IN FOCUS: News from Sutton Studios

Issue No. 38

September 2010

SPOTLIGHT

Click to enlarge.

A family portrait
The McCarty family portrait was all year in the making.

Gavin and his daughter Brenna love animals and wanted a dog.

Curry, Brenna's cat, was inherited from Nancy's parents three years ago when they downsized. Curry and Brenna have a special bond. He sits on her lap, naps in her room, and tolerates the rest of the family.

Nancy wasn't too sure she wanted the work of a puppy, and son Gavin seemed indifferent. Late last winter, as the family was driving to soccer in the cold, Nancy says, "we saw a man walking his dog. I said to my son, 'If we had a dog, you would have to be outside walking him even in the cold.' To my surprise, my son instantly replied, 'Awesome!'"

So began the search for a family dog.

Nancy still preferred an adult dog, so Gavin suggested Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester, Michigan. His family had adopted a dog from them when he was a boy. Leader Dogs trains service dogs and has an extensive behavioral program. Not all dogs can complete the rigorous training, so some are released for adoption. When the McCartys contacted Leader Dogs, the application said it could take 2 to 3 years for a dog to become available. "My husband called several times and each time was told they did not know when the next dog would be released. So we finally decided to look elsewhere because we really wanted a dog the kids could bond with while they were home for the summer."

"Gavin began searching online and found a well regarded Illinois breeder of white labs. We were smitten with their online pictures, and two litters were going to be born in May." But Nancy was still worried the challenge of a puppy. "The following Saturday we were at my son's Lacrosse game and there was a woman with a beautiful white lab. I spoke with her and discovered she adopted her puppy from the same breeder. I couldn't believe it! I went right up to my husband and said, 'That is a great looking, well-behaved puppy. If you want to adopt, I am ready!' We went home, applied online and told the kids they were going to get a puppy. You can only imagine how surprised and ecstatic they were!"

That Monday morning the breeder called and said they could have a male puppy in July. That Monday afternoon, Leader Dogs called and gave the McCartys 48 hours to pick up their new dog Griffin!

"So, we would have two dogs..." Nancy said to Gavin over the phone. "Wouldn't that be great!" he replied.

At the end of April, the McCartys picked up Griffin from Leader Dogs. In July, they picked up the puppy, Wrigley.

When Nancy scheduled the portrait for four people and two dogs, Brenna wouldn't hear of it. She insisted Curry come too. Nancy says, "the funny thing is at home, Wrigley, the puppy, chases Curry around the house. He sometimes will literally tackle Curry. I was scared it was going to be complete chaos at Sutton Studios."

"I can't say enough about our amazing experience at Sutton Studios. David Sutton was not just taking our photo, he was capturing our family in its entirety for the first time. It actually means so much to me that I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. The atmosphere was completely calm and enjoyable, which made it easy for all of us to smile and be ourselves. I will recommend Sutton Studios to everyone for many years to come."

We enjoyed having the whole family!

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REFLECTION & REFRACTION

This month's rescue story is by guest author Emerson Nagel.

How I ended up with six cats.

One morning in April, my husband Bob and I, walking to drop off our children Nat and Katie with the woman who drives them to school, hear meowing from under her car. Underneath is a little kitten, looking grouchy and hungry. I've noticed that our other three cats (all rescued strays) have been getting bigger and less cuddly, and I think how nice it would be to have a new kitten, so I scoop him up, carefully avoiding eye contact with Bob. The kitten is white with patches of striped black and brown, and has smart, alert little eyes.

Bob and I head for home. It's early and very dark, and the kitten is cold, but he starts purring as soon as he warms up. Walking across the bridge, we hear a faint, "meow meow!" Bob and I look at each other, and down at the little fur ball in my arms.

It wasn't him.

We look over the edge of the bridge, into the dark, cold waters of the stream below. Again, we hear, "meow, meow!" I say I'm going to go down there and find him. Bob tells me I'm a lunatic.

I hand Bob the kitten, and climb over the railing. The stones are slippery and cold, and it's so dark I can't see more than six feet in front of me. There are two waterfalls, and I'm pretty sure the source of the meows is down at the bottom of the second one. I realize I can barely find my own hands in the pitch black, so I compromise, and yell up to Bob to say we'll go home first, we'll put Kitten #1 in the bathroom, I'll get a flashlight, then come back. I clamber back up to the bridge, Bob grinds his teeth, hands me back the kitten, and we head home.

With my feeble flashlight, and my trusty lime green Crocs, I head down the steep hill of our property, and clamber down the riverbank. I step into the stream, the mud oozing into my shoes. The water is quite cold, but I can imagine all sorts of snakes and toads and crabs and scorpions slithering around. Then I hear, "meow, meow!" again and head up the stream, toward the bridge.

