RESCUING BUCKY IN HONDURAS: My dog Buck was rescued from Honduras. My husband and I found a pup buried in the sand on the island town of Roatan. What do you do? We cleaned his wounds and tried to offer him water. He was very dehydrated. It took a week for him to drink water and we taught him to eat dog food in addition to the scraps he found. He was skin and bones, just a yellow pup chasing crabs and swimming in the ocean to catch fish to survive. He was missing part of his left ear. (We heard that crabs drag puppies down into their holes to eat them. Bucky won, but received a distinguished-looking ear that became vital in our effort to save him. Bucky lived with us in our bungalow room as we tried to heal him. He left during the day but was always there for a nap in air conditioning and to stay with us at night. The first time he slept in our room, he slept for 8 hours straight. The cleaning people swept and made all sorts of noise around him, but he never woke up. He was in A/C on a 105-degree day. He swam with us in the ocean and took us on walks to show us the island. We fell in love with him when he scratched at the door on the 4th day and wouldn't come inside until we looked down the steps behind him. He had lined up 6-8 homeless dogs which he also wanted us to help. I fell in love for keeps. We split up the little bag of dog food so each homeless dog got something. One older dog departed after making sure the young ones were eat. I thought perhaps she was mother to many of them. It broke our hearts. We left the island with heavy hearts and by the time we reached the mainland we were determined to rescue him. We enlisted the help of The Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago to get paperwork to allow the pup to come into the U.S. We would need to train him to be an assistant dog that could fly on the plane. (Cargo was 120 degrees temperature or more). A local Chicago newspaper columnist even offered to help to try to contact a noted museum exhibitor who was on an expedition in Central America to try and provide a spot on a private plane. We contacted a local restaurant owner in Roatan to help us. We had eaten at her Buccaneer restaurant and knew she was American. We offered to pay for restaurant chicken dinners to feed him until we could return. Pam Wilbur will be a friend for life. By sheer luck, the beach dog had scratched at their kitchen door the previous night and they had never seen this dog before but they fed him as he was starving. If he didn’t have a piece of his ear missing, she would never have known it was the dog we were looking for. Talk about a distinguishing feature that saves your life! (Also justification that some things do happen for a reason). We returned to the island 4 weeks later armed with a leash, a special assistance coat for our dog and big smiles. We searched the island for hours to find the blonde dog. My husband and I split up and I ran into a bad experience with a young guy wielding a machete…but I wasn’t ready to let anything stop me find my dog. Bucky finally stopped at the kitchen and the cook brought him over to our room. I have never heard a dog cry, but he cried and shook when he saw us. The feeling was mutual. The following day, we named him “Buck” after Buccaneer restaurant who fed him chicken dinners off the menu 6 days a week (they were closed on Sunday) for a month. We thought the name was equally fitting because he also looked like a baby deer, a buck. As our love grew, so did his name (Bucky, Buckster, Bucky boy, the Buckmeister, etc.) The next days were rough training and we had no sleep the first night as this homeless dog loved the nightlife (the only time the weather is cool and not blazing sun) and kept scratching to go out. He clearly felt the leash was him to show me around not vice versa. He’d run into the ocean and dive for fish and chase crabs and lizards to eat and then walk back to me to bring me along for the rest of the ride. Finally he got the purpose of the leash when we headed to the airport. He threw up in the taxi (heck sometimes I could throw up in a taxi ride like that too) but strode into the airport like he was the kind of all assistant dogs. There was a battle with the customs security guards who wanted him to travel in the belly of the plane which was 120+ degrees. But, we prevailed. As the plane was about to take off, we walked out on the runway and Bucky got scared by engine noise but fortunately didn’t run off. We climbed on board and the unpleasant flight attendant said he must go under the seat (which was approximately 5 inches off the ground). I hid the dog under my knees and my husband sat close to me to mirror the disguise. During takeoff, Bucky slipped into my lap and watched the entire island disappear. He enjoyed seeing the whole island, but then as it went away he kept looking at me to ask: “Where did it go?” He then slept after a big morning and with the help of Benadryl and woke up before we landed in Texas where we had a connection to the Midwest. Bucky patiently waited in custom lines and sat like a pro in his official while children politely asked if they could pet him. At one point, I thought perhaps he envisioned himself a Hollywood star. He slept through on the next flight and once home, we carried him across the marble floors of the airport. (I never thought about the hazard of marble floors at airports for dogs). MEETING OUR OTHER DOG, A GIANT GERMAN SHEPHERD Once home in Chicago, 32-lb. Bucky made friends with our protective and almost 90-lb. German Shepherd, Kodiak (He looks like a Bear and was rescued starving in a barn). When Buck went into our house, he immediately ran to our other dog’s food dish and started eating. I knew that was the end of things, but our Shepherd just wagged his tail and watched. Another miracle. If they weren’t already rock solid, Bucky truly won him over for life by a major “get out of jail” maneuver the following day. We left them in their crates the first day ‘alone.” Karen, the animal behavior specialist at The Anti-Cruelty Society, suggested being safe the first day and keep them next to each other, but in crates. Apparently that lasted for only 15 minutes before the smart beach dog got out of his crate and then opened his brother’s crate so they could play all day. They made no mess, other than a few things out of place, but formed a lasting bond. I wish I had a babycam video of Bucky sliding out the tray of his cage and then getting his paw underneath far enough to open the gate. Then bounding out and asking his giant brother to get out and then realizing he didn’t have his skills, probably used his teeth and lifted his gate and slide it over, opening the door. That video would have gone viral in seconds. A winner for America’s Funniest Videos! I once asked animal intuitive Denise Zak at an Anti-Cruelty Society event if Bucky liked his “big brother. She said he immediately responded “I’m the big dog.” I laughed like crazy as that is exactly what Bucky thinks. Now that the dogs liked each other, we still had to concentrate on Bucky’s health. It took over a year to cure his heartworm. Dr. Brian Dent at The Anti-Cruelty Society and Dr. Gene Mueller (who is now helping homeless animals in the Seattle region) never gave up on Bucky and said they learned a lot about new strains of heartworm and other disease. More likely, they just have really big hearts and I consider them heroes for homeless dogs. Fast forward to today, 8 years later, and amazing Bucky is 8 ½ and our German shepherd is 12. Next up: Bucky is diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma in the anal area in early November 2014.