It was a good day to be a one-eyed poodle.
Drew's elderly owners had to give him up earlier this year when they moved into a retirement home. At the time, his eye was oozing, itchy and puffed shut after a run-in with another dog.
But yesterday, recovered from surgery and stitches, Drew met Joyce Cackler during the crisp afternoon at an adoption festival in Reston for rescued dogs, and she was ready.
Foster mom Brandi Singleton carries Siberian husky Daphne to the adoption event in Reston.
(Andrea Bruce Woodall -- The Washington Post)
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Cackler, a retired college instructor from Falls Church, has been mourning the loss of Molly, her one-eyed Jack Russell terrier, last year.
"It takes a while to get over the death of a dog. They are good friends," Cackler said. "I didn't go looking for a one-eyed dog."
At the Metro D.C. No More Homeless Pets Super Dog Adoption Day yesterday, part of a national adoption event sponsored by Home 4 the Holidays, volunteers from such groups as Adopt-A-Chow Rescue, Chocolate Chip Dalmatian Assistance League and the Homeless Animals Rescue Team (HART), which handled Drew, touted their discarded charges with a discerning eye for suitable replacement families. They said they wanted to promote thoughtful holiday adoptions while thwarting impulsive decisions that could lead to a flood of post-Christmas dog returns.
Many, such as Virginia German Shepherd Rescue's Tommie Lanasky, refer to themselves as foster parents. She led 10-month-old Sport though the barking gantlet of fellow rescuees and would-be owners. Sport had been caged for so long before Lanasky got him that he needed a paw operation.
"People get them and don't train them and they get too big," said Lanasky, an Alexandria bookkeeper. "I think they get a bad rap sometimes. German shepherds used to be considered mean dogs, but they're not."
Lanasky keeps dogs for months at a time, and said she still feels the tug when they head off for a permanent home. "It was really hard at first. There are some I go and visit."
Ben May, 17, a Loudoun County high school student, was being dragged by Gibbs, a Washington Redskins jersey-wearing Basset hound he had adopted some time ago from Basset Rescue Of Old Dominion and brought along for support. "He was about to be euthanized," said May, who chastised Gibbs for slobbering on a friendly would-be adoptee. "Look what you did to his snout," May said.
A volunteer, fearing the dog's new frothy face made him look angry, wiped him clean.
Dawn-Marie Nous, helping a group of volunteers from Harford County, Md., sought to place Mitsy, a 12-year-old black Labrador retriever wearing a cloth billboard that said: "Need a dog? I'm a dog. Adopt me!"
"Her family moved, and they didn't take her," she said. "She seems to be looking around, looking for her owners."
Trainers also came to drum up business and offer hope for families thinking about dumping hard-to-control pets.
Julie Jacobus of Professor of Paws, a dog training company, counseled Penny Weissman on how to manage her sister's chocolate Lab. Marley, it seems, clamps down on arms and other body parts in a playful but painful way. Weissman, of Herndon, has taken out training videos from the local library but had no luck.
Jacobus prescribed a disciplined regime of five-minute timeouts for each infraction.
"The worst punishment you can give a dog is to remove it from the attention of its pack," Jacobus said, who added that a swat is never the right answer. "There are better ways to teach a child than to hit them."
As for Drew, his new owner reported that he was settling in late yesterday. "He could certainly use a bath right now, but he still has stitches," Cackler said from her home. He's well-behaved, she said, and is getting used to his new family. "You can't ask for a lot more."