The water isn't very deep, maybe mid-thigh at the deepest, but it's the dry season, and it isn't very clean either (in the rainy season, torrential downpours feed the stream and clean it up in one swoop, but now bottles and plastic bags are floating along next to me). I get to the bottom of the second waterfall, and look up at the first waterfall and the bridge beyond it. The meowing has stopped.

I sit there, on a rock in the river, in the very early light of dawn, shining my light on the riverbank. Nothing. I turn off my flashlight and wait, then hear a feeble "meow!" and turn my light back on. I catch a quick glimpse of a skinny tail trying to hide itself on the far wall.

On the top of the bank is a huge fig tree with incredible air roots that grow down the vertical wall of the canyon, so it forms a sort of root curtain across the clay. And in that root curtain, about five feet out and five feet up, is where I saw the little tail disappear.

It's getting lighter out, so I put my flashlight down, and step into the murky water. I climb up the roots to where I saw the tail flick away, and I find the kitten. He's wet, miserable, mad, and frightened. I squint into the gloom and find a place I can wedge myself in, using my shoulders and my elbows, and then pry the kitten out. I can't climb back down with him in my hand, especially since he's twisting, turning, spitting, and clawing, so I tuck my tee shirt into my shorts then shove the kitten down the front of my shirt. I scramble across the root curtain to the bank, grab up my flashlight, stumble, slip and slide back down the river to the bottom of our hill, then race up our property. Bob is waiting, looking grim but resigned. I tenderly show him the new little kitten, a tiny cream-colored guy with darker grey ears and sleepy blue eyes.

We dry him off. Bob goes back to his computer, and I sit on the tile floor of our bathroom with the two kittens, introducing them to each other. They lap up milk, scarf down the turkey and cream cheese Bob has brought up for me to give them, tussle a bit in a friendly way, then curl up on my lap and fall sound asleep.

I go downstairs to the office to work until around noon, when I hear a "meow, meow!" coming from the river. I look over at Bob sitting next to me. He pretends he doesn't hear anything. "Meow, meow!" I look over at Bob again. He slides his eyes over at me, then quickly back at his computer screen. "Did you hear that?" I ask. "Hear what?" he says. I get up, stomp into my Crocs, and head back down to the river.

I get to the bottom of the second waterfall, and look and look. No kitten. No movement, no meowing, no nothing. I sit there for a while, feeling like an idiot, waving casually at anyone who crosses the bridge and sees me sitting in the river among the flotsam and jetsam. After about half an hour of watching and straining to catch any tiny sound, I give up and get back to work.

When Nat and Katie come home from school, we agree to let them do their homework in the bathroom, where the kittens are staying, sequestered from the other animals until they are treated for fleas and parasites.

The kittens and the children are fed and happy and we all go to bed. Around midnight I wake to meowing. I try to believe it's coming from the bathroom, but Kitten #1 and #2 are peacefully sleeping, tangled up together in the little fleece-lined basket Katie has provided for them. Back in the bedroom, I look down at Bob, who is playing opossum. "I've got to go down there," I say. "No you don't," he mumbles.

I get into my muddy clothes, go downstairs, find the flashglight, slip into my gooey Crocs, and head down to the river. It's pitch dark. My flashlight beam is a joke. But the meowing is louder and more insistent then before. I turn off the light and focus everything I have on that sound, trying to pinpoint where it's coming from - almost the same spot I found the second kitten. I get to the edge of the water and the meowing stops abruptly. I wait. Nothing. I turn on my light and shine it over the root curtain. Nothing. A car drives over the bridge. I sit there with my light off.

I check my glow-in-the-dark watch. It's half past midnight. I'll give it half an hour, then I have to go back to bed. I sit there listening and trying to see into the night. Nothing. A man walks across the bridge. I sit still as a statue, hoping he won't notice me. 1:00 a.m. I can't believe this didn't work. If I don't find Kitten #3 now, will it even make it through the night? The only thing worse than hearing the "meow, meow!" the rest of the night would be NOT hearing it the rest of the night. I decide I'll wait five more minutes.

Five minutes zoom by, and I'm dreading abandoning the kitten to its fate. I turn on the flashlight with no hope left - and I see movement! Is that a rat? I can see a long skinny tail, and a little rear end trying to burrow into the root curtain. My flashlight beam wavers. I whack it on my palm, and it comes back to life. I train the beam on the root curtain, trying to memorize the location, since I won't be able to climb and carry the flashlight. The light dies again. I whack it again. It comes back to life. I look around for a rock, training the beam on the spot in the root curtain where I'd seen the little kitten, and balance the flashlight. It rolls off the rock into the water. I snatch it up, and prop it up again, this time shoving two rocks on either side of it.

