Eddy and how some tumours that are usually cancer have saved her life and brought her to Shannon!
Eddy was picked up by Animal Control on June 22, 2003.  She was laying by the side of the road in Sheet Harbour.  A kind lady stopped, called Animal Control and waited with Eddy until they came and picked her up.  Originally they thought she had been hit by a car because she couldn't move at all.  It turns out she was just hugely dehydrated from being outside in the sun.  As well since her back was almost completely bald her skin was burnt so bad that when the workers touched her skin it was coming off on their fingers.  They immediately took her to the Emergency Vet Clinic since it was a Sunday.  Discussion ensued as to whether they should just put her down.  She was in such a sad state that it seemed like the obvious thing to do.  But that's when Maureen (her sponsor) stepped in and said not to put her to sleep - that she would look after her.  And since that day that's what she has done 100%.  Eddy is alive today because Maureen knew that there was something special about this dog, and her hunch was right.

Eddy has the most amazing eyes, the sweetest spirit and the personality of the most joyful being you could encounter.  Her life has obviously up to this point not been good.  When Maureen took over her care and gave her to me to foster her fur that was there was really long and there was not a spot on her body that wasn't matted.  Her nails were so long they were almost curling under.   The hair under her eyes had fallen out from all the eye goop that had accumulated with no one to pick it off for her.  At least (and maybe more than) 50% of the hair from her body was gone - not pulled out or chewed off, but fallen out.  It was completely bare and smooth.  Her teeth were in really bad condition and she had a really strong smell to her and her hair was extremely greasy.  She's obviously had many many many litters because of the state of her belly and her bits and pieces.  The worst thing we found were the mammary tumours and that caused a couple weeks of intense worry while we waited for results of a biopsy.  In 50% of cases they are cancer and while a diagnosis of cancer does not necessarily give a bad life expectancy it certainly would make things more difficult! 
She is probably the victim of a back yard breeder or puppy mill.  She has spent her life to this point being used as a piece of livestock to produce a commodity.  When this page was still her "advertisement" I said that the mammary tumours saved her life and brought her to you because that is probably why she was dumped on the side of the road - they knew they wouldn't be getting any more puppies out of her and it was cheaper than killing her outright.  Or maybe whoever was working at the mill felt some compassion towards Eddy BECAUSE she is obviously so special so instead of smashing her head in like they normally would when they can't do their job anymore, the person packed them into their vehible and dumped her by the side of the road.  Even people who work in puppy mills can have compassion from time to time.
This is a picture of Eddy the first night I brought her home from the shelter.  When I first got these pictures developed I didn't think she looked too bad, but now that I've had her a while and I look at this picture I can see that there was absolutely no spark in her eyes.  She was a very sad dog who had obviously been through a lot.
But within only a couple days her spirit started to shine through as she realized that she was in a good safe place..   The 2 pictures below were taken by my friend Tara and they show her emerging personality.  They were taken before she was clipped, so she looks like Chewbacca from Star Wars. 
This picture gives an indication of what her baldness was like.  It didn't seem to bother her though (those are my dogs in the background rolling in something that was good, I am sure - Eddy
is much too sophisticated for that!)
Below shows another super picture of her bald back = in the picture is Karma my friend Tara's dog - we were at Long Lake on Canada Day
This picture was taken at the beginning of July, 2003 - after she'd been clipped but before her hair had started to grow back.  It has since grown back and is lovely and silky and mostly straight so it's easy to comb and take care of.
This is Eddy and Leonard in mid August - all of Eddy's hair has grown back except for a small patch on her shoulder and back and it's just a matter of days until it does start to grow - it's just because that skin was the most damaged from the sunburn when she was dumped on the road.  On the evening this picture was taken there were SIX dogs in the apartment - look at how calm she was!
In August and September Eddy was spayed, and had her mammary tumours removed.  She had a total of 3 surgeries.  The first one was a biopsy to see if the tumours were cancerous - which they were not.  When she was healthy enough she was spayed.  It turned out to be a major operation because she had a large tumour on one of her ovaries - which was once again a benign tumour, but nonetheless was a big tumour and hard to remove.  She had over 100 stitches in her belly from her spay operation.  But Eddy came home from the vet that night.  She was determined not to stay overnight there.  It was like she knew that if she didn't get up and walk across the room they were going to keep her in that cage and she was having none of it.  She bounced back and within 2 days of the surgery was her old self - eyes wide with joy swaying from side to side while I prepared her supper, barking at anyone who came to the door, running with the other dogs on our daily walks.  In September she had her mammary tumours out.  It turned out that she had HUNDRED'S of them.  Who could have know that she had that many?  All Dr. Baille thought was that there was at least a string of 5 big ones that she had felt.  But when she went in and actually opened up her abdomen - there they were - 100's of them.  Poor Eddy!  After Eddy had been spayed almost overnight her hair had grown back.  It had obviously been the tumour on her ovary that had caused the hair loss, along with the poor nutrition and awful life that she'd had.  But 100's of mammary tumours - that had to be causing un-told havoc on her... to have those out would be amazing.  So she had a belly full of stitches once again.  Over 100 stitches - all in different places in little different sections - even a couple of her nipples are gone now.  But her demeanour - WOW - it's like her soul has awoken completely.  I have had an animal communicator - Maggie Carruthers (who's contact information is on my Resources page) come over to work with Eddy and she couldn't believe the difference in her spirit between August and October - between the time before and after the mammary tumour removal.  It was like she was getting ready for Shannon to find her.

