RESCUE DIVA DONATED $300 FOR HOMER 🙂

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by Katerina Lorenzatos Makris ~

UPDATE: Thanks to the hard work of great group C.A.R.L., Homer was ADOPTED! 🙂

Homer’s mom had it rough.

If you’re a homeless or neglected mother dog, life is one trial after another.

Pregnancy.

Trying to find enough food and water to sustain yourself and your belly full of pups.

Struggling to stay healthy.

Trying to keep dry and warm or cool during all extremes of weather.

Dodging the numerous hazards the world presents.

Imagine you somehow make it through all that, then feel your labor pains coming on. You manage to find a sheltered spot to give birth, maybe in a junkyard. You do for your puppies what all good mamas do. You clean them, nuzzle them, arrange yourself into good positions for them to suckle.

But to continue caring for them and for yourself, you have to find something to eat and water to drink. Leaving the pups safely stashed, you’re forced to venture out and face the multitude of dangers.

The odds, sadly, are against you. Danger lurks everywhere. Make one mistake, one tiny miscalculation, and calamity strikes.

For example, you misjudge the trajectory of a car.

Or maybe the driver is cruel, homicidal, and has it out for you.

Under the car’s merciless tires, maybe you don’t even know what hit you.

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Mother dog’s questions

If you’re lucky, it’s over fast. But just before the end, you might have time for agonized questions about the tiny, helpless ones you’re leaving behind, and what will happen to them, now that they no longer have you.

Maybe your last wish is for your babies—that someone out there might find and provide for them.

The mom of Homer and his siblings might have suffered with such questions, and might have made that last wish after she was fatally struck by a car last February.

What she couldn’t have known was how wonderful the answers to her questions would turn out to be, and how her wish for her children would be fulfilled.

Puppies rescued

Now handsome Homer serves as the cover model for Rescue Diva’s fiction short story “Love School.” But he and the rest of the mother dog’s ten sons and daughters just narrowly escaped following their mom into death.

They were only a few days old when the heartbreaking tale of their mom’s death was posted on Facebook. In nothing short of a miracle, local rescuers visited the Santa Clarita, California junkyard where the pups were born, gathered them up, then placed them with bottle-feeding volunteers.

Soon Canine Adoption and Rescue League (C.A.R.L.) was contacted to help. The group, headquartered outside Santa Paula, California, accepted eight of the pups into their program, while the remaining two went to another rescue organization.

C.A.R.L. volunteer Mary O’Sullivan worked with the foster care givers, making sure they had enough formula for the infants, then plenty of kibble as the pups thrived and grew.

Once the babies reached eight weeks of age, Mary placed them in foster homes around Ventura County.

Homer was always fostered by families who had other dogs, in addition to his litter mates. C.A.R.L. executive director Sharon Clark fostered him for a period of time. At one point he wiggled though the fence that separated him from one of her dogs, Ramon, who is not keen on other males. But fortunately Homer’s playful antics managed to charm Ramon, whose reaction was to happily wag his tail.

Homer’s next stop was with an older couple who adopted him in July. Sadly though, his puppy teeth and toenails were too rough on the senior folks’ paper-thin skin, so they soon returned him to C.A.R.L., recognizing that they were unrealistic in having wanted a puppy.

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Mother dog’s final wish

Homer is an extremely lucky fellow, having been saved along with his siblings from the torturous deaths that starvation and exposure would have brought to them all, if not for the swift actions of the rescuers who took them in. Currently he remains in the expert and loving care of C.A.R.L. staff and volunteers at their private shelter.

Now though, at eight months old, Homer is more than ready to move in with his very own forever family.

He is a sweet fellow, “friendly to all,” Sharon reports.

“I’m active, outgoing and playful and know basic commands,” his C.A.R.L. profile states. “I’m good on leash and enjoy fetch and rides in the car. I know basic commands and also know the word ‘potty.’ I’m good with other dogs, but it’s unknown how I’d do with cats. I’m a puppy and can get mouthy when excited so I’ll need work on not doing that. I also don’t care to be left alone.”

