Shades Of Marshal Dillon"Marshal"
Aug. 28, 1998 to 2-11-2009
It is with very broken hearts, Dave and I are sharing the loss of Marshal today.
We are posting this here because so many folks that are such a part of our lives also took Marshal into theirs as well.
After a battle with tumors invading his body, he did chose to continue to stay with us another two and a half years longer than was predicated. Monday night, he in his way told us he was about ready to go, and Tues. night gave into his ill body which took him over .
The pain for Dave and I is excruciating, but bearable only because we have no choice in it.
We do have some folks to thank though for their help in Marshals amazing life.
Thank you to Milac's Veterinary clinic, Foley MN for saving a rescue puppy and making his life possible for us all to enjoy.
Thank you to Becky Voss, long time and very dear friend and who I call the "Dog Goddess"
She is as passionate about dogs as I am about horses. She spent many hours with Marshal as a sick little puppy to help him find joy in life and that it was worth fighting for.
He never forgot all through these years the scrunchy in her long hair that he so loved to pull out.
To Greg and Diane Parker for when they would come visit, would play and again show him love and a will to live. I remember very well Greg being to tall for my sofa stretching out on it with legs draping over the arm and folding Marshal ,a very sick puppy in the crook of his arm and taking naps together.
Thank you to Spring Valley Vet Clinic, for helping Dave and I through a very hard time for us today to be with Marshal through the end, while making it as painless as possible, they have quite an amazing staff there.
Thank you to all the friends and clients that accepted and showed kindness to our sweet, loving Marshal when visiting our ranch.
We will miss the popcorn feeds we did because Marshal loved them so, his twice a day biscuit spreads, Dave taking him for his daily walk to 'Snoof and Foof" as we called it, through the fields.
My love of feeding him Long spaghetti noodles.
We now have a very large hole in our daily lives here but every minute and year we had with Marshal made us both better for it and we tried to make his the best life a dog could ever want.
Liz
Marshal 's Story
It is here I feel important to tell Marshal's story as it is one of lessons in life learned with many messages for us all to take to heart.
Also I am getting to an age in which I don't care to about protecting the bad people in this world for fear of them hurting me or others, they do so anyway to cover their own guilt's and behaviors.
The Start
It begins on an Oct. Friday making a trip to do a clinic, I have asked a lesson client of mine to make the long drive with me and to work as an assistant.
I have done a clinic here before and know what kind of place I am going to, but this time I was not prepared for what I was to find.
We enter the home, the owner is on the phone with a very tiny puppy in her
hands at a table.
She is talking on the phone while pushing this puppies face into a coffee cup with dog food made into a gruel trying to get him to eat it. She is explaining to the other person on the phone that she does not feel a puppy the person on the other end was supposed to purchase for the amount of $500.00 dollars and go to Canada will make it.
Marshal and Liz at Dog show
When she gets off the phone it turns out the puppy in her arm is the one being talked about, we can see he is very sick. We learn he is but 5 weeks old and already weaned and has gotten aspirated pneumonia due to being forced to eat this gruel to get him weaned for sale. He has already had seizures earlier in the week and looks in bad shape and states she is not going to put in the money to try and save him.
There is a litter of 9 puppies, 3 are what people call runts and the other 6 are in another room in a little pen being fed in an old pot with this same gruel, the smell is awful as the new newspaper bedding is just being piled upon the old dirty feces filled paper. The 3 runt puppies are being kept in a filthy bathroom with a space heater on a foam pad, again filthy and saturated in feces, the air is stifling.
For the night I am put in a bedroom above this bathroom and hear a little puppy making desperate crying through the night. I am up in the morning with little sleep, very upset about what some may term as a dog breeding facility , I would call it something else. I want to go home, and not do this clinic but I do it anyway, exhausted and upset by what is happening to these puppies.
Again Sunday night I sleep above this bathroom for the second night, again this one puppy crying so weakly. At the finish of the clinic we head back to the house to pack to leave This puppy is near death we could tell, I beg in a mannerly way to the owner to let me take him and try to save him, she does not want to do this and says he'll not make it. I could so tell she was worried if he did make it she would be out a perfectly good $500.00 dollars.
She finally gives in and we get in the truck to go. Every 7-10 minutes Lynn my student tips the puppy, head down so the fluids filling in his lungs can drain. The first stop we make as soon as possible is to buy rolls of paper towels and bathroom towels to absorb the fluids we are draining from the puppies lungs.
I had no cell phone then, but had a calling card and at the pay phone called Milac's Vet Clinic the clinic I used close to home. I knew I would have to leave a recording and wait for a call back to see if I could get who ever was on call to meet me that night. We had a 5 hour drive home to see if we could save this puppy, if he made the trip.
To my surprise the vet answers the phone personally, saying he's in the office on a Sunday as he is rearranging the surgery , he would wait for us to get there and do what he could when we arrived.
