The True Tale of an Abused, Abandoned Dog Who Found Love and Fame
The Adventures of Owen the Wonder Dog's Survival Against the Odds: How He Found His Furever Home, and as a Bonus, Gained Internet Fame in His Elder Years
Last June, I wrote about Owen and shared statistics and facts about the plight of dogs and shelters. And, all animals…more about that later.
When a family surrenders a companion animal to a shelter, their history is usually known. When animal control captures an animal from public areas, their history is rarely, if ever, known.
Owen was amongst several scared, unhappy, unhealthy barking dogs in a noisy, crowded, metal enclosure with a concrete floor. Due to the stress and the strain, Owen got a bad ear infection. He was traumatized, abandoned, sick…and, his days were numbered. Many people do not like animals with black fur, especially a mutt, so they are among the last to be adopted.
Culling animals is the shelter’s solution to overcrowding and under funding. Mismanagement is sometimes at fault.
Happy, healthy dogs have a better chance of fosters rescuing them from kill shelters to help them find furever homes.
Based on Owen’s fear, it appeared he had at least one abuser, and he may have been a male who wore a baseball hat.
Owen’s luck changed when my brother bonded with him. The shelter’s low fee adoption day persuaded my brother to adopt that day. Owen’s life was spared. He was freed from the loud, stress-filled, crowded shelter.
He became a friend and family. Thankfully, he finally had a safe, loving home, his own yard and treatments for his ear infection.
My brother said, “I can’t describe the look on Owen’s face when we went somewhere together. He looked so happy. It looked like he was smiling.” Owen loved to ride in the car and sit in the front seat. He also loved his yard and pool. The sun helped heal his ear.
Several years later, the twosome moved to the Midwest to live near family and life-long friends. They stayed with friends who had a dog and land. Owen ran free on 40 acres, and explored a pond and a forest. Lucky dog, that’s how I want to live!
At 13, Owen’s life was full of new adventures. He had transcended his trauma and was living his best life.
Months later, they found their own home and moved next door to a young golden retriever, named Caamp, who immediately took to Owen. To welcome his new friend, the pup pawed the vines, removing them from the fence. Caamp’s family noticed a hole in the vines but they did not know the culprit until they discovered Caamp’s “landscaping skills”. They filmed the meetings, you can see “the clips” on Instagram.
Owen Goes Viral on Instagram and Newsweek
The video on caampstagram/Instagram melted the hearts of thousands of people. Newsweek featured the video. The love story has reached millions of people who have left thousands of comments in support of the dogs who just want to have fun, together.
The Moral of the Story
Animals are sentient beings and it is up to each one of us to end kill facilities by adopting, not shopping. We can start anew with fresh ideas, approaches and habits to create compassionate systems that reflect our connection with the biota. All species and ecosystems benefit from our compassion and empathy. A healthy, peaceful and prosperous society is born out of the respect of self. When we demonstrate that each one of us is the Authority of our own Self, we do better. When we Unite with Something Greater than Ourselves, we Know Better. Therefore, we must each master ourselves and give back to others.
Owen has a tale to tell. From abused dog to famous dog: The Adventures of Owen, the Wonder Dog Who Found Love and Fame.
A pup pawed away vines to get to know his new elderly dog neighbor, Owen. Thanks to my kind and generous brother, Owen is here to tell his story.
How You Can Help
We just witnessed how one person can make a difference. You can make a difference. Start by taking responsibility for self and engage in your community. We fix problems together. United we wag. Say No, and do not allow our society to “wag the dog”… ya dig?
“The tail wagging the dog is an idiom that usually refers to something important or powerful being controlled by something less so. Its earliest use is in the 1858 play Our American Cousin. The 1997 film Wag the Dog shortened the phrase and added the additional meaning of "superfluous (military) action in order to distract from domestic scandal."
We are falling for lies. Corruption wants control and power. We are falling for scams.
Look within, we have allowed hypocrisy to rule us instead of taking time and care to do our part to fix problems. Care, be aware and repair. My vocation is advocacy, to uplift and empower people to take care of nature, because we are nature. What we do to one, we do to ourselves. Stop self-abuse. Friend to self first, breaks the evil curse.
About Wildlands
Support “A Poet with a Purpose”, a problem-solver that explores tough topics to fix problems. Word Play and Creative Reflections that relate how our health and well-being increase when we connect with nature. I speak for nature by stating natural facts and furlosophies to unite the biota. We heal when we wag together. Dig with compassion and empathy to sniff out challenges. Connect with your land and ancestors, your roots. Know Thyself and Be Generous.
Wildlands explores ways to solve problems through communication and stories.
Restor-e self to tell a triumphant tale of when your tail was lost and then found.
Read stories about my experience in helping to fix problems for animals, nature and people through politics. And, you can read more about Owen, how we can be better humans, and why dogs and humans need each other here:
Learn the Facts and Be In the NO! You are Needed to Fix Problems at Shelters
The Tragic Fact is that Arizona and California Animal Shelters are in critical condition, and there are investigations into alleged criminal activity.
The problems in shelters are well documented in Maricopa County’s Animal Shelters.
The people making the decisions want big raises and promotions. We need to uphold the laws, stop making excuses and stop allowing devices, vices and crises to distract us from what is really important. We can fix problems. We can restore soils and souls.
Let’s Go Deeper into the Challenges and How to Fix Shelters in Crisis
This information was sent out by an advocate friend of mine, Ms. Frank states:
“Both San Diego and Southern Arizona Humane Societies investigations of large secret transport of animals for reptile food, detailed in the Washington Post and LATimes national coverage, were designed to avoid/dismiss evidence exposing a pattern of conduct.”
