Clap your hands if you believe in Wookie!

After meeting me yesterday, the nice lady JJ decided to rescue me with her group J.J. Woofin' Paws Rescue Agency.  I think she is crazy for taking in a dog like me, but how can I say no to a get out of jail free card? She decided that Lawrence is too stuffy of a name for a little fuzzball guy like me, so she renamed me, Wookie. W. Woofinpaws, Esquire. The First. And Only. 

The kind Dr. Kenneth Jones in Santa Monica offered to let me stay at their hospital for a week while I heal from my neuter and subcutaneous emphysema. I also have a pretty bad ear infection. 

I'm so cute. I started making some Wookie noises. I was real good in the car.

JJ and her friend Maria came and picked me up today from the shelter. They wrapped me up in a towel because I am still kind of fragile and put me in a crate in JJ's car. I was real good in the car and got to meet another dog from Harbor Shelter named Colby Jack. He has a funny underbite like me. When I got to Dr. Jones office, they did xrays on me to make sure that I had no broken bones.  Dr. Stumpp said that he believes I was probably kicked very hard on my backside, as I seemed to have some very tender spots. He was right, the people who I knew before April 2012 were very very mean to me. They kicked me a lot.  I don't like people touching my booty. It hurts.   I said goodbye to JJ and Maria and they checked me into another cage where I will stay for the next five days.

This is me on the exam table.  As you can see, I still have some dreadlocks. I was really scared when they took this picture because I didn't know what they were going to do with me. 

This painting is at Dr. Jones' office. I think it might be my daddy.

Someone stole my family jewels!

Today this nice lady named JJ came to meet me in my cage. She had this big black box in her hand and kept pointing at me and clicking a button. It first it scared me so I was shaking really bad. She finally stopped point that box at me and told me that she would try to find someone who could rescue me.  Then the nice doctor came in, took me and put me on a table in an operating room, then put some gas over my face, and when I woke up, I didn't have any more dreadlocks on my nose and someone had stolen my family jewels!  I felt better but my ear was hurting because it was infected and I still had a lot of air bubbles under my skin. I didn't have a lot of hair.

This is what my haircut looked like. I was still really stinky because the shelter could not give me a bath because of my health problems.

Who is under all that hair?

Yesterday they shaved all of my hair off except for my face and my feet and tail. I have big dreadlocks on my nose but now I can see better. They figured out that I am a boy because they saw my big wanger and huevos. When they shaved me, they realized that I had endured severe trauma to my body causing something called subcutaneous emphysema. You might think this means my lungs are bad like a smoker, but what it really means is that I have air under my skin. I am all puffed up like a balloon, and they think they might have to "pop" me, meaning put a tube into my skin so that they can let the air out. I don't have any obvious cuts on my body, so they think the subQ emphysema was caused by someone hitting or kicking me really hard. They think that all my hair may have protected me from getting any broken bones, because it was like a big thick cushion over my skin.  When you touch my body, it feels like you are running your hand on top of bubble wrap as it is popping.  The nice lady doctor at the shelter is going to monitor me. Now that I am shaved, they put me into a smaller cage in a glass room where I can see the shelter workers.

This is me. You can see my dreadlocks on my face, and they smell as bad as they look, but I am used to it.

Welcome To Wookieville

Hi. My Name is Wookie. I am an Affenpinscher/ Shih Tzu dog. This is the story of my journey.

This is me in April 2012, on the left, and me on the right, in August 2012.

On April 23, 2012, I was wandering the streets looking for food and water, and a nice animal control man with a big pole and a rope caught me by putting the rope around my neck. I was very scared of this human, because I had not been touched by a human in a very long time. They put me in a metal cage called a nabber and took me in a big truck to East Valley Animal Shelter.  When I got there, a nice vet tech gave me my first shot. I am surprised they could find my skin because I had so much hair. I would not let them put that bordatella stuff in my nose, though. Wasn't gonna happen.
Then they put me in a big cement cage. They were afraid to touch me because I smelled really bad and I was growling.  What they didn't know is that I was more afraid of them then they were afraid of me.
They didn't know if I was a boy or a girl because my hair was so long and matted together that they couldn't see my little wang.  They thought I was a Lhasa Apso. They put me into their computer as a stray, and my name was "Dog". They said that I was fractious and unable to safely restrain or handle. I was fine with that because I didn't want them touching me anyway!

I hid in the back of my cubby for a few days. It was dark in there, but it made me feel safe because no one could see me or touch me. They brought me food and water in a bowl, and I was not used to having that.  I also had a nice blanket to lay on, which I was not used to. I was used to sleeping on the dirt and trying to stay warm by curling up into corners of things.

On April 25th, I was still growling at humans and hiding in my cubby. This nice lady named Veronica took my picture, and I came out far enough to say hi. I could barely see her but she was saying nice things to me.

 On May 1st, I think I started to get bored of hiding in my cubby, so I started to come out to the front of my prison cell. I was still very scared and could hear other dogs barking and crying, but I could not see them.  There were some nice ladies who fed me treats and I let them pet the top of my head. One of the nice ladies decided that I needed a haircut, BADLY.  They took FIVE hours to shave me (photos to come), and several clipper blades.  When they shaved me down, they did everything but my face because I wouldn't let them touch my dreadlocks. They put me in a basket, took my photo and posted me online.
Here I am after my first haircut, don't I look pretty stupid in this flowery basket?

Oh, and they named me Lawrence.