So 5 hours later of working to keep the puppies lungs clear and praying from both of us for him to live till we get to the vet. He says it does not look good but he will try with the night staff watching him close after he did what first treatment he could.
Marshal as the little babe
Well he made it through the night, I was able to pick him up 2 days later, he was blind due to the seizures he had previously. The vet said he may get his vision back or he may not. It took 21 days but it came back fully, he was left with much scar tissue in his lungs, an enlarged heart and predicted to have a short life. I named him Marshal and took him home to feed milk replacer via an eye dropper, kept him when not out and about the house, in a child's play pen in the living room. I called upon many friends to help me and Marshal to get through the hard start. They supported me, played and helped nurse him back to health. He weighted in at a Meir pound and a half at 5 weeks when he was rescued and grew into a 72 pound big, healthy, happy dog, who cherished life,while wanting everyone else to be as happy and grateful for their lives.
Marshal learned to be a good citizen, went to obedience school, which he would do leaps when I picked up the leash once a week to load up in the truck for school, he so loved school and going any where for a ride.
It was only twice I was not able to protect him from bad people, the first when a few months old the breeder of him came by and before I knew it grabbed him up by the scruff of the neck and dropped him on the floor and said " that is how you make them hold still". I definitely got the feeling for many years she was very angry he lived and she lost out on that all important to her,money. The second time I had training clients staying in the house which I used to do and caught the man smacking Marshal across the head when he thought I was not there. Hence their being asked to leave and for many years never let clients stay in my home again. I have allowed this again but only to those we feel good about , they are watched till we feel we can trust them not to be monitored.
Shade who I bought off a client after not being able to talk any friends into buying to keep her from going back. She is still thin in this photo but was 200 pounds under weight when she first came in and still had some work to get her hooves shorter as they had not seen care in a very long time. Shades story is being written about in full as it's a sad start but a happy end.
The Messages, Things to do and the Price it can Cost
Rescuing critters of any specie can be a lot of work, dedication ,time, money with heart break. On the other hand the joy they bring,no price can be put on.
We are in some tough times right now,the phone calls and e-mails have been coming in here for over a year in folks desperate to give away or sell horses cheap. Dave and I have taken on all we can right now and hope if any one that has the reasonable means to take in any needy critter, to do so.
I have done this for many years now. I have purchased horses from clients that I felt I needed to keep them from going back to if I could not get any one else I knew to buy them from the owners. Trained and/or rehabbed them to get better homes later.
I have bought horses that were so crippled they should never be ridden again to keep that from happening. We have one here now that I payed way to big of a price for just to keep any one from ever riding her again.
We have bought horses that have been victims of bad big lick training to rehabbed and find better homes. My April was one of those horses and took many years to help come through all her horrors of the past.
Not only horses but the goats, Llamas, a chicken" Starven Marven", dogs, ducks, rabbits so many wonderful creatures over the years with so many stories.
My dear April who let me in to help her.
Some of these stories will be told as Jane who patiently and tactfully is writing my book, and is prying from my brain, computer, journals and records pulling it all together.
Right now the animal rescues are lacking funds and space, and I have in the past, donated training and housing to help rescues out, this is another option available to help if you can. We have a wonderful rescue here in MN,' The MN Hooved Rescue". Just know their hands are tied as if you know of abuse or lack of care they can only go in if the state or county authorities call them in, and more often there has to be many dead animals before a state or county will step in.
A word of warning from my own experience, be sure the rescue is legitimate. I myself have been hoodooed by some working under the guise of being a rescue and they were no more than mass breeding facilities and/or horse traders using the name of a rescue to bring in funds or use you, so check them out first.
The price it can cost though can be more than money. Due to much of this kind of work through the years you can also bring the wrath of those you help upon you, along with any one they can bring along to follow them so be stronger in what they do, I call theses "the followers of the cats" with the "cats" being the sneaky predators initiating the events in the first place. These do seem to be times when folks that are kind, giving and trying to do the right thing can be looked upon as weakness and perfect targets for the mean spirited and bullies in the world . Often those you help will feel the need to slander, or go to any means to bring a negativity upon you them selves and from others to cover their own guilt of bad behaviors. Please don't let these type of behaviors stop you from helping the animals, as it is worth the price. A good example of that is with all the sad things Dave and I see in our travels and our work ,when ever at home we had Marshal and have all other wonderful members of our critter family to help us keep going and working and soften the blow of reality. They give us so much back, in joy, laughter and purpose for what we try to give them in love and care.
They create the light in our lives and know they do in many of your as well.
I have many friends that do the same in their lives for the animals they can and I thank them for the work they do and it's rare if ever they hear those words or at the very least do not hear it enough.
Warmest wishes to you all and may even the hardest of hearts find peace and love in this life.
Liz
Copyright 2009
Bubba communicating a response to something with my friend Viv.
Bubba about 6 years ago once again having to do something different. This time by the look on his face says , "This is way more load than I'm used too, and I look ridiculous".
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