Old dogs go to haven

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, February 18, 2007

ARLINGTON – There are those who just can’t grasp the concept behind Old Dog Haven.

“Do you sell puppies?” a voice on the other end of the line asked Lee Piper, who, along with his wife, Judith, operates the dog sanctuary from their rural Arlington home.

“I don’t know what part of ‘Old Dog Haven’ sounds like puppy sales,” Piper said, recalling the conversation.

The couple started Old Dog Haven two and a half years ago with a goal of finding homes for abandoned, neglected and abused older dogs.

“Our goal is to provide a loving, safe home for senior dogs,” Judith Piper said.

Why the focus on old dogs?

Most people want puppies and young dogs, she explained.

“Older dogs are hard to place, although we’re starting to see more interest in them,” she said. “Some dogs are more adoptable than others. We’ve always taken the dogs nobody else wants.”

Since their start in August 2004, the Pipers have created a network of nearly 50 foster homes from Blaine on the Canadian border down to Olympia, as well as on Whidbey and Vashon islands.

That network extends throughout Western Washington, including Snohomish, Whatcom, Skagit, Island, King, Kitsap, Pierce and Thurston counties.

Adopters come from all those counties, as well.

“It started slowly,” Judith Piper says, sitting beside her husband at a wooden patio table outside their home, surrounded by Ali, Queenie, Victor, Bo and nearly a dozen other dogs, all apparently curious about unfamiliar visitors and eager to bring them tennis balls, sticks and slobbery toys.

“Then we got our Web site up in January 2005, and the skies opened,” she says.

The couple handles four or five adoptions a week and deals with 16 shelters and veterinary clinics.

Many dogs come from the Everett Animal Shelter, PAWS in Lynnwood and similar animal assistance centers.

In all of 2005, Old Dog Haven aided 125 dogs. In the first 11 months of 2006, a total of 295 dogs were processed.

“Word of mouth has created a demand they could not have expected,” explained Ingrid Weaver, lead officer at the Everett Animal Shelter, “They are overwhelmed; I know they even get calls from out of state. What they are doing is wonderful.”

Dogs given up every day

Judith Piper operated an equestrian business on the couple’s five-acre property since moving there more than 13 years ago. The horses are gone, but about 15 dogs at any given time have taken their place.

Most are large breeds, with Labrador retrievers making up nearly half: “Labs are the most popular dog when they’re young – everybody wants one – but some people don’t find them as adorable when they get old,” she says.

Many of the dogs they receive belonged to elderly people who are moving from their homes to condominiums, apartments or assisted living centers and are not allowed to take their pets along.

Some senior homes don’t allow any pets, while others have a weight limit, usually 20 pounds.

A third of the dogs come from shelters and rescue groups.

Other dogs are left behind in apartments and college dorms when tenants leave or the school year ends and students move out, leaving the animals like so much unwanted furniture.

“These are people who are giving up their animals because they are in need,” Judith Piper says. “Whether the need is economic – they can’t afford to keep them – or health-related, such as with Alzheimer’s patients, they are in need.

“Do they need to lose their last friend? Every study shows that people do better with a pet. It improves the quality for both the person and the dog.”

Every dog the Pipers have aided is named on a brick “pathway of memories” that winds from their patio to the pasture where the dogs run and play. Each brick has a name and date (“MILLIE 3.05,” “PEANUT 2.05,” “LULU 8.04”).

The Pipers figure they spent $68,000 on veterinary bills in the first 11 months of 2006. The average vet bill is $40 to $50, plus medicine.

Every dog accepted is seen by a vet. Their teeth and their general health are assessed.

Some, of course, cannot be saved. Others are turned over to what the Pipers call final refuge homes. These are usually the dogs who are oldest or who have serious health problems.

Food, of course, is another significant expense. The dogs are given special diets to help them gain or lose weight, to deal with allergies, to provide them with joint supplements and meet other needs. The Pipers use six types of food.

“The majority of the food is donated now,” Judith Piper says, the result of people discovering the Web site or hearing about the shelter in the media.

Donors include people from just about every state, as well as British Columbia and Ontario, Canada – even England and Australia.

Some contributions are as small as $5.

“We get one check every month from an elderly lady with very shaky handwriting,” she says. “It’s very fulfilling, seeing that people share an interest in what we do.”

At night, the dogs sleep inside the Piper home, most of them on dog beds scattered throughout the house, something Judith Piper calls “Petco modern” furnishings.

Kindness leads to shelter

Lee Piper, 58, is a fluid dynamics engineer who still works in Bellevue; Judith Piper, 60, owned a tack shop. Neither had previous training for the operation of such a wide-reaching program.

Their initial plan was simply to take in a few dogs from nearby shelters so they wouldn’t spend their final days on the floor of a kennel.

That soon evolved into a network of foster homes and supporters. The couple filed to become a nonprofit charitable organization and still receive no public funds for what they do.

By early 2005, they had their Web site, www.olddoghaven.org, and had linked with Petfinder.com, a national rescue referral organization.

Recently, the Pipers had 31 dogs in 30 homes and another 15 at their home.

The most difficult part for the couple is knowing that they have a waiting list of 17 or 18 dogs on any day.

“It’s the difference between going to die in a shelter or being cherished by an owner. The object is to make it a happy ending for them.”

Lee Piper said the couple’s goal is to make sure a dog’s last years of life are not just thrown away.

“We do this for our old friends. That’s all these dogs want. Someone to be their friend.”

For more information

Old Dog Haven provides shelter for “post-adolescent” dogs throughout Washington. For more information about helping Old Dog Haven or adopting an animal, go to www.olddoghaven.org or call 360-653-0311.