It had always been my opinion that Eddy's home would be found by someone coming up to me and saying "hey - what are you doing with my dog?" and that's basically what happened! On Remembrance Day 2003 I was at Conrad's Beach - which is my favourite place in the world, I met Shannon and her friend Cris - and they met Eddy.  And I think it was love at first sight for Shannon.  She wasn't even planning on getting a dog for a few more months - although it was in her long term plans to get a dog.  But it just happened that fate stepped in and presented her with her dog on November 11, 2003.

So this is the end of my story with Eddy but it's really just the beginning of the story of Eddy and Shannon.  Their lives have been unknowingly intertwined until now by breasts and black dogs and they will share a super special bond that if a person could understand it, they would wish to experience it at least once in their life.  They are going to have a lot of fun and going to share a lot of extraordinary experiences together.  I'd say they're both pretty lucky!

If you are too are lucky enough to spend any time with Eddy - please realize that there are still 1000's more like her still being tortured at this very moment in a puppy mill.  I don't worry about the puppy's that are in the pet store.  I worry about the parents who are in the mills - all the Eddy's out there.  Who never get to see the light of day and don't have the nice mill worker to dump them by the side of the road instead of smashing their head in so that they can at least have a few years of bliss at the end of their life.  Another fact about those pet store puppies and their parents that you may not realize is that when a puppy is born defective they can't sell it, so if it lives they use it as breeding stock.  That's how little they care about the dogs they are selling to you.  I'm sure that Eddy made beautiful puppies and that there's lots bouviers out there who's owners love them a lot - but they probably all have bad hips - because Eddy's got bad hips too.  And they might have tumours as they age.  But when you look in Eddy's eyes - she will tell you that she was a really good Mom and she didn't appreciate having her babies taken away from her all those times way before she was ready to give them up and she would have preferred to not have that many babies anyway - her life was meant to be spent in the pursuit of cat shit and belly rubs, - luckily for Eddy it's worked out perfectly!

But in honour of Eddy - please NEVER buy any of your companion animals in a pet store, because now you know where they come from because I've told you where they come from - 90% of pets in pets stores come from puppy mills like where Eddy spent the first 8-10 years of her life.  And anti-puppy mill people like to take it one step further - we ask that you not buy anything in pet stores that sell live animals if you can manage it - in order to send a message to those stores.  They don't need to sell those animals in order to stay open, but the millers need to use those stores in order to sell their product.  If they didn't have the pet stores they'd have to shut down and puppy mills wouldn't exist anymore.  And the only way you'd be able to get dogs would be from accidental breeding and responsible breeders - which is the world that anti-puppy millers are working towards.

Get your companion animals from breeders, or from rescue - but never from a pet store.  That would make Eddy (and Eddy's old foster Mom!) very happy!
Here's a picture of Eddy with her new Mom and Leonard taken at Martinique beach in November, 2003 - I think everyone looks pretty happy - well everyone but Leonard, she hardly ever looks happy!
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