There's a girl in a Boston, MA shelter who is going to die if we don't take her... can anybody help? Is anybody close enough to go evaluate this girl??

Hi Everybody,   We have been contacted by a Boston, MA shelter about Putney, a spayed, almost 12 year old female Rattie. Here is poor Putney's story. It's rather sad - her owner wound up homeless. Do we have someone who can take Putney??  Here's a link to Putney's pix (I couldn't find the SOS album!!):   http://imageevent.com/rattiemom/putney?n=0   Here is the shelter's original e-mail:   Hello, I work at the Animal Rescue League of Boston and I wanted to ask if you might have space for a Rat Terrier we have here right now. Her name is Putney and she is an 11 ½ year old spayed female. Her owner is homeless and we had her here for some time hoping she would get her housing situation squared away, but she hasn’t. We do have a lot of dogs waiting for adoption right now, and we don’t think she would be an adoption candidate through our shelter. She is older, and also has some issues with resource guarding. She will growl, but has never bitten. However, with her owner she is really great – she refers to her just as "cheeky". Anyway, we are trying to make some decisions about her, so if you could let me know if she might be a candidate for your rescue, that would be great. I’d be happy to send along photos or any other information you might need. Thanks, Melissa Cox ARL Boston   Here is my inquiry:   Hi Melissa, My name is Sue Carello and I am a volunteer with Ratbone Rescues. Your email was forwarded to me to handle. We would first need a picture for breed verification. Also, can you please tell me how long you've had her? Has she been temperment tested? Is she able to be put up for adoption through your shelter? Is she in danger of being euthanized? Have you been in contact with her owner recently to check on the housing situation? Thanks for contacting Ratbone and I look forward to working with you. Sue Carello Ratbone Rescues MA State Coordinator   Here is the shelter's current email and reply:   Thank you so much for the quick reply. I do have photos of Putney that I am attaching. Her history with us is a little complicated. Putney first arrived at our shelter in late March. The woman who had been watching Putney for the owner brought her to us because she could no longer care for her. She said she tried to contact the owner prior to the surrender, but had no luck. We called the owner right after she was surrendered and she got in touch with us the next day. She was living at a homeless shelter and could not have her dog there, although she did come in every day to visit Putney. We normally don’t do any temporary boarding here, but we did agree to hold Putney for her through the end of April since she was coming so often to help with her care to give her a chance to either reclaim her or find placement for Putney. She was successful and found another home at the end of April to take Putney temporarily while she continued to search for housing. However this weekend, the person holding Putney temporarily said that she could no longer hold onto the dog, and brought her back here. At this point her owner has not had any luck finding housing and with it being summer and busy, we can’t do another month+ boarding agreement with her, so she did sign Putney over to us. Unfortunately the owner has been homeless for a while now, and while we would love if she could find a place to live and have her dog, I don’t know if that realistically will happen. We did do a behavior evaluation, and while her age isn’t necessarily an issue for us (although we have 5 other senior dogs right now that we’ve been having trouble adopting), behaviorally we don’t think we can place her for adoption here, so she is a possible candidate for euthanasia. On her intake her owner did report possessive aggression (growls over food, rawhides, stolen items) although we didn’t see this on her evaluation, although she did growl over some of the handling tests. She is pretty friendly to strangers though, and she does not bark or growl at people in her cage. She tolerates little dogs, but will snap at big dogs if they get too in her face. She did live with cats. If there is anything else you would need from me, please let me know. You can email me or call me at 617-226-5634. Thanks again! -Melissa

awwwwwm that just breaks my heart.....   and what a tough situation.... I hope someone steps up. 

Sue,

While I am not out that way I put an email out to the Russell Rescue group to see if they have someone that may even be able to go evaluate her. I have not heard anything back but will keep checking.

Also, with you offline if you need info from here or want to post call me and I can look or post for you til you are back online.

Val

I just talked with the shelter - they'll give us until the end of next week... phew..... they made it sound like they wanted her out ASAP...  so it's still urgent, just not as bad........

Thanks, everybody!