Wish is a Lemon and White Pointer who was surrendered to an over-full kill-shelter at the age of (approximately) 4.5 months in Tennessee because she didn’t quite cut it as a young bird dog.

She was in a very urgent situation, so Pointer Rescue Organization stepped in to help this sweet pup. We dropped off our foster dog, Lilly, on her transport to her forever home on May 19, 2018 and picked up Wish on her transport from Tennessee the very next day on on May 20, 2018.

Picking up Wish from her long transport:

Immediately upon her arrival at  our home, we could tell she had little-to-no human contact.  In fact, she didn’t even respond to human voices, had no bite inhibition, and was extremely wild.  We knew we had a lot of work ahead of us!

Soon after Wish arrived, she had to be put on “medical hold” for adoption for several reasons.  First, after Brian and I examined her on our own, we noticed that she was limping on her right leg.  After an orthopedic consultation, X-rays showed she had an abnormal shoulder joint. The specialist said it looked like it was most likely caused by an old compression fracture of the scapula. Unfortunately there is no surgical correction for this.  Due to this untreated injury, we were told that Wish shouldn’t be pushed beyond normal activity – which meant that she would not be able to be a running partner, a hiker, or a hunting buddy ( a lot of the reasons people adopt Pointers like Wish). It was also noted that she did have a little pain on hyper-extension of her shoulder.  If she develops arthritis or increase lameness in the future, amputation would be the best option.  Secondly, we had also noticed that all of her lymph nodes were swollen.  We had tests done to explore this issue, and luckily, the testing did not indicate any cancer.  The test did show, however, that this very young pup had gone through some major traumatic illness.  Her swollen lymph nodes could also remain a chronic issue.  Next, we also observed that Wish had constant diarrhea.  We tried every home remedy and medication out there before putting her on a prescription diet.  The prescription diet combined with an antibiotic seemed to regulate her somewhat, but this, too, would be a possible chronic problem. Lastly, Once Wish settled, in and became a bit more comfortable with our pack, she began to display a lack of pack manners.  She would need to be slowly integrated into a pack, and closely watched, as she jumped on the other dogs, nibbled on their ears, and did not respond at all to warnings or even corrections from the other dogs.  In the meantime, we discovered that Wish also had major separation anxiety, and could not be in the crate more than a few minutes without having an accident.  The above medical and behavioral problems made it more difficult to find an adoptive home for her, so she had remained with us for several months.

Although any dog we have brought into our home is immediately loved as if they have always been a part of our family, we had spent several months with Wish, and became very attached to her, despite her medical and behavioral issues. Wish also seemed to be very happy at our home.  She became very attached to Limoncello, and wanted to be wherever Cello was – even if it meant jumping in the lake to be with her!  Wish began jumping off of our dock into the lake to get to Limoncello – something an English Pointer doesn’t usually do!

On National Dog Day, August 26, 2018, while at a dock diving event in Canada, we made the decision to officially adopt Wish into our family as “Tennessee Whiskey!”  Welcome home, baby girl!

You can click HERE to see pictures of Whiskey’s Journey from being dumped in the kill shelter… to traveling all the way from Tennessee to New Jersey …to being adopted by us.  And of course, you can now follow her adventures both here, as well as on all our social media pages:   FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, and YOUTUBE !