Shar Pei Rescue of Tennessee

I had not been doing rescue long when Wendy Cook, a seasoned rescuer, called to ask if I could foster Izzy and Suzie. They had been removed from the worst puppy mill conditions that she had ever seen and had spent an entire year in a shelter awaiting the outcome of the trial. We fostered Izzy and Suzie for about three months before placing them together in what we thought was the perfect "forever home".

In March 2003 (two years after being adopted), Suzie was returned to us. According to the couple who adopted them, their neighborhood was too noisy for Suzie. All the noise and activity agitated her.

Three weeks later, we received a call from Wendy's vet telling us that a vet in Indiana had Izzy and was trying to track down her rescuer. Imagine our shock, surprise and anger!!! As it turns out, Izzy's adopters had taken her into this vet's clinic and asked that she be put to sleep, citing "behavioral problems". They did not make any effort to contact us (as per the terms of their adoption contract). The vet realized that something was amiss and had the couple sign Izzy over to her clinic, and then went about trying to track down Shar Pei Rescue of TN. A side note....when the couple found out that Izzy was being returned to us, they attempted to get her back, explaining to us that they had decided to "work through" her "behavior problems" and if it didn't work, they promised to get back in touch with me immediately. You can use your imagination with regards to my reply!!!

We immediately put together a transport to get Izzy safely back to Tennessee . For those of you not familiar with a transport, it works like this - one person takes the dog from Point A to Point B, another volunteer from Point B to Point C and so forth.

During the first stop in Columbus IN , a stressed and frightened Izzy managed to slip her collar and disappear. We immediately went into action by putting up signs, faxing flyers to vet clinics, contacting the Sherriff's Dept, Animal Control, etc. A lot of people went to great lengths to find Izzy. There were occasional "sightings" of Izzy and several close calls but Izzy managed to evade capture. Eventually, reports started coming in that Izzy was injured, but at least we knew that she was still alive!!

Sunday afternoon, June 27, 2004 (three weeks from the date she disappeared), Izzy made her way into someone's fenced yard, and the homeowner sneaked out and shut the gate. Izzy was FINALLY captured!! The homeowner had a niece who worked for a vet and, fortunately, the niece had seen a copy of the faxed flyer. She immediately came and got Izzy and took her to her vet clinic for safe-keeping. Izzy was covered in ticks, but this wonderful person got most of them off of her. But worse that the ticks – she had apparently been hit by a car and had a badly inured hip and knee. She also had lost about 20 lbs.

I got the call at 3:15pm Sunday afternoon, and immediately headed out to Indiana , arriving there around 10:30pm . Izzy and I made it back to Tennessee at 4:30am Monday morning.

Poor little Suzie died of renal failure on July 10, 2004 . She had been with her second adoptive family for only a short time, but we know they loved her very much. They are devastated by her death.

Izzy was a participant in the Parade of Rescues at the Shar Pei National Speciality Show in Decatur IL on October 15. She was the perfect guest staying in the hotel and everyone who met her commented on how beautiful she was. We are very proud of Izzy.

After several months of soul searching, I decided it would be in Izzy's best interest to place her in a home that did not have a man as a member of the household. Izzy was terrified of my husband and barked non-stop when she heard or saw him. Even though it was heartbreaking to see her leave, I know I made the right decision.

Izzy is in a home in Birmingham with a nice young lady named Patricia. Thank you, Patricia, for loving Izzy as much as I do.

