One of the biggest accomplishments and blessings of the cat home had nothing to do with cats. It had to do with dogs. 28 dogs to be exact.  Yes. 28. It was very different for me. 

Dogs are a different case than cats. Dogs tend to grow to be man’s (or woman’s) best friend. They can teach a young child responsibility, be trained to protect a household, serve in the military / law enforcement, guide the blind, bring peace to kids with autism / anxiety, or simply but not less importantly be a best friend for life to a child into young adulthood: 28 dogs with 28 different potential destinies. I should have seen it coming. 

When I was scoping out the property and trailer which would soon become “The Cat Home” there were a lot of dogs running up and down the street. I didn’t think much of it.  For the first year or so I simply saw them run up and down the street. Occasionally I’d hear barking nearby especially at night but nothing I was concerned with until one day. 

One day I heard ‘yelps’ under my crawlspace. As it turned out, a dog had given birth to pups. They were under my crawlspace on a tarp I’d left on the ground to help get around under the crawlspace. It was going to be 16 degrees that night and it wasn’t likely these newborns would survive the night so reached out to a rescue. They came that very night and rescued the pups. But it wasn’t over. 

A few weeks later I heard a yelp from under the bathroom. I didn’t see any cats so I went under the crawlspace and cut through the insulation under the bathroom and out fell a pup. I called the rescue again and they were able to extract more pups. The rescue didn’t consider it a ‘one and done’ operation. 

The rescue worked with me over the next few months and extracted 25 pups and mamas / papas. There were 3 more to go – roamers living under my crawlspace that I’d named ‘Dog’, ‘Not Dog’ and ‘Also Not Dog’. With help from the public all over the country I fed them, set up dog houses, and let them live in my crawlspace through the winter. People had asked me to allow them to live there despite the damage happening. What a choice stood in front of me. 

It was a hard choice – because they were destroying the insulation, damaging plumbing and duct work under the crawlspace but it was a particularly bad winter and I didn’t have the heart to secure the crawlspace – there was nowhere for the dogs to go. I’d checked with the neighbors – my crawlspace was their warm place and provided life saving heat.  The total cost to fix everything under the crawlspace was $5000 with only $900 in donations as of April 2022 but the hardest task was yet to come and it took months. 

I worked for months to gain their trust, feeding and watering them. They also got occasional treats. We had some cold winter nights but I was always glad to see them come out of the crawlspace each morning especially when we had winter weather advisories. But inevitably it all come to an end. 

One day the rescue came and we corralled them inside some fencing and one at a time lasso-leashed them. They went to a rescue group who didn’t euthanize. It was a hard day and I did cry after they left. For a while it was hard to come home and not have a dog run up and greet me on my porch or come out in the morning and see some dogs come out and see me off. But I also know between my work and travels I could not properly take care of or even keep a single dog. But it would feel empty for a long time. Perhaps in a way it still does. 

I miss Dog, Not Dog, and Also Not Dog but I also never saw dogs running up and down the street again. So I believe what was an issue for years was also solved . And who knows what destines these dogs – and their humans – awaited them…