Home for Life's Two Legged Dogs

2 legs: Nino who lost his hind legs thru abuse; Cesar who was born without front legs

Home for Life cares for many two legged dogs at our sanctuary,and if the paraplegics- those dogs who have all four of their legs,but who use a  cart, are included 10 % of our canine population is two legged!

Two legged dogs draw attention, and especially if  the circumstances underlying the loss of their legs are remarkable as with Nino and Cesar above.  Nino born in Mexico, in a village outside of Cancun lost his hind legs thru shocking abuse as a mere three week puppy, when his litter mates were slaughtered and his hind legs amputated by a gang of youths wielding machetes. Nino's life was saved by his street dog mother, the only survivor of his litter, when she grabbed him in her mouth and ran but not before the boys had cut his hind legs off. She brought Nino to a taco stand vendor who often gave her scraps and dropped the mutilated puppy at the taco guy's feet  The compassionate and quick action by the man and his wife no doubt saved Nino's life: they applied sliced onion to the ends of the stumps which stopped the bleeding and also acted as a disinfectant They then brought Nino to a small rescue in Cancun and from there he came to Home for Life - But not before he met Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale on his way to us via Los Angeles: the musicians and celebrities were very touched by Nino's tragic story and were happy to pose for a photo with him, preserved for posterity below! As an adult dog Nino is cheery and always seems to be smiling.  He seems unaffected by the trauma  he suffered with  no memory of the abuse. He is the strong spirit and the survivor to carry on the legacy of his family and of his sibling puppies who were so tragically and brutally killed: he's not going to waste a second being glum.

Nino ,a puppy from Mexico on his way to Home for Life, in a photo with
 Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, taken in Los Angeles, CA






Cesar is a Chihuahua born in Minnesota, but his mother rejected him when he was only a few weeks old as he was born with no front legs. He came to Home for Life at only 2 weeks old, and was bottle fed every couple of hours until he could eat on his own. And that's the story of how he happened to be along on the photo shoot when Cesar Millan was in town for one of our galas; Cesar ( Millan) posed for a few promotional photos for our gala with some of our other Home for Life dogs but then spied the little Chihuahua puppy in the box, awaiting his next hourly feeding. Although Cesar Millan is known for his ability to manage the biggest and toughest dogs, one of his favorite breeds is the Chihuahua and he was delighted to meet the little puppy, and immediately picked him up . You can see his authentic delight to meet this tiny puppy in this photo by Mark Luinenburg, spontaneously obtained after a long day and photo shoot.  At that point the pup did not have a name- we were just focusing on making sure he was getting enough to eat and would survive. Millan right there and then christened him Little Cesar after the Dog Whisperer himself!  That's quite a legacy to live up to but Cesar has grown into his name and is now 13 years old , Missing front legs is much more challenging since most of the weight of a dog is carried on the front. Cesar has a cart but prefers to hop or be carried like a little emperor from one location to the other. What is remarkable for the other dogs is Cesar's strong and determined spirit: it's those characteristis that they respect and respond to rather than the physical deformity.            

Little Cesar, tiny puppy, with Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer & Christopher Robin
the Wirehair  Fox Terrier : photo by Mark Luinenburg

Two legged dogs need more care and are more vulnerable. If they have lost their legs or become paraplegic  due to abuse or injury especially to the spine, many are incontinent. For bigger dogs this issue becomes almost impossible to handle in a typical home setting. Additional challenges involve the heavy lifting needed to get a disabled dog in the tub for a bath and   in and out of a cart  multiple times a day: it's very tiring for a dog to be in a cart for an entire day with all their weight on their front end At Home for Life, our dogs are in their carts two hours, and then rest of two hours out of the cart and so on throughout the day.  They are cleaned and checked at each cart change and receive full on "para care" and cleaning involving a bath twice a day.

The care for two legged dogs is laborius but a care for life sanctuary is ideally set up for this daily attention. And with this specialized care our two legged dogs live their lives like any dog. Once the hurdle of the daily care is taken into consideration, the disability is just not the first thing  that comes to mind about any of our two legged dogs.

It would be easy to weep over dogs at Home for Life like Nino and Cesar and to pity them for what they lack or lost often under tragic circumstances. And it would have been tempting, once we had taken dogs like these in at Home for Life® to always portray then as  pathetic two-legged dogs, almost like circus sideshows to engender sympathy or shock.
 In the age of social media, often it is the tragic and startling animals’ stories that draw the most attention and support. But we wanted Home for Life® to represent something different in animal welfare and for animals like Nino,  Cesar, Poppy whose story is below and for all our two legged dogs.

