Getting to know Col Potter Cairn Rescue Network

In May of 2006, I adopted a Col Potter rescue dog after my first Cairn died of heart failure at the age of 22.  The Sainted Mr. Riley was sorely missed and I knew another Cairn was destined to enter my life.  I was determined to have another rescue Cairn and of course turned to the internet to help me locate that dog who was waiting patiently for me.

Once I found Col Potter Cairn Rescue Network, my application to adopt from this was sent in almost immediately.  I then spent hours poring over the "available dogs" on their website wondering which Cairn terrier I would come to love. Fortunately, CPCRN has matchmakers who know details of the dogs and learn what you are looking for and make suggestions.  Actually, I think I got only one suggestion, Tillie.  Tillie was a bit older at 7 years, a Cairn mix, diabetic, and developing cataracts.  She wasn't high on potential adopters wish lists and had been in a foster home for over a year.   Tillie's exceptional foster mother quickly convinced me that I could easily handle the diabetes and that Tillie was a doll.  I have a lot of experience with animal diabetes and my heart breaks knowing a diabetes diagnosis makes an animal very difficult to place in a forever home.  Paul and I discussed it and quickly decided that Tillie needed us.  She came to us a short time later, was renamed Parker, and quickly was nicknamed Miss Perfect Parker.

Parker was a bit withdrawn but had an endearing habit of taking 3 of her stuffed animals into the middle of the floor and attempting to nurse them.  Her foster mom assured me that Parker loved puppies and convinced us that we should get Parker a puppy.  Approximately one week after Parker came to us, she and Paul were absolutely mutually smitten, so if someone said Parker needed something, Paul made sure Parker got it.  And where else would we get our next Cairn?  Col Potter, of course.

  In November 2006, I drove to Washington state from Colorado and, in the middle of a snowstorm, my arms were filled with an enormous 3-month-old Cairn crowned by an even more enormous head.  Sir Isaac Newton joined the crew.

At that time, I had spent pretty much every day of the previous 7 months surfing the CPCRN website and becoming very aware of the desperate situation with puppy mills and how much CPCRN needed volunteers.  We didn't want another Cairn and the sad stories we read on Col Potter made us adamantly refuse to foster rescues, afraid we would not be able to withstand the heartbreak.  But I needed to help, so I signed up to help with the web site. Other than donations, that is all I have done for Col Potter in the last 3 years. 

Then the unexpected happened, as it always does in life.

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All it takes for evil to prevail, is for good people to do nothing. 
-Edmund Burke