Stormy (2009-2023)
We said goodbye to our girl today. She had a large, rapidly-growing tumor that had crowded out the rest of her organs and she wasn’t able to eat or be comfortable.
Stormy came into Tri-City Shelter in 2010 as a stray, during a thunderstorm, and almost immediately gave birth to Rainy, Misty & Sprinkles. A shelter is no place for a new mama and her babies, so EARS took them in.
One October day, Stormy and her adorable puppies were ready to be separated and their temp foster had brought them to an adoption event to be distributed. The puppies all had foster homes to go to, but no one had stepped up for the mama dog… So we said “sure, we’ll take her!” Little did we know! She stayed with us for two years, through multiple other fosters coming and going, until a family said they wanted to adopt her.
Then came the dark times. This family decided they didn’t want her after all, and abandoned her at a boarding facility, where she spent a year. Then she was given away. We only found out about any of this by chance, and thankfully I was able to track the new family down, and when they decided they didn’t really want her either, I said GIVE ME MY DOG and they brought her back to me. That was January 2015. She’s been with us ever since.
We’ll never know what she went through during those 2+ years, but her nerves and her fearfulness never really recovered. She was MY dog… no one was allowed to make any sketchy moves near me or even get too close… She protected Billy as well, but I was her person. Mike was on his own. 🙂
We continued to foster, but Stormy couldn’t handle any dogs staying too long. She’d give them a few days, but after that, if it looked like they were getting comfortable, or too attached to me, she’d start a row. She lost every fight, but that didn’t stop her. We eventually decided to stop fostering for now, because it was just making Stormy’s anxiety worse.
The last few years have been relatively calm. She still barked at everything that moved (real or imaginary). She’d bark furiously at Mike every time he came home, and then be snuggled on the couch with him five minutes later.
Thank you to all the EARS volunteers who remembered and loved my girl so well. We will miss her so. 💔