There’s a place in the world for everyone, a place that can be called home. It is a place where even when life seems at a dead end, two legged dogs who might be considered victims or oddities can find a home to provide the stability and safety for a new beginning.

Our summer mail appeal is about another of our two legged dogs, the Shetland Sheepdog Poppy. She had such a hard life before she was only a year old losing both her legs and her life, nearly. When you read her story and see her photos, the fact that she has only two legs might be the first thing you notice  but, her lack of legs won't be what you remember about her.

Illustration of Poppy by Iain Welch Art and Design

"Any fool can be happy, It takes someone with a real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes  us weep.” - Clive Barker

Home has never meant more than in this time of uncertainty amidst a deadly pandemic sweeping the world -- a place of safety and protection.  Having a home, a place to belong, provides a foothold amid chaos, the stable base to imagine a new and better future despite the challenges that surround us.

We know the miraculous power of having  a home for life and  have seen again and again what  having a place to belong means for animals who come to Home for Life  longing for the safety, security and acceptance that our sanctuary provides.     There's no place like Home for Life for dogs and cats like 2-legged Sheltie Poppy where   we make sure the trauma and rejection of their prior years will neither define them nor be the end of their story. 
'

There's No Place Like Home

Flowers and new spring grass carpet the low prairie hills around Home for Life sanctuary. Poppy, a Shetland sheepdog, stands in her outdoor enclosure, eyes bright with excitement. She is clean, nicely groomed, and ready for action! She perks her ears and looks back toward her living quarters for Frank and Frosty, her canine housemates. A Home for Life caregiver brings them out, opens the gate, and the three dogs race out across the fresh green hills.

Poppy’s days are filled with fun, loving care, companionship, and some serious work as well! Poppy  is a therapy in dog Home for Life’s Peace Creatures® program, which last year reached over 7,000 vulnerable kids and adults in our community and provided nearly $1 million in valuable services to those in nursing homes, mental health wards, battered women’s shelters, pediatric oncology wards, and prisons. Poppy is a great ambassador for the sanctuary, extending the vision of Home for Life and the healing she has benefited from to  ease the loneliness and distress of the most fragile people, living in obscurity on the fringes of our society, and her important work helps draw these people back into the embrace of the community. 

It is hard to believe that, just 4 years ago, Poppy herself was homeless, in pain, and struggling for her very life. She had been living in the streets of a village in a third world country, and was one day struck by a car and left for dead. She dragged herself to a hiding spot and remained out of sight for over a week until a man found  her and brought her to the Vafa Animal Shelter for help. The picture taken of Poppy at the time of her rescue shows a fragile, shy puppy, about 3-4 months old and lucky to be alive.   '

Poppy the puppy after her resccue

The accident damaged her pelvis and caused her knees to turn at a 180◦ angle. Two of her vertebrae were apart and seemed dislocated. The vets in her home country did an MRI. The scan revealed severe injury to her spine. They performed a surgery to fix her vertebrae, and later amputated both back legs which were beyond repair.

Poppy suffered greatly nearly bleeding to death after her first amputation suegery

Poppy recovery from her amputation surgeries now a two legged dog

Poppy faced a bleak future as a 2-legged dog in a third world country, where even strong and mobile dogs often suffer from maltreatment and neglect.  Home for Life supports the work of international organizations like Vafa Shelter that are helping to change perceptions about dogs and animal welfare in their societies.  Our sanctuary has taken several dogs from other countries, dogs whose needs were more involved than rescues were set up to handle long term.  Poppy certainly fit that category!  She was welcomed to Home for Life and made the long journey here in the fall of 2016.

Poppy's injury left her very vulnerable, with only two legs, but the main issue with dogs who lose the use of their back legs is not mobility but incontinence. That's why these dogs are often overlooked for adoption, and why they need specialized care to keep them healthy. With her long fur, amputations and incontinence, constant vigilance would be needed to keep her clean and healthy and prevent infections. She also needed to build up the strength in her front legs since, even in a cart, they would need to bear all her weight, and that can become tiring. 

Poppy and  Soosan another of our two legged dogs demonstrate the locomotion.
 Did you know? in 2019 Home for Life was named one of the 10 Most Amazing Sanctuaries in the country by  USA Today! 
This photo taken by Mark Luinenburg was used to in the article by the newspaper

The initial impression, to see a dog with only two legs is sometimes shocking and frankly disturbing. But with the attentive care she receives from Home for Life's® staff, Poppy has thrived and never gives her missing legs a second thought, focusing instead on all she can do.  Poppy's determination to make the most of her life touches the heart of anyone she meets. Poppy work to become one of our  therapy dogs in our Peace Creatures® program began with visits to Como Park Senior high school in the spring of 2018 to help students there during the stressful period of  final exams and has continued to include visits to  many area nursing homes.