It works. The beam is now trained on the spot. I take a deep breath. I have to climb up and out over about nine feet of roots, over a three-foot deep pool of cold, dirty water with bottles and bags floating on it and jagged uneven rocks hidden below the surface. I debate shoes, then decide my Crocs won't fit into the root cracks. I tuck my T-shirt deeply into my shorts, take a deep breath, then set out.

Hand over hand, foot over foot. Slowly I inch my way out and up the root curtain. I can't see anything. No rat, no kitten, nothing. I hang there, pins and needles in my hands and feet. Suddenly, there's a tiny movement, like someone pulling her skirt out of the car door. I stick my hand in and feel something round and warm trying to get away from me. I can't see, because I'm blocking my own light. I get my fingers around its belly and try to pull, but it's wedged itself in. I pull the roots away from the curtain with the other hand, then try again. No! I shove and scrape my legs into the spaces between the clay wall and the root curtain, and grip with all my might. Now with both hands free I yank at the roots around where the kitten has wedged itself with my left hand, and with my right hand, steadily pull back on its hips. Finally, with a lot of wiggling, growling and hissing - victory!

I don't spend a second celebrating or investigating my booty. I shove it in my shirt and start the climb down. I find my Crocs, grab up the flashlight, hold on to the wiggling little bundle in my shirt, and race for home. Without taking the kitten out of my shirt, I open the icebox and get some fresh turkey and cream cheese. I run upstairs, grab a couple of towels, peel off my muddy clothes and drop them in a puddle in the laundry room.

In the bathroom, I pull the little kitten out of my shirt. Even in the dark I can tell it is very, very mad. Fortunately the turkey and cream cheese buys me a place in its furry little heart. The other two kittens wake up, and when they realize there's food, they too race over. I have to hold them apart and drop the turkey on the floor in front of each of them, or else they growl and hiss at each other and try to snatch the food away.

I look at my glow-in-the-dark watch. It's after 2. I make sure all three kittens are tucked safely into Katie's basket, little tails curled around each other, one's head on another's back, asleep, before I close the door.

We kept all three kittens. Bob put up a brief struggle, I pretended to think twice, then we gave in to Nat and Katie, who assured us they'd help, and even dipped into their money to help defray the vet expenses. Kitten #1 is Thomas - he's affectionate, independent and cool. Kitten #2 is Shadow - he tries to nurse at every opportunity. (After the first time I came out looking like I'd been necking in a backseat with hickies all over my neck, I drew the line.) Kitten #3 is Nutmeg - she has faint tiger stripes.

At first, things with Fresca (our dog) were touch and go. The kittens would hiss and spit and arch their backs, and frighten Fresca to death. But she won out. Now they love playing with her curly tail, which she patiently wags for them like a bigger sister with a rattle. Your can find them all curled up together on the sofa, getting hair on everything.

And I'm just starting to keep an eye out for a new kitten.

COMMUNITY FOCUS

C.A.R.E. Evanston Animal Shelter Dog Wash
Volunteers will wash your dog and clip his nails to raise money for the Evanston Animal Shelter. Visit 2310 Oakton, Saturday, September 11th, between 9 and 2. $10 for a wash and towel dry, $10 for nail trimming. Please park in the PetSmart parking lot (near the street) and cross at the light.

2nd Annual Adopt Hop Chicago Pub Crawl
The Adopt Hop is a collaboration among nine different Chicago-area animal shelters and rescue groups (ALIVE Rescue, Chicago Bully Breed Rescue, Chicago English Bulldog Rescue, New Leash on Life, Project Rescue Chicago, Puppy Love/Love Cats, Tree House Humane Society, Virtually Home Chicago, and Young at Heart) and Wrigleyville-area bars. Join the pub crawl Saturday, September 11, from 2 to 6 followed by a Rescue Rally and Raffle from 6 to 7:30 at Rockit Bar and Grill. Tickets are $25 in advance (t-shirt and giveaways included). Same day tickets may be purchased for $30 at any participating bar (Harry Caray's Tavern, Irish Oak, Murphy's Bleachers, Red Ivy, Rockit Bar and Grill, Sports Corner, Vines on Clark, and Yak-Zies). Proceeds will be shared by the participating rescue organizations.

PAWS Run for Their Lives
Support PAWS Chicago's mission to build a no kill city by running or walking for homeless animals. Bring the whole family to participate in the child and pet-friendly walk, or compete against the clock in the 8K Run. Register in advance or the day of the event! Dogs are free! Rain or shine, run and walk will begin at 9 a.m., Sunday, September 26 at Montrose Harbor. All participants will receive a Run for Their Lives t-shirt and enjoy complimentary food, beverages and other freebies at booths hosted by event sponsors.