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2008.05.23 Fri

The Curious Threesome

This is Ruru. She was rescued along with 29 other dogs. Actually, she was rescued from the same place as Tetta. Due to the “certain plan concerning a certain park” that Tetta spoke of, the homeless people who were the owners of the dogs were uprooted and their dogs were on their way to the pound. However, with the selfless help of the caretakers of the park, ARK was able to rescue these dogs. The park is now the location of the Beach Volleyball World Tour.



Ruru is a very outgoing girl and is full of curiosity. She lives with two male dogs, Lucky and Lily, who were rescued with her. I always get just a tad frustrated when I watch this threesome interacting.

For example…



Here’s Ruru hogging all the toys in her kennel and standing guard so that Lily and Lucky can’t get to them.



Here’s Ruru deciding that the toy Lucky had been playing with was suddenly hers, even though she didn’t want to play with it before. “Back off! That’s mine!” she tells Lucky. And Lucky, being Lucky, quietly obeys.



When someone is playing with Lucky or Lily, Ruru chases the boys away, and the boys are quick to comply. Come ON, Lucky and Lily, you guys have to stand up for yourselves!!!

So there you have it, the bully and the bullied. If you boys don’t mind it, then that’s fine, but it is so irritating seeing you two being walked all over! You boys need to man it up a bit!



But that’s how Lucky and Lily are, mellow and sweet. They can take time to warm up to people, but they never try to dominate them, so they are easy to handle. I want to find them foster parents so they don’t have to be bullied by Ruru anymore! But seeing the three of them napping peacefully together makes me think there may be hope in this threesome after all.



Lily: “Either way is fine with me… goodnight!”


☆☆☆Notice☆☆☆

Zeros and Otto have found foster parents together! Mufasa has found foster parents as well!

25th (Sunday) is the adoption fair.
Ruru will be there! So will little Ume and I (K.K.), for Ume’s socialization!

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2008.05.20 Tue

Chobi-kun’s story

I was taken to ARK when I was a little puppy.
That was eight years ago.
My owner’s business got into difficulties, and he had to let go of the house we lived in.



I was taken to ARK until he found a new home. I wasn’t sad at all at the time, because I believed in my owner and it was supposed to be just a short stay at ARK.
However, my owner never came to pick me up.
Work, the house…nothing went well for him.



He had to make a hard decision. There was no other choice.
He had to let me go.
My owner asked ARK staff to find a new home for me.



I can do lots of tricks!
Paw, Other paw, Lie down, Wait, Turn around, Jump…
Those eight years with my owner were happy for me, and I don’t want to forget all the things he taught me.



There are even other tricks I’ve learned at ARK. I’m eight, but I’m still young enough to learn new things!



I can’t forget the warm, happy days I spent with my family, so I also can’t pretend and say that living at ARK is not that bad.
I once was really happy. I’d love to live with my own family again, and lead a real dog’s life!

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2008.05.14 Wed

Ume’s Diary, Part II

Kiku, Ume, Momo, and Sakura: these 4 sisters have been fostered out to ARK’s staff members on a rotating basis.



Now Ume chan is staying at my house.

At the house of one staff member who lives by herself with a dog and a rabbit, Ume got along great with the rabbit, but not with the dog. However, there has been no problem with my three big happy-go-lucky fellows. In fact, she’s been fitting in fine and doing really well with them. I’m wondering if she changes her attitude depending on who she’s with?

I heard that at the house of the other staff member who lives alone, she howled while the staff member was out of the house, but she didn’t howl at all when she was alone when we all went out without her.

It seems that she behaves a little differently in different places.



To be honest, when we fostered Kiku chan, we were under a bit of pressure and that made her timidity worse.

Fortunately, it didn’t affect her too much and since then she’s been fine – getting more and more friendly. Drawing on that experience, this time we are trying not to force Ume chan to do anything unless she seems to want to do it herself. Let me tell you a bit about Ume chan’s current life.

＜Day 1＞

・ Ume was brought into our living room in a crate. When our dogs tried to look inside the crate, she snarled, baring her teeth and curling her lip. She looked scared. Two hours later, when our dogs had calmed down, I opened the kennel door, but she didn’t come out. Whenever our dogs looked inside, she snarled again.