Update 1/31/05:
Hi Cindy,
Izzy is doing great. She is such a good dog and is so well behaved. I don't see how anyone could have wanted to put her to sleep. Her and Cody are best friends and get along great. They like to play when we first get up in the morning and right before we go to bed. Cody and Izzy will walk up to each other and give each other kisses. I took Izzy and Cody up to Gainesville, Georgia last weekend to see my mom. She did good and liked my mom and my sisters and played with my sister's dog Bo. I also bought her a sweater for when it's real cold and she loves to wear it. I'll hold it up and she comes and puts her head in it automatically. I think she is good for Cody because Cody use to just walk around crying a lot before and now that we have Izzy she doesn't do that. I think she just missed our other Shar-pei Tasia and needed company from another dog. I did look at the website and it looked good. Thank you for doing that and including the pictures I emailed you. I have some more pictures of Izzy and Cody together that I will send to you as soon as I get them developed. I'm so glad I adopted her and things couldn't have worked out better. I'll keep you updated on how she's doing. Thanks for everything. Patricia

UPDATE 7/6/05: Izzy is doing great. I found out that Izzy loves water so I take her and Cody to a park near us every weekend so she can go swimming in a stream there. She actually doesn't swim but she loves to wade around in the water. We also go to Georgia once a month and she loves going swimming in the lake that my sister lives on. Cody gets mad and sits on the bank and cries when Izzy is in the water because Cody hates water, and I guess she doesn't want Izzy to go where she can't go. She is such a sweet dog and I love her so much. Izzy did have an allergic reaction last week. She woke me up about 1:00am on the Wednesday morning panting and running around. I got up and she had hives on her chest. I took her to an emergency vet clinic and they gave her a shot of benedryl and steroids. They said she was having an allergic reaction to something. When we got home she was able to go to sleep and she slept until morning. Her hives were almost gone that morning and she's been fine since then. I'm not sure what she was allergic to because we didn't do anything the night before that we usually don't do and she didn't have any new food. I do have some new pictures of Izzy that I will send you as soon as I get them developed.

UPDATE 9/12/05 IZZY ON TV: From Izzy's mom: Izzy is doing well. I changed her food to the Science diet and she wouldn't eat it so I bought the Purina weight management and she did eat it but is not crazy about it. I think she has slimmed down some but there hasn't been a rapid weight decrease. I took Cody and Izzy to Pet-A-Palooza on Saturday which is a fund-raiser for animal shelters in the Birmingham area. They enjoyed it and there was a news camera crew there video taping the different dogs and events and they video taped Izzy. I watched the news that night and they showed a short segment about it and showed three dogs that were there and Izzy was one of them. She looked so cute. She was the only Shar-pei that I saw there and she got a lot of compliments about how pretty she was.

Izzy is doing great. Her and Cody are so much more active with the colder weather. She is just so adorable and loves to cuddle all the time. She's always doing something cute. This past weekend we went to South Carolina to see my boyfriend's parents and she kept stealing other dogs stuffed toys from their crates. She became very attached to a duck toy so I am going to get her one for her Christmas stocking. She loves any kind of stuffed toy that is really soft and just carries them around in her mouth.

3/20/07: Izzy is doing great. She is so much more energetic since losing some weight. She runs now and jumps up to grab her toys from you. Her feet use to never leave the ground. She is just so cute and entertaining. She doesn’t like going outside when we first get up in the morning. So when I ask her if she wants to go out with Cody, she always goes and grabs a toy and sits on her bed in the kitchen. I call that her safe place from having to go outside first thing. I’m getting married in July and Izzy just adores Arthur. She still barks at men but she is so much better than she used to be. She also likes Arthur’s yard more than mine because it’s bigger and has a big deck so she can sun herself on. She’s just a happy little dog that is so sweet despite everything she’s been through. Patricia

6/9/07: Isn't this a beautiful family!! left to right - Cody, Arthur, Izzy, Patricia, Amber

UPDATE 10/9/07: Izzy is doing great and is adorable as always. Izzy really doesn't bark at anyone, except my brother, anymore like she use to. She is a lot more trusting than when I first got her. I forgot to tell you that we changed Amber's name to Maggie because my sister had a dog that past away two years ago named Amber. So Maggie is doing good also. She's a handful and never still for a moment. She's real sweet but she doesn't do a thing I tell her to do. She only obeys Arthur. She adores him and just likes to pinch me with her front teeth. I'm slowly breaking her of that habit. She gets along great with Cody and they are always playing. Izzy just watches them like they are crazy. Izzy pretty much ignores her but I think she has accepted her. Trish