“Hegemonic National Animal Welfare Organizations Failing Shelters in Crisis
The Humane Society of Southern Arizona (HSSA) and San Diego Humane Society (SDHS) received national media coverage upon the discovery 318 small animals intended for adoption were instead transported to a reptile food processor.
Subsequently, with HSSA’s Best Friends Animal Society interim executive, the person assigned as HSSA Cochise County Coordinator advising on "Best Practices" was complicit in their Douglas, AZ shelter dumping hundreds of cats in the desert according to sheriff's report.
The Best Friends "No Kill 90% Live Outcome with ‘Best Practices’" doctrine, now permeating the shelter industry and higher education institutions, focuses is how compassion, hard work and impressing the public are essential elements for a shelter director and community engagement in "Best Practices" is most important but ignores corporate perpetuation of overpopulation.
As nationwide shelters are in unprecedented crisis, Best Friends nor any other national animal welfare org produce results in greatly reducing mass production breeding "AKA" puppy mills or requiring Craigslist to enforce it's own policy against commercial puppy listings, heavily used by backyard breeders and puppy mill imports marketing thousands daily. “Dr. Jeff Rocky Mountain Vet" series demonstrates the economic mobile high volume free spay/neuter clinics for entire underserved communities that have not been duplicated by national animal welfare organizations either.
Rather, Best Friends "No Kill 90% and Best Practices" doctrine is what many regard as only achieved with statistical manipulation to cope with a tsunami of overpopulation. “Best Practices” do not prevent swamped shelters, rescues, exhausted volunteers, fosters and staff, routine euthanizing, animals warehoused long-term in stressful conditions, draining of public funds coping with capacity and disease outbreaks, and animals abandoned in unprecedented numbers as veterinary costs rise and personal budgets shrink.
Such inaction on the primary sources of desperate shelter conditions is seemingly in collusion with the profiteers of unfettered commercial production and marketing of companion animals while publicizing distressed homeless pets as fundraising gold. We’ve all seen ASPCA’s commercials of shivering, miserable mill dogs used as disposable fundraising props, year after year without change, reportedly the biggest donation-getter of all time.
Arizona is the only state with legislation Inserted by a notorious animal dealer with civil and criminal violations that makes it illegal to prevent the sale of puppy mill dogs, frequently destined for our shelters and clinics. With their resources, such an embarrassing legislative travesty should easily be corrected by an organizations like Best Friends and AZ Humane Society.
The Best Friends website's chirpy “how to" videos shift responsibility to individuals and communities, how to organize volunteers, how to flag Craigslist puppy mill listings, how to fundraise, how YOU should do this and that, while THEY are amassing many 10's of millions, with obscenely lavish executive compensation.
ASPCA CEO annual salary is one million++, reportedly the organization has several hundred million banked including off-shore accounts. SDHS CEO salary is 450K with lavish benefits. Arizona HS CEO salary is 397K++. With hundreds of millions in assets and teams of lawyers/lobbyists, HSUS absurdly states they have not passed puppy mill legislation because American Kennel Club, in the business of registering dogs, objects.
As California movements like “Fix our Shelters” document, Defendant San Diego Humane Society V Plaintiff Pet Assistance Foundation case is being billed as trial of the century, at least for cats and kittens. The lawsuit alleges SDHS practice of “return-to-field” or dumping friendly domesticated cats and kittens (not feral) to fend for themselves is illegal.
If SDHS defense prevails and legalizes shelter cat dumping, other shelters will feel emboldened while fleecing California taxpayers for millions and perpetuating the shelter marketing device “No Kill 90% Live Outcome" reliant on covert or legitimized inhumane disposal of animals, refused/selective shelter intake and statistical manipulation.
Hegemonic National Animal Welfare organizations and charities that seek to dominate taxpayer funds, donors and corporate sponsors have a responsibility to produce legislative and legal results with VISIBLE shelter relief pronto. If "Dr. Jeff Rocky Mountain Vet" can set up in a warehouse with a few vets, techs, and with a van of supplies and local volunteers, free spay/neuter hundreds of animals in under served areas, then wealthy organizations with lavishly compensated executives can duplicate, pronto.”
-candace charvoz frank
Want to Help, Take Action, Please
“Where is Best Friends, Humane Societies, ASPCA? They are MIA while constantly pressuring for donations and volunteerism. If only WE, the public, could do more they say while publicizing distressed homeless animals, their fundraising gold.
It's time to require them to produce legislative and legal meaningful results to stop commercial mass production and marketing of companion animals with their legal and financial resources.”
- candace charvoz frank
Help make Owen’s critical message go viral… share this true love story from destitution to restoration and bright fame.
We overcome obstacles by helping one another.
This is the story for each of us to demonstrate in our own lives. We each have the power to restore soils and souls. It starts with a truth-full conversation that explores how to fix problems furever.
You are the soulution: Bee a part of the Revolution in Evolution. Ruff rebel in ruff times, my friends. All paws and hands on deck, your “porpoise” is calling you.
“Be the human your dog thinks you are!” Imagine a world of empathetic humans who know ourselves and our connections. Let’s choose to be peaceful and prosperous within ourselves! Healthy humans make a world of difference for good!
Restor-e self to tell a triumphant tale of when your tail was lost and then found.
From a paid Subscriber,
"Your dedication and inspiration is influential! In the spirit of reform, thank you for your work! -CF"
Wildlands is making a difference! My work is helping to reform animal non-profits who are corrupt and lost their way and their mission to help animals!
Your support is making a world of difference! Thank you to all Wildland supporters. Please subscribe to be a part of making our world healthier and better for all sentient beings!
Sharing a comment from a paid Subscriber: "I wanted to tell you how much I loved the Owen the Wonder Dog article. A couple of thank yous - 1) to you for sharing the story and 2) to your brother for volunteering at an animal shelter and for a home for Owen.
This is great stuff.
Bill"