Finding Home
We don't know a whole lot about Mini's earliest days. We know she was born on September 22nd, 2006, and soon adopted by a family in the vicinity of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The family had several small children, and as a result, she has always been gentle and accommodating around children, and truly appears at her happiest when there is a rowdy child to yank her ears.
Unfortunately, her family hit an unexpected financial rough spot, which required them to give Mini up. She was sent to the Humane Society shelter in early July 2007, with hopes of a quick adoption. As is too often the case with large puppies, the time allotted for her adoption was extremely short, and she was sent to be euthanized. She was placed on the table, and sedated in preparation for the lethal injection. But, through the grace of God, the technician received a phone call. When he went to take the call, he left the door to the room open.
At the same time, a veteran dog foster mother, who had just retired from fostering, was in doing her volunteer work walking dogs. She saw Mini on the table, and could tell even in that state that she was a beautiful puppy with an even more beautiful soul. She stopped the proceedings, and fostered just one more dog
Meanwhile, Chad was looking to adopt a pet dog. Since he has always been attracted to the personalities of large dogs over small ones, he searched Petfinder.com, mostly focusing on St. Bernards, hoping for the more rare short haired variety. He stumbled across a photo of Mini, and it was love at first sight.
Several emails to the rescue agency, a very detailed application form and interview, and 4 days later, he made the 3 1/2 hour trip to visit her for the first time. The visit confirmed the feelings from the photo, and after spending several hours together, the foster parents were so confident the match had been made they allowed Mini to return home with him on that first visit!
Mini the Hero
Everywhere that Mini went, people immediately fell in love with her. Though she was much older than the other puppies in her obedience class, she learned remarkably quickly. Well, everything except not pulling when walking on her leash! Even this, though, proved fortuitous in the coming months.
Then came a fateful day in January 2008. Chad took Mini with him on a trip to visit a friend who lived south of Medina, NY. On the second day of the trip, morning broke with a heavy, wet snow. Chad has always liked snow (at least when travel is not needed!), and Mini absolutely loves snow and cold weather. So, since Mini had to potty anyway, and Chad had appropriate clothing, they set out on a fairly lengthy walk. Mini was excited the whole time, but quite obedient. Until, that is, she suddenly took off, not down the road, but off into the woods! The road was slippery, and Chad was unprepared for the sudden dart, so he found himself being dragged on his chest through the woods.
His pleas, "Mini! Stop!" fell on floppy but deaf ears. Until, about 250 yards into the woods, mini stopped beside a 19 month old girl lying at the base of a tree in her pajamas, shivering. It turns out the toddler had wandered out through an unused dog-door while the rest of the family was going about its morning routine, believing her to be asleep. The family prefers to remain anonymous and is from a small town, so the event wasn't publicized. But Mini didn't mind - she found the child because of her loving, heroic heart, not because of a desire for fame.
Mini's gentle heart isn't limited to just people, either. Like all dogs, she loves a good chase, and the rabbits that shared her yard were always fair game. However, once she finally caught one that summer, she wanted to reassure the bunny that it was all in good fun. So, she gave it a bath, then sent it on its way!
Blending Families
Life for Mini and Chad was happy, but not complete. In the summer of 2009, Chad was convinced to finally ask Xenia out (after putting it off for years), and miracle of all miracles, she said "yes." Things went extremely well, and it came time to blend the families.
With Xenia came another pup, Maynard. Maynard is supposed to be an American Staffordshire Terrier, but is much larger than he should be - pretty much the same size as Mini. But he definitely has that breed's playful, high-energy personality, sweet loving nature, and perpetual puppyhood.
As expected, Mini and Maynard quickly became best buds, then co-dependent siblings. Always working together to get their treat - um, way - they're inseparable. And, now that we have moved to Hole in the Woods Farm, they are the cornerstones of our family, which also consists of 4 cats (yup, at 17 years old, Scary is still with us!), a Great Pyrenees livestock guardian named Falkor, 6 alpacas, and 3 hives of bees.
Evil Attacks
Life for the family was going great, especially once we moved to Hole in the Woods in late May/early June 2010. With a lot of work, and a lot of financial instability, the farm was taking shape. A proposal was made and a wedding date was set. Life was hectic but dreams were being realized, and things were really going well. Until around 4:00 pm on Saturday, October 2, 2010, that is.
Xenia, Chad, the puppies, their friend Felicia, and one of her puppies were playing down at the pond. Playtime was winding down, and time to head back to the house had arrived, so Chad was preparing to hook Mini back to her leash when a deer ran past. Mini, being her playful self, chased after the deer. Chad tried to follow, but the deer path divided into six different trails in the woods, and it became impossible to know where to go. Everyone returned home, and anxiously awaited Mini's return. She had always been quick to return when she went on an adventure, but this was the first time she had been off the new property. No one expected what happened next.
At 4:19, Chad received a voicemail from a neighbor to the north: "We have your dog. She's in the backyard bleeding from her eyes and we think she's dying." Within minutes, the whole human entourage was there. Indeed, Mini was in bad shape.
