Pepper

Pepper was an adult Standard Poodle rescued from a puppy mill. She began life with a breeder in Texas, who had in her the house as a pet. However, Pepper developed a strong, negative motherly instinct. She was sold to a disreputable breeder in Northern California where she was kept in a cage outside.
When she arrived at our house, she was matted and stinky. After several baths and grooming at the vets, she began to look better. When she first walked into the house, she stood stock still in the front hallway. BAPR had rescued three adult females from the same breeder and they were being fostered in three individual homes. When the three fosters were discussing the dogs, we realized that not one of them had barked or made a sound. At first, we wondered if their vocal chords had been removed. But, after a few days, they began expressing themselves. Pepper has a powerful, low bark.


After being spayed, she relaxed her need to control small dogs.

Molly

Molly was our first owner relinquishment. I drove to the East Bay and picked her up from the owners in a BART parking lot. Again, Bernie wasn't home. Molly was very depressed for the first couple of days. One of the only things the owners had given her was a stuffed toy. When she finally picked it up in her mouth one morning and handed it to me as a wake up present, I thought she would be okay. By the time Bernie came home, she had adjusted to life in our house.
She was on Petfinder.com on the Internet for exactly one hour and I received two calls for her.
The first couple met her, but wanted a younger dog. Molly was six years old and reserved with strangers. (This couple ended up adopting not one, but two Standard poodle rescue puppies soon afterward.) The second adopters were a couple with grown children and young grandchildren. We had been warned that Molly may not get along with toddlers. This was not true in her new home. When I called to check on her, one of the grandchildren, Riley, sang out "Riley loves Molly, and Molly loves Riley." It was a match.

Jack formerly known as JonJon

The same volunteer who had found Esti discovered that JonJon also needed to be rescued. She pulled him from the shelter and took him to the vets. A volunteer transported him part of the way and I picked him up. He was a cute small poodle and as I snatched him through the car window I said he would be a "quick turnaround."
Famous last words. He turned out to be our longest foster. JonJon was a family relinquishment. On the form they claimed he had "bitten" a child. He may well have snapped at them. We decided it would be better if he went to a home with no small children. For some reason, at that time, all our potential adopters had small kids. I was speaking to one man on the phone and getting hopeful when he said "and my wife is pregnant." I ended the call stating that JonJon wouldn't be good with babies.
Esti had a habit of sitting on the back of the couch and barking loudly if someone walked past the house. JonJon would join her. After Esti was adopted, JonJon continued to hang out on the back of the couch. One day we tried to get his attention as we pulled up in front of the house in our large pick up truck and waved our arms hello to him. He didn't respond at all.
We had noticed funny behaviors from him. For one thing, he never tried to catch the ball until after it had bounced once. We had taken him into the vet a couple of times already, just with general concerns.
We took him into the vets again to have his eyes checked. Sure enough, he had Progressive Retinal Atrophy. He will eventually go blind.
Now, who is going to adopt a blind dog?
A few months later, the friend of a friend said she was interested. I was very impressed that she had done her own research. She also already had a dog. A second dog will often assist the blind dog.
Once again, a perfect match.

Queen Esther

Bernie was in New York and I was home alone, without any pets. A member of BAPR had found a Yorkie Poo who needed to be rescued from the Sacramento County Shelter. I emailed and called and said that if I could go Friday afternoon, I could rescue and foster this dog.
As you will notice from the photos, our dogs are not crate trained. They are couch and bed trained.
Looking through the chain link door into the large cement cage at the shelter, the only thing I saw was a tail wagging. The movement caught my eye. When I looked down into that little
face, I knew she was coming home with me. She sat on my lap as we drove home.
It was just before the Jewish holiday of Purim. So I named her Esti, after Queen Esther.
Esti was picked up as a stray on the street. She was incontinent among other things. The vet put her on antibiotics. On Friday afternoon, I discovered blood in the disposable doggie diaper. I called the vet and rushed her in. The vet informed me that Esti had huge bladder stones and required surgery. We made an appointment for Monday morning. The vet tech came out and said goodbye to Esti. I realized she was saying goodbye for good. The staff didn’t expect to see her Monday morning. I drove home with Esti in my lap. Esti survived the weekend and we appeared at thevet’s on Monday morning for her surgery. The vet couldn’t believe how much damage had been done to her bladder and he didn’t expect her to survive the surgery and recover. But, Esti survived and recovered quickly. She was no longer incontinent.
Everyone kept telling me that she would never be adopted. On the day I decided to adopt her myself, we received an email.
Someone had seen her on Petfinder and was asking if she was still available. The adopter was a single woman and has since told me that Esti saved her life. Esti is teaching her adopter the art of survival.

Bibi

Our next foster was Bibi from Lindsay, CA.
Other members of Bay Area Poodle Rescue had gone to the Lindsay Shelter and rescued a couple of dogs. But, they had left Bibi behind.
I talked Bernie into driving down to rescue Bibi without realizing how far away it was.

Chana from Modesto

Having survived our dog sitting assignment with Dashiell, we were offered our first foster dog, Silver Girl from the Modesto Shelter. A volunteer from BAPR was alerted to this dog. It turned out that the dog had a microchip. The microchip was registered with a puppy mill in Minnesota. She had been shipped out to a Pet Store in the Central Valley where she had been sold. The BAPR volunteer visited the Pet Store, but they had not kept accurate records. The volunteer also went to other shelters in the area to see if anyone had announced a missing dog which fit Silver Girl's description.
No one claimed this dog, so we offered to foster her. When I first saw her photo, I said "What an ugly dog", but then I realized that even ugly dogs deserve to be rescued. The volunteer drove her to Tracy, where our transport volunteer picked up the dog, and we drove to the East Bay to meet him at a park. The dog was passed through the car window and we had our first foster dog.

Dog sitting Dashiell

Our first assignment for Bay Area Poodle Rescue was to dog sit a black Standard Poodle named Dashiell.