＜Day 2＞

・ She didn’t come out all night. I talked to her and fed her while she was in the crate. At first, she wouldn’t eat from my hands, but she started eating when I put the food on the floor. Then she ate from my hands, but didn’t eat a lot.
・ Suddenly she came of her crate and started walking around! She sniffed around, explored the room and went to the toilet spot to do a pee and a poo. She walked around a bit and then went back into her crate. A while later, she came out again, so I closed the crate door. It had taken 13 hours for her to come out of the crate after coming to my house.
・ I left Ume chan alone at home while I took all our dogs for a walk, but she didn’t howl or bark. When we came back, she was sound asleep on a rug.
・ At night, she let my husband stroke her. He did this by giving her some cheese and trying to touch her bit by bit. I think she secretly enjoyed it because when he stopped stroking her, she came over to him and seemed to want more.
・ She managed to finish whole her meal (only dry food) with our dogs.



＜Day 3＞

・ She slept with everybody (including me). When she woke up, she came over to me, wriggling her body and showing me her tummy to be stroked...
・ She finished whole her meal (only dry food) with our dogs.
・ I hadn’t planned to take her for a walk, but she came with us to the door and even let me put her collar on without any trouble. If she had hesitated, I would have let her stay home, but she was the first dog to go out when I opened the door. During the walk, she pulled on the leash when she was scared, or when we were in built-up areas or by a big roadside, but she didn’t pull when we were in places with plenty of greenery such as rice fields, and she even looked like she was enjoying herself... Her tail was either up or at least not completely down. She didn’t tuck her tail between her legs and never panicked.



＜Day four＞

・ Ume chan lay down beside me. When I stroked her, she looked happy and leaned against me even more. I touched her body slowly and gradually while she was lying there all relaxed. I rubbed her, thinking that one day maybe she’d let me cut her nails… I tried holding her while we were lying there and she didn’t seem to mind. She just kept sleeping, so I tried touching her all over, pretending I was sleeping too…
・ She sniffed at the window and tried to see what was going out outside, whimpering a little as if she wanted to go out.
・ Just like the previous day, I took her for a walk because she wanted to go. Again, she rushed out in front of the other dogs and pulled excitedly, but didn’t seem scared. In fact, she looked even more proud and regal than the previous day.
・ She didn’t bark even when the doorbell rang or when people came in and out, but when our dogs started barking, she joined in.

… So this is how it went. I was a bit surprised that we saw such great changes in her in just 4 days. It may be that she’s gotten more used to people and other dogs because she had already been to the homes of several staff members. Hmmm, I really hope we can find a good home for her. I think she can adjust easily as long as whoever is taking care of her lets her take her time and decide when she is ready. Once she thinks, “This person is safe” or “This place is not scary”, then she will become attached to you.



When I called her name, she came over to me to be stroked, wriggling her little body, even when she was busy playing with the other dogs.

She has never had any accidents when going to the toilet and always does it on a pet sheet. She’s never had any car sickness either.

Sakura, Momo, and Kiku have also, step by step, been learning social skills with foster staff members.

Anyhow, I’d like to find them new homes as soon as possible!

★They are coming to ARK with their foster staff members and spending their days at ARK so they can find someone who wants to adopt them. If you are interested in them, please come to meet them at ARK! We’ll be sure to make sure whichever of these lovely dogs you’re interested in is here if you call us before you come.

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2008.05.12 Mon

Zeros’ Woes

Zeros’ problem is that he’s constipated. After a few days, he can relieve himself, but for a cat, the size of his poop is just hard to believe! It’s sometimes as big as what you’d expect from a large dog. (Those who are eating while looking at this page, we apologize.) When Zeros finally does relieve himself, he poses like a triumphant athlete!

Zeros has all the vigor of a young cat, so we really would like to recommend him to prospective owners, but when he suffers from constipation, it’s pretty difficult to do so.



Hey, don’t make that constipation face at me, just go to the toilet!



The remedy for constipation is a medicine called “alosenn”, also known as “senna leaf”. That’s right — humans also treat constipation with this medicine. We mix the medicine with water, and then squirt the solution into his mouth with a syringe. Zeros doesn’t mind taking this oral medicine as is, in its powdered form, even though most cats wouldn’t. But actually it’s easier for us to administer the medicine if we use the syringe and solution, plus the water in the solution helps to relieve constipation anyway. So that’s the way we’ve been doing it.

