Henry is now Officially Famous!

Community Herald report extraordinaire Pat Lee has done a super article about Po/Henry so he is now officially famous! It's in this week's Dartmouth Community Herald and it's a wonderful heartwarning article about him. The paper version of the article has a couple extra photos than what the online version has, so I'm including them in this version that you see here as well. I also want to talk about all the people who helped Henry get to where he got to today - so that we can see that it really does take a community to get some dogs to their perfect final places - Henry is the poster dog for so many parts of rescue - there were so many reasons that he should have been killed right at the beginning - why take a chance on a dog that exhibited food aggression, barked 24 hours a day, was hopelessly chained out his whole life, had an unknown history of how he was going to deal with a normal life - these are all things that should have gotten him killed - and WOULD have gotten him killed in a normal shelter situation.

But somehow - whether it was the look in his eyes, the conviction of the first couple people who took him on, or serendipity - he lived. And now he is going to live out the rest of what is probably going to be a long and wonderful life - the way all dogs - our companion animals - SHOULD live, WITH us - inside our homes, next to us - part of our lives.

So Po/Henry's story started with Corinne Reid - she's the lady who heard his incessant barking - day after day, night after night - until she couldn't handle it anymore - and she HAD to go find this dog - and when she did, she couldn't turn away - she had to rescue him somehow. I talk about her brave story finding him help in a blog post called "the story of Po"

He made his way to the Cape Breton SPCA where by some freak of luck they didn't kill him - and they also got 3-4 years of wheaten fur cut from his body. Imagine how you'd feel if you'd lived your life with 10 winter coats on all the time and suddenly you had them removed - I'm sure that's how Henry felt. Lee Anne Tibbo got involved at that point and arranged his transport up here to Halifax to a foster home - a fellow named Rob drove him up - and that's where I came in. I met him out at the airport's Tim Hortons and picked Henry up there.

I was blessed to have Henry for about 14 hours - unfortunately, the foster home that was arranged for him had fallen through - and I could NOT take him to my house - my dogs would have eaten him ALIVE - Buttercup would have turned poor Henry into mincemeat - so with no notice at all - at 9pm at night - I went to my friend Janet's house - who has a doggy day care in her basement - and me and Henry spent the night down there.

What actually happened was Henry humped me from the moment I got him until the time I dropped him off the next morning - so neither of us actually slept. I think it might have had something to do with the removing of the 10 winter coats, being in a car for the first time in his life for 6 hours, and being chained to a dog house where nothing happens - and being transported to a place where there's all kinds of exciting things around him. And the only way he knew how to express it was by humping the thing closest to him. It was a LOVELY experience!

So from me he went to Boxwood Kennels out in Tantallon for a few days rest - I'm told he was a very good boy out there. The next people on the Henry chain was a lady named Candice and her husband who transported Henry to his first official foster home - Leslie and her family, where he stayed for quite a while and really calmed down and learned how to be a good dog. He then went on to another foster home - Meaghan and Aidas back here in the HRM, and from here he was adopted to his forever home in November.

Within all of this Henry had medical issues - he had one dog attack him and hit his jugular vein and he almost died - but luckily he didn't, he had a hematoma in one of his ears that had to be operated on, he had to be neutered, he licked his penis so much it got infected - is that too much information? Yuck! But the organization looking after him - Animal Rescue Coalitions - took care of it all.

Henry really is a model case of a model rescue. From beginning to end.

One correction I have to make about the article though - Corinne did NOT ask the owners to give the Henry to her - Animal Control ordered the owners to have Po/Henry groomed by a certain date or they'd be fined or have Henry seized, and what they did in response to that was take Henry and abandon him in another part of the town they were living in - so that shows how much they hated being dog owners!!! So Henry was very lucky to get away from those humans. They were sickening and horrible animal abusers - I hope they never get another animal.

Here's the article in this week's Community Herald

From matted to natty
Once tied up for days on end, dog finds new home with Dartmouth family
By PAT LEE Staff Reporter


DARTMOUTH — Tied to a doghouse outside a Sydney home day and night for several years, Henry’s world was as big as a two-metre-long chain would allow.

His family was nearby, just on the other side of a tall wooden fence they had built blocking his view of the house, but he was never brought indoors, growing a long coat that was painfully matted and dirty beyond belief.
Finally, a neighbour who could no longer stand the dog’s suffering asked his owners to give him up. The Halifax-based Animal Rescue Coalition was then contacted and they placed him in several foster homes and recently found him a permanent, loving home in Dartmouth.


You’d never know he was the same dog.

“If you hear the squeak, that’s Henry playing with one of his toys,” Anita Keeping said last week during a phone chat about the newest member of the family.

“He likes to wait until we’re on the phone to play with his toys,” added husband Paul.

Adopted in November by the Keepings, Henry (who was formerly known as Po) has emerged from a dirty, matted coat to reveal himself to be a playful and handsome fellow who is most likely a Wheaton terrier.

“When you think about the first three years of his life, it’s hard to believe how happy he is to just be around people,” she said. “He just loves people.”


You’d never know he was the same dog.

“If you hear the squeak, that’s Henry playing with one of his toys,” Anita Keeping said last week during a phone chat about the newest member of the family.

“He likes to wait until we’re on the phone to play with his toys,” added husband Paul.

Adopted in November by the Keepings, Henry (who was formerly known as Po) has emerged from a dirty, matted coat to reveal himself to be a playful and handsome fellow who is most likely a Wheaton terrier.

“When you think about the first three years of his life, it’s hard to believe how happy he is to just be around people,” she said. “He just loves people.”