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Dog Star Animal Sanctuary, 10223 Copperhead Road, Bloomfield, IA (2026)

06/05/2026

We’ve got someone new. A sweet little elderly gentleman named Cash (we changed it to Dash). He doesn’t bark, he’s friendly with everyone, religiously housebroken, and has decided I’m his new person.

His lifelong person died. The family didn’t want Dash. They mentioned he didn’t bark but he whined. I have learned after many years you don’t get the full story. The people are desperate, they are between finding a home, no easy task for an elderly dog, and euthanasia.The relatives can’t have the animal but certainly don’t want to kill it so they are saying what they think you want to hear and leaving out the tricky parts.

What wasn’t mentioned in the conversation was the little fella has severe separation anxiety. He panics when left alone and most people have to work, go grocery shopping or just get out of the house for a while. There are several training protocols to help. Leaving for short intervals and coming back; low key departures and returns. All taking huge amounts of time, patience and repetition. Training away dread, panic and heartbreak is no easy task.

The best dog trainer I know; I have read all her books, have her videos, followed her posts for years. She took on a dog with severe SA. She now takes the dog with her everywhere or is only gone for brief periods, or has someone come stay with the dog. Even she couldn’t solve the problem.

Luckily, here, separation anxiety isn't much of a headache. Since it is a terror of being alone and you are never alone around here. I go to town as little as possible and when I do he is surrounded by dogs who take my leaving calmly.

His range of motion is limited, he doesn’t bounce around like most terriers. He has the stiff body movement of an arthritic senior. Altho a rabbit popped up in front of him the other day and the chase was on, limits forgotten. He probably paid for that later.

So what is a big problem for others is a non-started for us and we can enjoy this sweet guy. He’s smart, curious, affectionate and is enjoying the walks in the woods and exploring. No more locked in a house by himself.

He's one of those good boys you hear about; we’re lucky to have him.

04/26/2026

Mollie is so sweet she could almost be fattening. She has a soft and gentle way about her and being a German Shepherd mix she is a workaholic; making rounds day and night guarding the perimeter and checking in with her humans and the other dogs often. Mollie loves and protects us all.

To lose her would be a mean and dreadful sorrow so when she went a week without eating,when the flesh melted off her I was frantic.

The vet did blood work and all was within normal limits!? So he thought the next logical thing would be she had a bad tooth,which makes sense. He’s a big muscular guy but when he tried to pry open her mouth and examine her teeth Mollie was having none of it.

She will cooperate with you on almost everything but you cross a line when trying to get her to take pills. She will calmly and with dignity clamp her mouth shut. No opening her mouth to push pills down her throat, no hiding them in hot dogs or peanut butter, no examining her. She doesn't growl or snap; she just will calmly not allow it and Mollie is a big girl.

We came home with injectable antibiotics and pain shots. I gave her something for pain,waited an hour and she ate! Hallelujah. We made an appointment in several weeks for a dental and she kept eating and getting pain shots. Mollie didn’t eat enough to gain much weight back but enough to hang on til that bad tooth could be pulled

The dental was a surprise—there was nothing wrong with her teeth! But we did happen to do a test for tick borne diseases before anesthesia. Mollie was positive for Lyme and Erlichiosis. Damn. I Nexgard these dogs all spring,summer and fall. I find live ticks on me but not on them. The ones on them are dead. Nexgard is supposed to kill the ticks in the first 24 hours before they can transmit the disease. Like everything in this world–not infallible.

Quick tip: there’s an Australian website called Petbucket where you can get Nexgard without a prescription. You have to plan ahead. It takes forever for them to get here.

The next mountain to climb: the treatment for tick diseases is Doxycycline which only comes in pills or IV. I tried every trick I know, and I know a few, but Mollie was on to me. There is however, I found, a magical canned food that is for kidney disease but is loved by all dogs. Prescription, of course,and costs many times what regular food costs but irresistible! What I wouldn’t give to know what’s in that can. All the kids here light up when I open one.

I slivered the doxy, out of sight, of course,buried it in the feast and she took it! I could have danced around the room. After just a few days of that she was feeling better, starting to get her appetite back and could mix regular food in with the high dollar stuff.

All this was a couple of weeks ago. We still have a long way to go, she’ll be on meds for a month, but she is slowly gaining weight, she’s bouncy and runs on the morning walk,and she’s back on the job of keeping us safe. Plus her being on the mend is something wonderful to add to my list of the many things I have to be grateful for.

03/16/2026

Dobby has passed through the seasons of her life. Winter is on her face now, the white trails down her back. We have no idea her age; she was an old dog when she came; that was years ago. She looks old, but acts young.

Dobby came from a hoarder's house.She lived her whole life inside with 27 other small dogs. They were never let out; the ammonia smell was so bad the people moved to a motel. They moved and left behind animals that smell 10,000 times better than humans.

Dobby was profoundly damaged there. She craves the attention they never gave her and she can’t seem to fill the emotional hole those people made. She’s never willingly more than 5 feet away from me. She goes on morning walks but shivers and several times a walk she raises up to put her front paws on my leg to beg me to go back to the house. She won’t go back without me. Dobby's happy place is in bed, under the covers, curled up next to me.