At Home for Life®, Poppy's traumatic start and missing legs have not stopped her from living a full life, with friends, the opportunity to run, to swim and even to give back through Home for Life's® outreach programs.  Fate must have had a plan for Poppy when she so miraculously survived her injury, alone for nearly 2 weeks without care, the amputation of both legs and surgery on her back and then the long journey to Home for Life®. It turned out that Poppy had much to live for and  much to give though her start seemed so bleak and filled with despair before she was even a year old. Her sweet nature and her determination to live life to the fullest inspires those she encounters who are often facing their own  challenges. 

 HOME IS WHERE THE HEART Is 

Poppy resting after a swim in the Apple River which runs on  Home for Life's property 

Poppy at an oureach session with the students of Como Park High Shool

Brush with fame! Poppy meets Ashley Judd at Home for Life's
2019 Fall Gala

 It would be easy to weep over Poppy and to pity her when her life was forever changed by the loss of her two back legs when only a puppy.  And it would have been tempting, once we had taken her in at Home for Life to always portray her as a pathetic two-legged dog, forever marked by the tragedy of her first year.  In the age of social media, often it is the tragic and shocking animals' stories that draw the most attention and support.  But we wanted Home for Life to represent something different in animal welfare and for animals like Poppy. 

On a Peace Creatures pet therapy visit Poppy brings a smile to a resident of Woodbury Senior Living, Woodbury, MN

Poppy with Matilda, another of Home for Life's Peace Creatures therapy dogs: illustration by
Iain Welch Art and Design

There’s a place in the world for everyone, a place that can be called home, . It is a place where even when life seems at a dead end, a dog like Poppy can find the stability and safety for a new beginning..  Home for Life@  provided  that for Poppy, and that’s what we can do for other animals with your help. 

Poppy is an ardent swimmer and a master of the dog paddle !                                                 

I  Wish I could give them all a home - Now you Can!

As uncertainty, fear, and chaos continue to rattle our world, the loving security of home means more than ever -- especially for vulnerable animals like Poppy .  

 We know what it has meant to Poppy to have  the steady care and healing  Home for Life provides- the opportunity to  have a life that no one could imagine was possible when she  was alone, a two legged disabled dog  in a third world country.  Your support has made the difference for her- as it can for so many animals like her who need a someone to care about them too. 

An internationally recognized care for life sanctuary, Home for Life®, offers a service to animals in need like no comparative organization. Many shelters and rescue organizations aspire to find a home for every animal and dream of the day when there will be no homeless animals. At Home for Life®, that's what we want too -- and that's what we provide -- for cats and dogs like Poppy who are overlooked for placement. Home for Life® has created a new idea, the care for life sanctuary -- a life-saving and life-affirming alternative for dogs and cats who have not been able to find a home or keep the home they had and for animals who have lifelong special care needs that most adopters cannot provide. We call our idea the "Third Door" in animal welfare, which gives at risk dogs and cats, animals who might have been passed over for adoption, a third chance and an alternative to an undeserved death.

The dream of a home should be an opportunity that is available for all dogs and cats, and now with Home for Life®, and the innovative model we have created at our prototype sanctuary in Star Prairie, WI, it can be!   

Update on Nino,the 2 legged dog from Mexico

We wanted to update everyone on Nino, who came to Home for Life earlier this year from Mexico. As a 3 week old puppy, Nino's littermates were slaughtered, and he was mutilated by a gang of boys wielding machetes. They cut Nino's back legs off with the machetes but Nino's mother, a street dog who lived in a village outside of Cancun, managed to grab him in her mouth and run away with him to safety before her last surviving puppy also perished.