Also, we are trying out using a prescription food called “w/d”, which can sometimes be effective. Zeros doesn’t have dislikes when it comes to food, so he gobbles this prescription food down happily.



Recently, thanks to the medicine and prescription food, his bowels and intestines seem to be improving.

When we touched his stomach, it felt a bit hard, as if something was stuck in there, so we took him to the vet, who told us that this was only the beginning. But apparently, it’s not very unusual for a cat to have constipation. That’s a relief!

Zeros’ constipation is still at quite a low level. Because hospital visits and enemas are not necessary, we can recommend Zeros to even first-time animal owners.



Actually, Zeros has another friend. If someone can adopt them together, we would be really grateful! When cats are placed in a new home, it’s a totally new environment, so if they have a friend around, it makes it much easier for them to adjust. And when you’re out of the house, you won’t have to worry about Zeros being lonely, so it’ll be easier for you, too. Right, who’s this new friend?



It’s Oto! If you’d like to adopt Zeros, Oto is also part of the package! You get double the happiness!

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2008.05.03 Sat

Kiku, Ume, Momo, Moving on Up!

The three sisters Kiku, Momo, and Ume have gathered together at ARK once again because it’s time to assess the results of their homestays. Sakura will have to wait until a later date because the person taking care of her couldn’t come today...

Tsuda-sensei was able to join us and lend her helpful words, deciphering the meaning of the dogs’ current behavior, giving us pointers, and helping us decide what to do next.

Each of the three dogs showed clear improvement. They acted so well compared to the worrisome behavior they were displaying two weeks ago. When we called their names, they came bounding up to us, and they all responded well to being touched. In only two weeks’ spent at each of the temporary homes, the dogs had improved more than we could have foreseen. I was totally surprised.

We decided to continue training the dogs away from ARK, but to change the staff member each would homestay with. This will hopefully get the dogs used to different homes and different people. If we brought them back to ARK at this point, they would very likely regress to their original wild state. At times like this, I think about how much better we could rehabilitate the dogs if we had more volunteer foster families...


But none of this will solve anything in the end! Above all else, we need to find these dogs their forever homes.



We were so busy observing the dogs and listening to Tsuda-sensei that I completely forgot to take any pictures. So here’s the only one I got, of Kiku fast asleep.

She’s dreaming about her new mom and dad. “I hope they’ll come and take me to my new home soon...”



Sakura just came back from her homestay.
Just as had happened before, she showed clear improvement, rolling on the floor happily, approaching us, and even licking us! I couldn’t believe it. The last time I’d seen her, she just barked and barked.

I want to rehome her soon!!

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2008.05.01 Thu

Ume’s Diary

This is the diary of Ume-chan, the sister of Kiku.

Ume is much better about going outside than she was a week ago. When the dog of the staff member taking care of Ume heads outside to the garden, Ume follows right after. And once she’s been outside, she goes back and forth and inside and out as she pleases. But she still gets scared when she sees people like the mail carrier passing by, so she can’t go on walks (even though she loved walks at ARK). If Ume is snatched up and held, then she can be taken out, but that wouldn’t exactly be rehabilitation, would it? We’re going to wait until she’ll go out for walks of her own accord. In training dogs that are scared and overly cautious, the most important thing is patience. Like a snail, we go slowly, slowly. If we get impatient and demand results, we might only cause a regression.




Over time, Ume-chan has gotten completely used to the staff member taking care of her, so it will only be a matter of time with the person that ends up adopting her, too.

Ume is also, day-by-day, getting used the staff trainee living at the house.

The first day, Ume would only peep enough out of her doghouse to show her eyes. She was afraid and she barked. The following day, she put her whole head out, and she didn’t bark. The following day, her entire body came out...and so on. In less than two weeks, she has become happy and carefree, and of course, she’s getting as many treats as she can solicit. It’s been a step-by-step process, but without a doubt, every day, she’s heading in the right direction.



She sure does get lured in by those treats.

Oh, I almost forgot! She’s been perfect with her use of pet sheets. So even if you have to be out of the house for a while, no worries!!