She’s an odd looking little thing. When she unfolds her magnificent ears their size can be startling, they are all out of proportion to the size of her head. Her neck is longer than it needs to be and she has a barrel chest carrying long spindly legs, her face is beautiful though with huge sad eyes. Besides, that’s just outside stuff, on the inside she’s that wonderful thing–a dog.

Dobby has a dog’s love for me, which is one of the most genuine emotions in the world. Dogs are incapable of deceit, they are as honest as daylight. Her happy dance when I come back from town tells all. I think they have a depth to their love we know nothing about.

I understand when people who have lost a dog say –no more, not going through that again. To lose a loved dog is one of the worst days of your life, but to live without that love, that honesty and the goofiness is to live in a stunted world. I can’t do it. And you also deprive a good dog of a home. One of the sad things, I think, about puppy mills is all that love gone to waste– a lifetime of love trapped in a dirty cage.

Dobby is in the last season of her life. Old dogs have a wisdom and depth of feeling that you don’t get from puppies and bouncy young dogs, they are a quiet calm joy. We are so hoping her winter is a very, very long one.

02/09/2026

I get so mad at these dogs. Most days are good but some days are like refereeing 14 bratty 3rd graders. They squabble, steal each other's food, bully one another. But the thing that really jerks my leash and makes me wonder about my life choices is barking.

I immediately want all barking to stop, but I particularly hate what I call maintenance barking. Low key woofs that go on for hours. Cotton, who strikes me as a little paranoid anyway, has been every evening after sunset setting stiffly by the front porch staring into the woods giving a moderate woof every 15 seconds or so. I try over and over to get her to stop but it doesn’t work until she realises I’m truly mad at her. I go to the front door and growl a string of names and threats I’m glad she can’t actually understand and the neighbors can’t hear. She gives in and reluctantly comes inside.

3 days ago I messed up my left knee and couldn’t bear weight on that leg without a breath-taking amount of pain. I’m in the bedroom with my leg up, iced and full of pain meds. Cotton would not stop. It was almost midnight. I yelled from the bedroom threatening to knock the fluff off of her, but none of them are afraid of my threats.

Sissy, the tornado, was, I thot, sound asleep beside me. Cotton just slightly changed the tone of her voice and Sissy acted like she’d been punched with a cattle prod. She je**ed up, lunged off the bed, went baying and screaming past Cotton and down into the woods.

Max, asleep on the other side, took longer to react. He doesn’t play the barking game. Max is lazy; his movement usually involves food or circling for a nap. It scared me when he took off too. I felt so helpless. There was something threatening down there and I couldn’t back up my team (We have had cougar and bear sightings in the area!) I wanted to take the very loud shotgun down, point it at the stars, and let it run off whatever it was. I couldn’t do it. They were on their own.

After a noisy 15 minutes they all came in, Cotton too, plopped down on the bed and zonked out. Whatever it was was gone. They had barked it off.

I realized I need to change my attitude about their barking. Yes, they lose their minds over things that don’t matter like the garbage man or the grader, things they see as a threat that aren’t, but barking is how they scare off the monsters of the world and some monsters are real. Cotton knew there was the potential for something to be there and Sissy was waiting for her signal.

I need to have a little more respect for my brave warriors and how they do things.

01/31/2026

In scary times like these it helps to have a real live hero; someone to look up to, someone to be an example of the good in people. I have one, my she-ro is Susan Boxx.

Susan is one of the most loving, giving people I know. A dog lover, she has helped the dogs and me for years. Not just writing a check, she does that, but several times a year I go to her house and she fills the truck with goodies. Practical things: dog biscuits, paper towels, soap, batteries I could go on and on, but there are thoughtful happy things too:delicious chocolate, cinnamon rolls (I’m a fool for cinnamon),hoodies with cute dog stuff on them. It’s like x-mas from someone that knows what you like and cares about you. She makes you feel seen. She must think of us every time she goes shopping.

We aren’t the only ones she thinks about and gives to; I’ve written about Susan before and the comment section lights up with Susan stories.

It’s easy to get depressed with so much chaos and cruelty around. There’s a great quote by Mr. Rodgers, “When I was a boy I would see scary things on the news and my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

So when I wonder, my god, what’s happening with my world, I remember Susan. She’s my rock, she’s the one I look to, she’s my example of the goodness still in the world..

I hope you have a Susan too.

01/27/2026

These two handsome fellas are some of the luckiest dogs around. They have been pulled from an even worse than usual puppy mill. It must seem like a miracle to them to get to run and play.

The miracle worker is Dr Nancy Hougland of Clearview. She does this often; gets dogs out, fixes and vaccinates then the whole gang there tries to find them homes.

The boys are 10 years old. They have been giving them the run of the place and Nancy says they have personalities! Not your usual cower -in-the-corner puppy mill dogs. They weren’t housed together so they aren’t bonded. You don’t have to take them both.

Give your karma a big boost and go check these guys out. They are at Clearview Animal Hospital, Bloomfield Iowa. They have had a horrible life, please, somebody, make it up to them.