Let’s assist Homer’s rescuers in the wonderful mission they began when they rescued him and his siblings from the junkyard. Let’s pitch in to find him a home of his own. Let’s help make his mother’s final wish come true.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Share the link to this article on your social media and with your email contacts
• Contact C.A.R.L. if you’d like to foster or adopt Homer
• Sponsor Homer (expenses for boarding, food, training, etc. are $18 per day, per dog)
• Donate to C.A.R.L. to help Homer and the many other dogs in this great group’s care
• Share the link to Rescue Diva’s fiction short story “Love School,” featuring Homer on the cover. That helps us replenish our donation fund.

ALL PROFITS FROM SALES OF FICTION STORY “LOVE SCHOOL” GO TO C.A.R.L.!

Rescue Diva proudly helps needy animals in the U.S. and around the world, such as:

~ Diva assists Kefalonia Animal Trust (KATs) in Greece to provide free spay/neuter for hundreds of animals per year, which is one of the best ways to prevent the abandonment and misery of puppies like Noah and Kyla.

~ Diva does in-the-trenches rescues of angels like Robin, Chance, and Tiger, with help from San Diego Animal Support Foundation; of Marisol and Lisa, with help from Last Chance at Life; of Mandi (Diamandi), with help from Graeske Hunde. and of Roki, with help from Stichting AAI.

~ Diva donates to Center for Animal Protection and Education (CAPE), Praying for Paws, Southern California Siamese Rescue, Aniplant (Cuba) and many other groups.

~ Diva assists Kefalonia Animal Trust (KATs) in Greece to provide free spay/neuter for hundreds of animals per year, which is one of the best ways to prevent the abandonment and misery of puppies like Noah and Kyla.

~ Diva does in-the-trenches rescues of angels like Robin, Chance, and Tiger, with help from San Diego Animal Support Foundation; of Marisol and Lisa, with help from Last Chance at Life; of Mandi (Diamandi), with help from Graeske Hunde. and of Roki, with help from Stichting AAI.

~ Diva does in-the-trenches rescues of angels like Robin, Chance, and Tiger, with help from San Diego Animal Support Foundation; of Marisol and Lisa, with help from Last Chance at Life; of Mandi (Diamandi), with help from Graeske Hunde. and of Roki, with help from Stichting AAI.

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Katerina Lorenzatos Makris is a career journalist, author, and editor. Her fiction includes 17 novels for Simon and Schuster, E.P. Dutton, Avon, and other major publishers (under the name Kathryn Makris), as well as a teleplay for CBS-TV, and a short story for The Bark magazine.

Katerina has written hundreds of articles for regional wire services and for outlets such as National Geographic Traveler, The San Francisco Chronicle, Travelers’ Tales, NBC’s Petside.com, and Animal Issues Reporter.

Together with coauthor Shelley Frost, Katerina wrote a step-by-step guide for hands-on, in-the-trenches dog rescue, Your Adopted Dog: Everything You Need to Know About Rescuing and Caring for a Best Friend in Need (The Lyons Press), coming soon in digital format!

Katerina has written hundreds of articles for regional wire services and for outlets such as National Geographic Traveler, The San Francisco Chronicle, Travelers’ Tales, NBC’s Petside.com, and Animal Issues Reporter.

Together with coauthor Shelley Frost, Katerina wrote a step-by-step guide for hands-on, in-the-trenches dog rescue, Your Adopted Dog: Everything You Need to Know About Rescuing and Caring for a Best Friend in Need (The Lyons Press), coming soon in digital format!

Together with coauthor Shelley Frost, Katerina wrote a step-by-step guide for hands-on, in-the-trenches dog rescue, Your Adopted Dog: Everything You Need to Know About Rescuing and Caring for a Best Friend in Need (The Lyons Press), coming soon in digital format!