Baby Girl and Boots

  I first met Baby Girl about a year and a half ago when I was doing outreach with another organization. She caught my eye one cold winter day when we were driving around giving out hay. She was laying on the cold ground outside her dog house, attached to a heavy chain with no food or water. She just had that look like 'please help me'. She was big and intimidating, so at first I was hesitant to approach her. It turned out she was a huge love bug and just wanted the affection of people.

I fell in love with Baby Girl that day and vowed I would always go back and check on her no matter what. Time went by and what happens all too often, these people got another dog. Boots was just a puppy when they chained him out front across from Baby Girl. He never had food or water, along with Baby Girl every time we went by, he also didn't have shelter. We brought Boots shelter and would check in on them every once in a while. 

A couple months had passed and I had been so busy that I hadn't been by to check on these two. Me and another volunteer just happened to drive by one day last summer and found that Baby Girl was gone and Boots was left in the front yard, skin and bones! 

He was starving and didn't have a drop of water. No one was home, so we did what we had to do, we called animal control. We drove by a few days later and Boots was gone. After a couple weeks we decided to do another drive by. More often than not, we see people get yet another dog, even after animal control seizes their other neglected dogs. When we pulled up, we were in shock! There was Boots in the front yard again and when we got out, we noticed that Baby Girl was back and was tied up out back. They both looked horrible! We talked to the lady and apparently animal control had seized both of these dogs because of neglect and neither one was spayed or neutered. They both had kennel cough, Boots having the worst of it, from being in the shelter. We gave her more antibiotics and started back over on trying to get this family to step up for these dogs. We started bringing them food again and things started to turn up. A few weeks went by when we weren't able to get out and check on these two. One day we stopped by and found both Boots and Baby Girl very thin. We were so upset and after talking with the family, they said that since we hadn't brought food by in a while, they just didn't feed them!!! This was so frustrating to hear! So from then on, we have been bringing them a bag a food every week so these poor dogs can eat!

Once we started Jade's Mission up, this was the first house we went to on outreach! I was not about to let these two slip through the cracks after all the work and love we have put into these dogs! The flies have been horrible this year and Boots and Baby Girl already had fly strike by the time we got to them in early May. Baby Girl had fly bites on her little nubby ears and Boot's ears were a bloody mess. On top of bringing this family a bag of dog food every week, we also started bringing a fly bag for each dog every week, that's how bad the flies were here. We also brought several bottles of fly repelling gel for their ears. But week after week, their ears were still bad. We started thinking and we realized we were spending over $30 a week on just this house! We had spoke several times over with the family about stepping up, but it never lasted. Marilyn was finally fed up with this whole situation and told the family that if someone didn't step up and take care of these dogs, we could no longer help them. We were very surprised when we returned the following week and Boot's ears were almost healed and they both had water! This doesn't sound like much, but to us it was a huge step! 

It's still hit and miss at this house. We can never safely not go by and know things are ok with these dogs. The past three times we have stopped they have either not had water or their water is so old it was green and moldy. Just today volunteers went by and Baby Girl had no water in this 100 degree weather and was practically in heat stroke! Marilyn told the family to take her in the house and thankfully they did! 

This will be a house we will always go by and check because without us, these dogs would suffer and starve. We are so thankful for all the support we have gained since we started this mission! Thank you so much for all the donations of fly bags, ear ointment, dog food, and monetary donations! Everything goes straight to dogs like Baby Girl and Boots that need our help so badly! 

You can see Boots and Baby Girl on the news from our outreach story from a couple Sundays ago, here is the link: http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/local_news/jades-mission-helps-keep-kansas-city-dogs-alive-in-the-heat