Share and let's help find them a home.

01/08/2026

Cactus is whip smart, you can just see the intelligence in those big blue eyes, but he’s 9 years old and spent his life in a puppy mill cage. There’s things that a normal dog knows that he just doesn’t have a clue.

Cactus has a profound misunderstanding of fences.

There’s a fenceline we walk everyday; on the other side is just more woods, the neighbor that owns it lives miles away. Three of the small girls slip through the fence and go exploring. They keep up with us from over there.

Cactus decided he was going through the fence too. He seemed to think you did that with force. He took a run at the fence and hit it hard. It literally sprung him back and threw him to the ground. He must have thought that can’t be right because he got up and did it again. It hurt, you could tell. That was it. He has never tried again.

Works for me. It keeps him home. Huskies are escape artists. But it does give a glimpse into how much he has missed in life. Seems like he’s trying to make up for all that. He is so curious and so busy. His little legs remind you of a sewing machine as he goes zipping around.

Cactus finds me interesting, when he’s not exploring he’s in the house watching me. He likes me, I think. He comes up and kisses my hand first thing every morning and often after meals but he feels I’m too dodgy to allow full scale petting. That proves to me that it’s not just the small cages, the filth, never allowed out onto grass, it’s the people. They are terrifying.

I don’t understand this old world that makes something as beautiful as him then give him that life. But then there’s a lot I don’t understand.

What do you do about the cruelty of the world? What can you do, just one person? The only thing I can think of is--be kind. Put your finger on the scale to go the other way. Be kind to whatever is in front of you.

After posting this I’m gonna go give Cactus a treat ;0) One of his favorite things. Hug your babies.

12/03/2025

Ho! Ho! Ho!

An early X-mas present from Tasha at Tractor Supply Ottumwa. Bless her hearrt. Dog food is so expensive and this is the good stuff.

Tasha thinks of us so often. She's a true dog lover.

11/23/2025

When that truck snapped Bo's spine it took away her ability to jump and run but not her ability to be a dog. She does it different but she gets ‘er done.

These are snips from the morning walk. Pardon my editing skills. We take a trail through the woods then circle the pond.

Ya gotta love dogs–everyday it’s a grand exciting adventure. It’s like we’re doing it for the first time. That’s contagious, I love the walks too. I spared you the frenzy, madness and shrill barking that marks the very beginning.

Bo never misses a day. The uneven ground and narrow trails make her cute pink wheels useless. You can imagine how hard this is on her drag bags, but without them she couldn’t go. It would strip the skin right off her legs. This way she has callouses but no injury.

When Bo first came, and for a long time after, the other dogs wouldn't have anything to do with her. All she had was her sister, Sissy. That's changed over the years. Her and Sissy are still very close, but he other dogs have accepted her too. They clean her ears, sniff things with her and snuggle up sometimes.

The hard part is when her sister, the hunter, what Bo would be too,catches a scent of a rabbit and goes tearing off, baying at the top of her lungs. Bo tries to run too, scoots real fast but it’s hopeless. She follows way after her giving an occasional “woof” of encouragement, watching where she went intently.

She reminds me of what Atticus says about real courage in “To Kill a Mockingbird” It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway.

I love them all, I do. But that little girl tugs at my heart.

10/15/2025

This is my Pablo. I lost him last month to a stroke. I have been struggling ever since, and can’t seem to get him out of my mind. He was a force of nature: a little s**t, to be honest, but an unforgettable one. We had a thing, me and him; he followed me everywhere, and frustrated me daily with his antics, but he was fiercely loyal. I never went into another room without him. He loved me, and he just wanted things his way. He was a terrier.

Painting helps. It’s kind of magical when, after hours of smearing paint around, all of a sudden, your little guy appears. It’s like you get to be with them again for a while, and you get to pick his age; he’s much younger and healthier, not the shell of a guy he was at the last. But that's what gave me the revelation, it wasn't painting him, it was while looking for more references (I was having trouble with his funny slanted ears) when I came across pictures of him in his last few weeks.

The difference in those pictures was a shock. He looked so bad, his eyes-you could see the misery in his eyes. He was soaked in pain. I guess seeing him every day I didn’t realize, or maybe I was just being selfish and didn’t want to let him go, that’s a big part of it. He was still eating like a maniac and fighting over food every meal, still his volcanic self, when he was awake, but he slept 23 out of 24 hours. I’m making excuses. It amazes me how blind I was. He was suffering.

We can’t help our people at the end, but we can help our dogs. It’s called mercy. You’d think I didn’t know the meaning of the word when it came to him.. Thank god for that stroke.

I’m not going to finish the painting. I got out of it what I needed. I gained perspective. My little man had to go. It was way past time, like they always say, he's in a better place. That’s got to be true in this case.

I hope realizing where I failed him and the regret makes me kinder next time.

Dog Star Animal Sanctuary

06/05/2026

04/26/2026

03/16/2026

02/09/2026

01/31/2026

01/27/2026

01/08/2026

12/03/2025

11/23/2025

10/15/2025

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