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When I was a little kid, I loved cats. My family had cats on the farm where my dad and older brothers raised and showed Arabian horses. I loved to go to the feed room to see the new kittens. I knew that when I grew up, I would have cats in my life. I didn’t even know I liked dogs until my husband came to see me at work on my birthday the first year we were married with a tiny ShihTzu puppy in his baseball cap. Zachy was the beginning of Mixed Up Mutts—only I didn’t know it yet. For the next 10 years we added cats to our family until we had seven. My childhood dream had come true. But, there was something about that little dog that was just different. I found myself stopping to meet every dog I passed by. There was something about each one that made me smile. At 6 yrs old, Zachy was out in the yard with Daddy. He never went near the road. But before he knew it, Zachy was in it. He was hit by a car and Tailwagon was born out of necessity. When Zachy was ten years old, after an inspiring visit to Best Friends Animal Society, we decided that we might like to add another dog to the family. We began to look and found an ad for a puppy in the local newspaper. As it turned out it was our neighbor who fostered dogs for a nearby shelter. Fostering, a concept we never considered. We decided to take Sammy home. (She’s the litte wirey haired thing to the right of the black German Shepherd who, by the way was our second rescue.) It was Sammy who introduced me to crate training—something I thought I would NEVER do. Well, that’s what a puppy will do to you. Then there came Cassie, a blind Collie we fostered for a Collie rescue group. Then came Toby the Corgi and Georgia the German Shepherd and so on and so on…..Soon, our house on one of the town’s main streets was full of foster dogs (If you look closely you can see eight of them gathered around my husband in our Victorian home’s living room And so Mixed Up Mutts came into being. Going from being a pet owner to a rescue organization brought with it a landslide of life changes and here we are in the country. Our dogs can sniff and explore and we can take off leash walks as often as we like on our 10 fenced acres. Zachy lived nine more years in his “wheels” and we buried him underneath an apple tree here on the farm. His existence made an immeasurable difference in my life. Just one little life mattered!
-Sarah Stevens, President
We would also like thank the Spring 2008 COM 320 class at Purdue North Central for all of their hard work in helping out Mixed Up Mutts. |
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