03/21/2022
Lynn Murphy Mark
After our dachshund, Minnie, died last year we lasted three weeks before we started an earnest search for a new dachshund. I happened to get the name of a breeder and called her to see if she had any female pups. She said she did not, but she did have a three year old female dog that could no longer be bred due to medical complications during her last delivery. She described her as mellow and healthy and housebroken and good with children. I agreed to drive a couple of hours to her house to meet Mollie.
When I drove up to the double wide I saw a series of those big sheds made of plastic. Apparently that is where the dogs lived year round. My first thought was to wonder how they kept them warm. The sheds were sitting on a huge wooden deck that had dog poop scattered everywhere. There was a toy plastic pool with water in it – allegedly for the dogs, but friendly for mosquitoes too. There were ten miniature dachshunds running around on the deck like crazy people, barking and carrying on. I asked what the breeder fed Mollie and she said, “Whatever. Like Kibbles and Bits.”, which in my opinion is cheap and shitty dog food. I asked for a record of her shots and was told that she did not keep records but “Mollie has had her shots.” I didn’t believe a word she said.
I met Mollie, who was barking in such a way that she did not strike me as “mellow”. She struck me as frantic. The breeder said she would sell her to me for $300. Before I left home Jan had said to me, “If you aren’t comfortable with what you see, don’t get the dog.” In that moment that translated into, since I wasn’t comfortable with what I saw I could not leave Mollie in that setting.
I wrote the check, picked up a little quivering dog, and got the hell out of Dodge. Mollie rode home with me in Minnie’s crate. She did not make a sound during our drive. When we got home I carried her into our condo because she didn’t have a leash or a collar. She was shivering and looking very worried. I took her outside where we discovered that she did not know how to walk on grass. She was timid about taking any steps on green stuff and we realized she had never been off the wooden deck at the breeder’s. We put a collar on her which she did not like and tried a leash with which she was totally unfamiliar.
She was scrawny and she smelled like a dog who had never had a bath. We waited a day before we put her through the trauma of a warm bath. Over the next couple of days we discovered that Mollie was very anxious – not at all “mellow” and she was not housebroken either.
I got her on a Saturday and had a vet appointment on Tuesday. She was terrified of the car ride and I had to carry her into the Animal Hospital. The breeder had said Mollie was a healthy dog, but our Vet disagreed. She tested positive for heartworms and has a mild heart condition. She was underweight. He agreed that she was extremely anxious. He recommended that she be given all her shots in the absence of a formal shot record. This visit was the beginning of opening my checkbook to cover the costs of treating her various conditions. We were not sure what we were in for, but I think having a little puppy might have been easier.
I called the Missouri State Department of Agriculture to report the breeder. Our vet was pretty sure that if Mollie had heartworms, so did some if not all of the other dogs. Unfortunately because she only has two females to breed she is considered a “Hobby Breeder” and is not subject to the same regulations that a bigger breeder would have to follow. They said someone would pay a visit anyway. I don’t know if that ever happened. I hope it did.
We’ve had Mollie for a year now. I am her “person”, possibly because I rescued her from that hell hole. Wherever I am in the condo, she is not far away. She is now fine with Jan. She is still anxious, but is better about approaching people. We know she’s been slapped because if we accidentally raise a hand around her she shrinks back and cowers. We have just about gotten her housetrained. She sleeps under our covers and doesn’t move all night long. We feed her food from The Farmer’s Dog, which is fresh food that she absolutely loves. She weighs 14 pounds now and her coat glistens.
Friends say that Mollie won the lottery when we got her. We know she will never be the perfect dog because a part of her spirit has been irretrievably broken. But she shows her love for us in sweet ways, and that makes all the difference.