The owner of a taco stand and his wife regularily fed Nino's mother, and it was to them that she brought her puppy after he had been injured. They stopped the bleeding on his stumps and brought him to Rescate Malix, a shelter located near Cancun. Some of their volunteers contacted Home for Life via email to ask for help on Nino's behalf. Nino means little boy in spanish. More on Nino's early life was covered in a prior blog post: http://homeforlifesanctuary.blogspot.com/2010/05/home-for-life-sanctuarys-brush-with.html

Now about six months old, Nino has grown to be a handsome and happy boy who is as full of energy as any young dog. He most resembles a miniture australian shepard in size and appearence except for his coloring which is white with the brindle markings- the coloration of wild dogs. In fact Nino has a great affinity and interest in the many coyotes that reside and roam near us and is very curious to check out any smells when he is let outside in the morning. Street dogs are often a melange of many breeds so perhaps it is possible that his heritage includes some coyote blood. Nino lost his legs so early in life that he seems to have no memory of the trauma of the abuse he suffered. He is always happy and smiling. Like all the disabled animals at Home for Life, he has adapted and makes the best of his situation even though he has only two legs. He can move around with astonishing speed by balancing his weight over his front legs. He is currently going thru the adolescent puppy stage known at Home for Life as the "landshark phase". Everything and everyone is a chew toy, and Nino gleefully wrestles with the large cats, and some of the smaller dogs,who avoid him at all costs. Nino doesn't take offense at being avoided and is good natured about chasing them with a big smile on his face. He needs to be with other dogs about his size who can teach him to play with proper boundaries ie don't apply pressure if you want to "playbite". When he is around some of the other sanctuary dogs his age or older,he is like the suddenly shy kid at kindergarten who is a tansmanian devil at home.Like all adolescent dogs he is pushing his boundaries right now but is not mean spirited or aggressive,just typical of the boisterous puppy.

Notwithstanding his disability, his mind works fine, and he is still learning about boundaries.He cannot be obedience trained in the conventional way,but he has learned the concept of housebreaking, the recall, stay and leave it. His very favorite food is dried chicken tender chews which he looks forward to as a beditme snack each evening. Although he is shy with strangers, he has made some public forays to meet new friends such as the students at Totem Town who are pariticpating in the Renaissance Program this fall. '

Because of his youth and agility we really wanted to see if he could be fitted with prosthetics to enable him to move like a normal dog. The first hurdle to overcome was to get the pressure sores on his stumps to heal. While with the rescue in Mexico, he was fitted with homemade prosthetics but they caused pressure sores on the very end of his leg bones. These wounds have taken a long time to heal, and on one of his legs, the very end of the leg bone had to be amputated and the skin sewn over it to finally take care of the open sore and swelling the thigh. Determining if Nino could be be fit with prosthetics was a detailed process involving sending the xrays and measurements of his back legs( which were cut off unevenly and at about where the thigh meets the shin bone) to the company which would custom make the devices. Sadly, after a review of the xrays and second opinion obtained, it was determined that Nino's legs were cut off too high to allow for the prosthetics to be fitted;there was not enough leg bone for the stump cup. Prosthetics even for people, can be very difficult to manage unless they are fitted precisley- human patients often challenged by sore stumps and pressure wounds -they are an imperfect solution in reality. Although Nino is so agile and gets along well on his two legs, the concern is that eventually he will cause stress to his upper leg joints and shoulders over time. So it seems Nino will be destined to use a cart. We are glad he has had the warm summer and beautiful fall to grow to full size and learn to manage his disability and grow up to his full height and weight. His athletic ability and the strength he has developed on his front quarters will enable him to master using a cart very easily . The cart will help him continue to enjoy the outdoors as the weather turns colder,without subjecting his fragile back legs to frostbite or discomfort. He will have the opportunity to enjoy the snow like all dogs do without risking injury.

Once he is used to his cart, we think Nino will make an excellent candidate for our Renaissance Program where he can work with a student from Totem Town to learn obedience within his physical limits and train to become certified as a therapy dog. Nino,with his 'can-do" attitude and sunny outlook, will be a real source of inspiration to human patients challenged with the loss of a limb or other disability.
Nino's photo was taken by Mark Luinenburg at Home for Life in late September. If the blogger does not allow you to see the video of Mark meeting Nino for the photo session please see this You Tube link for the same video: www.youtube.com/homeforlifesanctuary#p/a/u/0/-r3s1bFMTmM

Brush with Fame- Nino the puppy meets Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale

Nino, the little shepard mix puppy from Cancun Mexico, arrived Home for Life on Wednesday this week. He was very tired and spent most of the rainy afternoon sleeping. The weather was so rainy all week that it made everyone sleepy. He is a pretty gold color with black markings creating a brindle effect. His coat is still that soft fuzzy texture that puppies have, and he has the needle- sharp puppy teeth. I was worried initially because he seemed so subdued ..but considering all that he has been thru in his young life it is not surprising it took him a few days to regroup and get his normal puppy energy back. I had a chance to have lunch with Angie who runs the Cancun Mexico rescue Rescate Malix,where Nino was taken after he was rescued. She cared for him for months after he was rescued and is quite bonded to him. I was glad to have the chance to talk more with Angie to learn more about what had happened to Nino and also to hear more about her rescue efforts in Mexico. Rescate Malix means rescued strays in spanish. Angie and all the people who assist with her efforts such as Maia of Pet Project Rescue of Minnesota are doing so much to help these street dogs who suffer greatly from ignorance,disease,neglect and outright cruelty. Angie believes that education is the key to transforming the attitudes of the people which result in so much suffering among Cancun's dogs. She coordinates spay/neuter clinics, rescues and finds homes for many dogs through organizations in the US like Minnesota's Pet Project Rescue and cares for many dogs at her shelter in Cancun.
Angie gave me more details about how Nino was injured and how he came to her at Rescue Malix. Apparently, Nino's mother, a small stray ,street dog, hung around a taco stand with her pack of three dogs.The taco stand was in a small village outside of Cancun,near protected forests or jungles( like our state forests). The husband and wife who ran the taco stand noticed Nino's mother was pregnant and fed her more to try to help her. At some point,according to the couple, she had her puppies in the protected jungle near the taco stand but would continue to visit the stand to be fed. She had had 5 or 6 puppies they told Angie. When the puppies were about 4 weeks old, one afternoon, the taco stand couple heard cries and screaming, yelling, then barking coming from the direction of the forest where the the mother dog had lived with her puppies. They were puzzled but the cries were so distressing,that the husband went to investigate. As he approached the protected jungle area, he saw teenage boys carrying MACHETES laughing and running from the area. The man entered the forest where he knew the mother dog had been with her puppies. What he found horrified him: blood everywhere. But the mother dog and the puppies were gone. He was very upset and went back to his stand to tell his wife about what he found. A short time later, that same afternoon, the mother dog emerged from the forest where she had been hiding and approached her friends from the taco stand who had always fed her and helped her. She was carrying her only surviving puppy in her mouth;she approached the man and dropped the puppy, who was Nino, at his feet, and then ran off. The man and his wife examined the puppy and saw that the hind legs had been cut off half way up the leg. The stumps were bleeding. They were in an area that was really very remote,with nothing like a veterinary hospital near. The wife grabbed some onions they had at their stand, cut them in half and put them on the puppy's stumps to stop the bleeding. Apparently onions are a natural disinfectant and anti-coagulant.
Through the grapevine,the taco stand couple had heard of Angie and somehow from their village got word to her and brought her the puppy for care. Shortly thereafter, through volunteers with Candi International.org, an organziation of professionals in the travel industry who help in third world countries, Nino's case was brought to our attention, and we agreed to help him. Nino is the name given to him by Angie and it means 'little boy". Nino's mother is still living on the streets of the village,near the taco stand. Angie and her volunteers hope to be able to provide vet services and spaying for her at some point. It is hard to think of the mental trauma and heartbreak Nino's mother went thru trying in vain to protect her puppies and having to watch them be slaughtered and her desperation as she tried her best to save her last living puppy by bringing him to the taco stand couple.
Candi International made arrangements for Angie to accompany Nino to the United States and to Home for Life. Angie spent time in Los Angeles raising awareness for Rescate Malix with Nino serving as the ambassador and representative for all the dogs of Cancun and while there she and Nino met musicians Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale who were very touched by his story and were delighted to pose for this photo with him.
Despite the cruelty Nino suffered,everyone who has had a part in his journey are determined that good will come out of this evil. The first goal is to make sure that Nino has a great life and either with prosthetics or a cart,has the ability to walk and run like a normal dog. He is only four months old so we will have to wait for him to reach his full size before he is fitted for the cart o prosthetics so his bones are strong and fully developed. We will also consult with veterinarians experienced in rehabilitation to be sure we are doing all we can to facilitate his ability to live as much as possible as a normal dog. It will be challenging to give him the ability to be mobile but not cause trauma to his stumps which will be prone to the development of sores. Nino loves people and other dogs so a full life for him will include ample opportunities to play and socialize with other dogs as well as the chance to have training to become a therapy dog with the goal of participating in our outreach programs. Another positive to emerge from this tragedy is the way Nino's situation has united the goodwill of people from all over the world, from different rescues, different countries,individuals from humble backgrounds and those who are high profile and famous. It is truly miraculous that Nino,who started life as one puppy of a litter born to an anonymous street dog from a village in Mexico, is now held close to the hearts of so many people,and through the tragedy that befell him, will now be able to bring awareness to the plight of the stray dogs and the heroic efforts of Rescate Malix to help the street dogs of Cancun.