Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Under the direction of Andrea Lewis' Cocker Rescue in southeast Ohio, a placement was found for this guy in Chattanooga. As soon as the plans were in place to get him transported and dozens of people were involved in the pulling, transport and eventual placement of this guy--some angel walked into the shelter and adopted him. Everyone was very happy to call off the plans and we hope he and his new family enjoy a long and happy life together.

If you are that angel, drop me an email privately and let me know how he's doing. We all fell more than a little in love with him during this.

Anyway, I've been busy trying to catch up on my submissions all week. I've got about 25 out right now. If I can keep it at 30 cycling between the long responders and the short responders that should be sufficient. At least, that's the plan.

I'm thinking of doing another story cycle in May. I need to concentrate on neutral or upbeat stories for a bit. The majority of the stories I see printed in the literary journals are of this type. They don't engage the reader on an emotional level. They strive to engage the reader mentally and to be memorable--just not too memorable. They are fairly formulaic in that they start with a mundane circumstance, add an extraordinary or unusual event, then bring the narrator or protagonist back to a steady state. Half the time they don't bring the character to a steady state and just leave the story hanging--like the writer just stopped writing. The protagonist is changed very slightly--or not at all. What is to be interesting in this type of story is the protagonist's psychological contortions to the unusual event.

Yes, I find all this boring too. But I've read hundreds of published stories with this formula in the past few months. I'm not sure my voice is even capable of writing this type of story--and my everyday life is not terribly full of mundane circumstances using urban standards. I would need to time travel back to my life in the cities to get the sort of things I would need to write like this.

At any rate, I have a few months to think about this. I should make an effort I suppose.

I've been busy with rescue stuff and submissions.

I really need a hero for this guy in Elizabethton. He's so well housebroken, he's gotten constipated at the shelter. Time is running out and he gets put down this Friday. It's a small rural shelter and they just don't have room. So things are looking pretty bleak for Winston.

It's a sad fact that we just can't save them all. Rescues who don't recognize their limitations become little more than hoarders, but it still stings every time we lose one. But that's reality. There are so many lovely cockers and other purebred dogs in the shelters, on top of all the lovely mixed breeds, that we can't save them. Not all of them. All we can do is the best we can. It smarts, but there it is.

It's so crazy--the whole attitude I see here against spaying and neutering. And the people who won't spay or neuter their dogs and cats, are often the same people who say they can't bear to go to the shelter because it breaks their hearts. The same people who drop unwanted dogs off on the side of the road to starve to death because taking them to the shelter would be too cruel.

So they blame the shelters for their own crimes. They let the shelters clean up their messes because they are too lazy, uninformed or uncaring to take responsibility.

Yeah. It does chap my hide. It really does.

Pray for Winston, please.

I heard from Bart's mom today! Bart is one of the most beloved former residents of Rosie's Cocker Rescue Referral. He's an English Cocker Spaniel and the only one I ever hosted. What a sweetie! He always wears this sort of serious face when you take pictures of him, but in real life, he's quite a mug.

Anyway, Bart has taken up kayaking and is evidently having a grand old time with the paddling crowd!

Here he is from his time with us. Mad Max took his spot when Bart left for his forever home. But when Bart was here, we could still enjoy the oriental rug. Because Bart wasn't a whackadoodle like Max is.

Ba--Ba--Roooooo!