Tugg's life is truly an inspiration. He is hoping for funding to star in his own inspirational web series.
Today Dogster brings you the heartwarming rags-to-riches dog story of Tugg, a Bull Terrier who got off to an incredibly horrendous start in life, was rescued and nurtured and loved back from the brink of death by a very caring couple, and who now spends his life helping others, and doing so with a loving smile. His people call it “wuffing it forward,” and they do it in abundance.
Tugg is now hoping to star in his own 15-episode web series. If it gets funding, he will portray a superhero (well, he is a superhero, really), with webisodes focusing on important issues like dog rescue, bullying, discrimination, self-esteem, proper pet care, adoption, and shelter conditions.
It’s a series designed to reach all audiences, from young children, who are most open to these teachable moments, to adults who are looking for something fun and different.
If you like the idea of this, you can actually be a superhero who helps make this happen. Tugg’s people work as animal control officers in Fort Worth, Texas. They’re not made of money. The series will cost about $8,000 to make. They want to make this so badly, but they can’t bear the financial burden.
Do you love that natural eye marking or what?!
So they’ve created a Kickstarter project in hopes of raising the money to support the project. Anyone can donate. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and all of it will go toward the multiple expenses of making a good web series. (If they don’t reach the goal of $8k, the money does not get sent. Let’s hope that does not happen!) And there are incentives as well. Check out the Kickstarter page for Tugg’s project and sniff around for how you can participate. Right now they’re at about $2,700, and they have until Feb. 14 to reach the goal. The clock is ticking.
What follows is a Dogster interview with Blake Ovard, one of Tugg’s folks. It runs pretty long for a web Q&A, because you’ll really get to know this dog and his people, and everything they have done and continue to do for so many dogs and people.
Maria: Congratulations on being partway toward the goal for your web video series! Tugg is a beautiful dog. But I know he didn’t always look this way. Can you tell us a little about his beginnings?
Blake: The sun was setting on a typically hot and muggy evening, just a couple of days after July 4, 2010, in Fort Worth, Texas when the call came in to police dispatch — a badly burned puppy was wrapped in a blanket and staked down beside a busy six-lane road. A single word, “dog,” was scrawled on a small sign attached to the stake that held the blanket and puppy in place.
A police officer was dispatched and the on-call animal control officer was contacted. The police officer arrived first and sat with the poor puppy for almost an hour before the animal control officer could arrive. The police officer said he could not believe what he saw — a small, male bull terrier puppy, about 4 months old, which appeared to have been badly burned. The animal control officer drove the puppy to the animal shelter, where he was given food and water and made as comfortable as possible while waiting to see the shelter vet the next morning.
The puppy was evaluated, and to the relief of many, was found to not have been burned. He had an extremely bad case of demodectic mange and a host of other ailments. His eyes were swollen shut from the infections and scabs and open sores that covered his head and upper body.
Oh, that’s horrible! Poor puppy! What happened next?
The shelter staff put out calls to local rescue groups and tried to make sure the small Bull Terrier had what he needed. Everyone waited, hoping a rescue would come in and treat this puppy who, even though he couldn’t see, would inch his way to the front of the cage whenever he heard human voices close by.
Tugg shortly after his rescue. Life was touch and go.
A couple of days went by, and a few of the rescues expressed an interest, but said they were full and couldn’t spare the room. Another said the procedures to treat the diseases and ailments would cost too much money. A few days turned into a week, and the shelter staff did the best they could for the pup.
My wife, Kim, and I are both animal control officers. We watched this small, frail puppy and hoped a rescue would come forward to help him — but none did. So, we decided that if the weekend came — well past the 72 hours hold at the shelter — and still no rescue would help, we would take this magical puppy home and care for him ourselves. He was slated for euthanasia on Monday.
During the week, a few of the officers and the vet tech at the shelter had tried to softly wash the areas around the pup’s eyes so that he could open them. By Sunday, he could open them a tiny amount. In that tiny sliver, we could see the spark within — the spark that said this dog wanted to live.
No one came forward by Sunday, so Kim scheduled an appointment at an emergency vet, and took the 4-month-old puppy to see what he needed. We did not expect what the vet told us. After the exam, the vet said she had some bad news — she felt this puppy was too far gone and should probably be put down so that he wouldn’t suffer any more.
Many people would have listened to her. Thank goodness you didn’t.
Yes, Kim called me crying, and said we can’t do that. I agreed. We didn’t know how we would pay for the medical expenses, but this puppy deserved a chance.
We called and set an appointment for as early as possible the next day at our normal vet. We carried in the weakened pup, and waited with bated breath while our vet did the examination. As he finished the exam our vet smiled, which is his normal demeanor, and told us that he thought the dog had a chance — maybe not much of one, but he had one. That was all we needed to hear. He said the fight would not be short, and it would not be easy. It would take a lot of time, medication, love, good nutrition, and money, but it could be done.
With a great attitude and constant care, Tugg started to recover.
There was no question what we would do. This little one showed the will to live and showed that he would fight for it. We would give him a chance. Before we even got home, we knew he would not be like any of our other dogs — we also own show Briards, a Sheltie, and a Border Collie — or any of our foster dogs. We knew he was coming home to stay. On the way home, we named him — Tugg, because he tugged at our heart strings.
The first few days were touch and go. He ate, drank, and went out to do his business. And any time not spent doing that, he slept. Each morning we would wake up and hope he was still alive, and each afternoon when we got home we had the same hope. Every day he got better, and it wasn’t long until he was showing his true personality.
And does he have a personality! Everyone loves this miracle dog. How did he come to get a Facebook page? And how many Facebook friends/fans/followers does he have now? How did he get such a following?
Tugg now has around 11,000 fans from around the globe, and that number increases daily as new fans discover the magic of this little bull terrier — which is something we never expected.
In addition to bringing Tugg home when we did, I was also in the middle of training two dogs for the Extreme Mutt Makeover — an event only 15 dog trainers are invited to participate in each year, and I was the only trainer who had two. The trainer gets eight weeks with a shelter dog — in my case, two shelter dogs — and at the end of the training time, each dog competes to show what they have learned. The public gets then gets the chance to adopt the dogs. Each of the dogs I was training had their own Facebook pages as part of the program.
Since we were posting daily updates on the makeover dogs, Kim suggested I make a page for Tugg as well. Many of our friends and family asked, almost daily, how Tugg was doing, and a page of his own would tell everyone at once.
That’s when Tugg got his own Facebook page.
What a handsome superhero, and how much he overcame...
There were only a dozen or so of our friends following Tugg’s progress on his page the first days. His daily pupdates included a little about how he was doing with his treatments and a little about what he had gotten into that day, if anything. Each day was a new day for Tugg, and he saw the world through his newly opened eyes in a way that was full of wonder and amazement.
Like a child wrapped in a dog suit, he also discovered that while he was getting better in the real world, in Tugg’s world, he was also a superhero. Sometimes his adventures even take on a look like being in a comic book.
Within a week, the number of followers had climbed to 100. By two weeks the number had almost doubled, and by a month Tugg’s page had almost 1,000 followers from all over the world.
What other places?
From South Africa to Israel, to Thailand to Europe and Australia, his fans log in daily to see how Tugg is doing and see what Tugg is doing. It doesn’t matter that they are in other time zones or half a world away.
Read the rest of this entry »
By: Maria Goodavage