We needed help quickly, and Felicia had Dr. Hatter's, our large-animal vet, cell phone number. Dr. Hatter rushed to her clinic, as did we. Upon checking Mini out, it looked like she had run head-first into a thorn bush, with her eyes open. We found several thorns throughout her body, and there were holes in both of her eyes. Dr. Hatter even believed there was one still in one eye (we saw it, and that's what it looked like). However, as she contacted the Purdue small animal clinic, and conferred with an ophthalmologist there, Chad found a pellet of bird shot from a .22 in the fur on her side. The hypothesis became that she got shot at, and ran through the thorn bush because she was scared. All this time, Mini was in excruciating pain and suddenly blind, but remained sweet and obedient with every person she encountered, and Dr. Hatter was so impressed she had to pass it along to the folks at Purdue.
Chad, Xenia and Mini rushed to Lafayette to get her there as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Dr. Holl, one of Mini's regular veterinarians at Plymouth Veterinary Clinic, had been contacted because he was on call. He was really upset, and would be in contact with Chad several times throughout the night.
Upon arrival at Purdue, the family was joined by Chad's brother Matt, a dog lover and an officer with the Lafayette city police, with some crime scene investigation training. Mini was rushed into an exam room, and several interns and Dr. Molly, an ophthalmologist, began to care for her. All were just as impressed as Dr. Hatter with Mini's demeanor and obedience - remember, she still had not had any medication, for fear it might prevent surgery needed to save her eyesight.
As they checked Mini out, they discovered she actually had several holes in each eye. What looked like a thorn was actually part of her iris, which had been pushed in as a pellet punctured her eye, then came out a different hole made by another pellet. A radiograph was made of her head (which normally requires sedation, but she was so good they didn't need to), and showed many pellets of bird shot in her face, including 11 pellets in her eyes alone. Obviously, to get this many pellets the shot had to have been close. Matt confirmed that the shot must have come from within 20 feet.
The only reason to shoot an animal of Mini's size with bird shot, particularly at that range is to cause pain and suffering. And it's definitely close enough to tell she had a collar and tags on, was healthy with a beautiful coat and well groomed, and surely coming up with friendly body language including a tongue hanging out and tail wagging, asking "can you help me? I'm a little lost."
It was also abundantly clear that she would never regain her sight. The only options were to keep her eyes, or to remove them. Keeping them would require eye drops 4 times a day, and pain medication probably for years, until they would eventually shrink and need to be removed anyway. We couldn't see putting her through that much pain for something purely cosmetic, even though she had beautiful eyes (one of Chad's favorite things was when shortly before turning the lights out for the evening, Mini would rest her head on his shoulders and stare into his eyes. He could actually see a portion of her retina magnified by her own lenses, so clear and beautiful were her eyes).
Once that decision was made, the choice was to either leave her at Purdue to have her eyes removed there, or to return home and have the folks at Plymouth Vet Clinic do the surgery. Upon consultation yet again with Dr. Holl, the decision was made to return home for the evening, and bring her in to the Plymouth Clinic on Sunday morning. This would allow her to be closer to home for visitation purposes, as well as let her interact with Dr. Holl and Dr. Lindsey, who she knows and likes (and who know her).
Only now could she finally get some pain medication and antibiotics. Unfortunately, it was well past midnight, and a pharmacist had to be called in. It took almost another hour to get her meds and administer them, and we finally left Purdue at about 1:45 in the morning.
We dropped her off at the Plymouth Clinic Sunday morning, amongst much crying from both us and Dr. Holl. Dr. Lindsey did the surgery on Monday morning, and we were allowed a brief visit Monday evening. Mini was very drowsy from the medication, but in high spirits, and you could easily tell her soul was still in tact. Our Mini was still there, despite the drug-induced haze. Dr. Lindsey did a great job on the surgery, and reassured us the wound in her left leg (which had not previously been checked thoroughly) was superficial - the radiograph he took showed the pellet to be away from her radius and ulna, and no damage done to any bone.
Mini was able to come home in the evening on Tuesday, October 5, about 26 hours prior to this writing. Every one of the dozen or so vets that treated her was amazed by her gentleness and good nature despite excruciating pain for such a long time coupled with sudden blindness. She's strong, and we're confident she will recover well.
The number of people we have to thank is long, and we know we don't have all of the names. But we would especially like to thank Doctors Hatter, Molly, Holl, and Lindsey for their lead roles in her care, and all of the outstanding staff at Plymouth Veterinary Clinic who cared for and fell in love with Mini during her stay (she even had a lipstick stain on her head from the tech who kissed her!). A huge thanks to the wonderful gentleman (who knows who he is...) who paid Dr. Hatter's bill for us before we were even able to pick up Mini and head over there to see how much we owed. Thanks to the neighbor who called - we don't remember your name because we were so concerned about Mini at the time, but we'll be by to thank you in person, as you undoubtedly saved her life. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Felicia, who filled the role of vet tech at Dr. Hatter's office, took care of all the critters while we headed to Purdue (even to include medicating an alpaca eye!), and has been a huge source of solace about all things animal. And, thanks to the countless friends, family, and colleagues who have expressed concern and made it possible for us to be home caring for Mini. We owe you all a huge debt!
Hole in the Woods Family