He is completely submissive and utterly defiant as the hands reach into the cage. He knows from long, sad experience that fighting the hands only brings pain. He can never win. The hands are too strong. Even so, as he turns his head and lowers his ears and body submissively, he curves his body around hers, presenting his side to the reaching hands, protecting her body from whatever evil the hands bring. He has lived through it all before, the endless separations and the reduction in food, the return of a grieving bitch who cries for puppies he has never seen, the disappearance forever of the mate he strove to protect, the long truck rides with the thirst and hunger and the sudden arrival to a new cage with females for him to breed and try to protect. When the hands grab anything could happen. Usually it is something that, in his little universe, can only be seen as bad.

King is a long time veteran of the puppy mills. He has traveled from mill to mill producing puppies for pet stores and mill breeding stock as he goes. When bred to strangers, his dam, his sister or his daughters, like Tootsie, he produces pups. This makes him a good sire in high demand. At this last mill, he was a failure and so he was discarded and once again must adapt to changing conditions. This time, he has ended up in the hands of breed rescue and the changes will confound and amaze him.

The last mill King lived in was located in Massachusetts. Over 100 dogs plus various exotic animals lived and bred there - they still do though King and Tootsie escaped it. Small dogs such as King and his daughter/mate Tootsie reside in wire rabbit hutch type cages inside an unlit windowless garage. Glimpses of daylight are seen only during feeding and cleaning time when a door is opened to provide a dim gloom in the far reaches of the garage. The wire, sharp and dirty, made King and Tootsie's feet splay and become infected as their toenails grew in circles into their pads. The low quality food and the lack of sunlight denuded their bodies of fur, blackened their skin and left them with the potbellied look of famine victims. Ear and eye infections along with tartar engulfed teeth and gum inflammation plagued them. The mill provided food (however bad) water and shelter (however vile) and with the addition of an annual vet visit for rabies vaccinations, safely complied with the state laws to continue its operation despite the objection of local animal lovers.

Tootsie wags her stumpy tail as the hands reach for her. Somewhere, somehow, she was a pet during her formative years and she remembers. She remembers hands that scratch, stroke or deliver treats. (In fact, it was probably her breeder as she came from what sounds like a satellite mill which raises a few litters of dogs in the home under a wholesaler's guidance. The wholesaler 'takes care' of selling the pups.) Tootsie is happy and ever hopeful that this time the hands will bring pleasure as they once did. King thrusts her aside with his shoulder to protect her from her foolhardiness. He knows to the bone what she cannot bring herself to believe - the hands bring only evil and pain. King watches as the hands pet Tootsie, scratching and stroking here and there while friendly sounds come from the face looming over them. Suddenly, the hand veers for him and he ducks but not quickly enough. The hands run down his body gently and itch softly behind his ears as he freezes immobile waiting for what comes next. Tootsie reaches out with her stubby mouth and grasps the hand in it. Wagging her tail she slowly trundles across the cage dragging the hand behind her. When she is as far from a wondering King as possible she drops the hand and wags her whole body as she grins up at the hands' owner. Pet ME - he doesn't understand, she seems to say.

This year Tootsie produced no puppies. There is no sense in keeping livestock that doesn't produce. Normally that spells death for the puppy mill dog. Luck is with King and Tootsie, at this mill the vet euthanizes for the mill owner. That costs money. The kennel cleaner offers to take this spring's small culls, a Boston Terrier, a Shih Tzu and the two Affenpinschers, to a friend who takes in small dogs in need of rescue. There have been unexpected expenses at the mill this year. A visitor found the adult Dalmatians, a dog and four bitches, playing catch with the body of a rabid skunk. The dogs and their litters have been placed under quarantine with vet bills to pay for and no puppy sales. Nobody bought the filthy ungroomed Standard Poodle pups and at eight months they were still eating kennel food and taking up space. Though they soon could be bred, now they were extra cost. The mill owner agreed to the small culls going to rescue rather than pay to euthanize them and dispose of their bodies.

By the time breed rescue arrives for the Affenpinschers the Boston Terrier has already gone to the local rescue for that breed. The Shih Tzu still waits for a contact to return a call. As it happens Affenpinscher rescue finds the Shih Tzu a home when no rescue person steps forward to help her.

King and Tootsie have had two baths but their black skin still smells. Once the hands have grasped him King stoically awaits the next thing. Placed out in the graveled yard he anxiously looks for Tootsie's arrival. Together they gingerly and nervously move around the yard on sore feet, unsure of the wide expanses of a ten foot yard, evacuating bowels and bladders anyway. The stairs up are beyond their ability and experience so they are lifted again and carried to be placed in the crate in the car's tailgate. King barks and cries until Tootsie joins him and they settle down for the ride into the unknown.

The dogs seem surprised they have arrived so soon. The barking of the other dogs does not effect them. King's nose is busy seeking the odor of a bitch in season or perhaps of a rival stud. They are placed in an x-pen centered in the big yard and the house dogs are slowly sent out singly and in small groups to meet them. King stands high on his toes, head raised and tail wagging rigidly, the picture of an available stud. Tootsie sits unconcerned in the center of the pen. This is no business of hers.

There is something very strange about this new place. The food is good and comes twice a day. The water bowl is clean. King looks stricken with panic as the water bowl is lifted away. There is still water in it! Why is it being taken? Will this be a place of thirst? He has been in such places before. The look on his face is unbelieving as the water bowl is returned rinsed of the floating fur on its surface and refilled fresh. He sniffs the water and looks up in incomprehension at the person looming above him who has replaced perfectly drinkable water with more. This is a strange place indeed.

The smell of the people's dinner excites the resident dogs. King and Tootsie are huddled in the crate on the strange soft stuff that King was afraid to step on at first despite its reassuring doggy smell. Their 6x6 pen lies halfway between the kitchen and the living room and they could see into either if it interested them. As the people clear the table there comes the sounds of dogs eating. Tootsie emerges interested to see and King follows her. A hand approaches and King ducks back but Tootsie gently takes the meat scrap. King's mouth is nudged by the hand and he opens it. The hand puts a meat scrap in it. King opens his mouth and lets the strange thing fall to the floor and sniffs it. He seems to have never seen, smelled or tasted meat before. Tootsie reaches for it and King snatches it up. Making peculiar faces he shifts the strange thing until he finds teeth that don't hurt and chews and swallows. Tootsie grabs the next piece as if by right and King hesitantly accepts another. He might get used to this strange food. (Lamb, his first taste of meat is still a favorite.)

At first King seems frightened of the open space of the yard and the waving of tree branches. Tootsie basks in the sun soaking up rays as ravenously as she inhales her food. Gradually King explores the yard and the wooded back reaches of the fenced acre become as familiar as the grassy upper area he first saw. Though he has been neutered he shows no sign of any change. At nearly 10 he will have the stud attitude for life though the drive will lessen. Visiting many trees is still on his agenda.

When he and Tootsie were neutered their teeth were cleaned and that has had a larger effect on them than the other surgery. With healthy gums they can chew dry food unmoistened and begin to enjoy chewing hard biscuits and rawhide treats. Their fur is grown back and the other infections have been cleared up. When the black skin clears up each dog shows a tattoo in its ear. No one would ever have know it was there before that.

Tootsie's spay was difficult, her internal organs were fused with many adhesions and her reproductive organs were scarred and badly out of place. Apparently she had what can be best referred to as a kitchen table c-section when she was unable to deliver her pups naturally. She had failed to conceive this spring because of the mess inside of her and this probably saved her life. The veterinarian who does the surgery is furious at the condition of the dogs to begin with and Tootsie's internal landscape horrifies him. If the mill had been in his state he'd have found a way to shut them down. Both dogs have heart murmurs and luxated patellas - they never should have been bred never mind inbred as they were.

King and Tootsie learn that the noises the people make have meaning that they can understand. The get into the routine and can find the door to go out and come back in and their own sleeping/eating place. King has to be placed in his overstuffed chair with Tootsie every day where they snooze together in comfort. Snuggling on the couch and soliciting petting is a new skill he has adapted to so well that visiting strangers are effusively greeted with a demand for attention. He shoves his head under the now wonderful hands to force them onto his body! One visitor comments that it is as if King found out about being a pet so late in his life, with so little time left for this new joy, that he feels he must work overtime at giving the love he has hidden all these years to whomever will accept it. Tootsie acts as if she knew this was the way it should be all along.

King and Tootsie's lives still could be better. They could have the attention they crave and share it with fewer competitors. They could have more couch time and more frequent petting. A new home with their own people could show up. It will have to be better home than they have now or they won't leave. Until that day comes, or until life becomes too much of a burden for them, they are safe with breed rescue. Somewhere out there is the home King and Tootsie deserve. Breed Rescue is there to care for and about them until that home appears. Do you know some one who's hands should be continuing King and Tootsie's lessons in affection and love for the rest of their lives? If not these two dogs, does a rescue somewhere hold the right dog for you?

1997 update
King still lives here at breed rescue and will stay until the end. He is getting old and feeble. Tootsie passed away in November. She was unable to walk for several weeks and we finally had our vet put her to sleep. Both became reliably housebroken and spent their time as pets in the rescue household.

Note: The text contained in this article is copyrighted by: Nancy Holmes. No part of this aricle may be reproduced and sold for profit without first obtaining permission from the author. You may use this article for personal use only.

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