‘They love me and I love them’
Christine Van Moorsel, 72, runs retirement home for aging, sick dogs in Niagara-on-the-Lake
Around the corner from her front door, there is a row of six reclining, vibrating baby chairs neatly lined up against the kitchen wall.
At the very far end, in the pink chair with cartoonish owl fabric, Rosie, a beige-and-black wrinkly nosed pug is fast asleep. She is about 12 years old, although no one knows for sure. She was rescued from a breeding kennel, then her owner got sick and had to give her up.
At the sound of human footsteps creaking across the farmhouse floor, she opens her eyes but otherwise shows no outward indications of movement. Evidently satisfied that her human mother, 72-year-old Christine Van Moorsel, is not approaching with food, she closes her eyes. And her morning nap resumes. Across the kitchen, curled up in a corner of a playpen, is a 14-year-old champagne-coloured poodle named Fuzzy Wuzzy.
She lives with arthritis in her back legs and is generally slow moving. She does, however, respond astonishingly quickly to the clinking sound of tin food cans.
Through the kitchen and into a side room, there are 10 dog crates lined up side by side against a wall. In each, there is a food bowl and polar fleece blanket.
This is Christine’s retirement home for dogs.
She opens a back door, which leads out into a fenced play area, and bellows “C’mon in!”
Dogs appear from all directions, and step over each other as they vie for the best position to encircle Christine’s legs.
A visitor — with bare ankles — is here on this day to observe.
Dragon, a compulsive leg licker, imme- diately spots the exposed skin and begins a bizarre regimen of lapping his rough, saliva-infused tongue over the intended target.
The visitor moves away. Dragon follows. There is no escape, except perhaps to stand on a chair.
Dragon is just 3 years old, and a chug – part pug and Chihuahua. But due to his licking tendencies — and an issue with peeing — he is not adoptable material. So, Christine took him in.
“That’s just the way he is,” she says. “We manage.”
She picks up Rico, an 11-year-old applehead Chihuahua who immediately initiates a grunting sound each time he inhales and exhales, until she sets him back down on the floor.
“He’s been with me two years and he still hates me,” she says, laughing. “He doesn’t like anybody.”
Christine has eight dogs, with one more expected over the weekend — a pug with heart trouble that will require medication.
She lives on eight hectares of rural space in Niagara-on-the-Lake, in a farmhouse she bought with her husband, Nick, in 2008 to care for old, smallbreed dogs. She has a kennel licence, but limits her lodgers to 10.
In all, she’s taken in about 30 over the years. Some have complex health problems and live here for a few months before they die.
Jack, a one-eyed Boston terrier, is buried on her property along with Fox, a three-legged Chihuahua. Lily, her first pet pug, died at 14.
Many of her dogs require special diets. They all come with compelling stories. Maybe their owner has died, moved or otherwise can’t look after them anymore.
Some have come to local humane societies, neglected, sick, covered in fleas and largely unadoptable because of their age. They know to call Christine. Once a dog is designated senior it becomes hard to place, says Jen Wanless, a registered veterinary technician at Niagara Falls Humane Society. Younger families want a young dog to grow up with their children.
And people are generally reluctant to take on a dog that could require medical expenses — dental work, teeth extractions, cataracts and vision loss, arthritis, kidney disease, cancer and other illnesses.
“Without these rescues, many of these dogs would be faced with the only other option, which is humane euthanasia,” Wanless says.
“Even if they only have (people like Christine) to care for them for their last weeks, months or years, at least they will be loved and cared for prop- erly.”
Christine has a soft spot for old pups.
“Any young dog can find a home, but these old ones can’t,” she says. “They’ve given their time to human beings, and now it’s time for us to look after them in their old age.”
Christine worked alongside her husband who ran Nick’s Truck Parts on Dunkirk Rd. in St. Catharines for some 25 years. She’d take her doggies to the office where they were spoiled with affection by customers.
When they retired — their sons run the business now — Christine devoted even more time to her dogs.
She pays for food and medica- tion with her own money, and while she’s given a discount on vet bills, the costs add up.
She recently organized an open house to raise some funds. She has forfeited travel plans and other amenities of retired life to care for her pups.
Her compensation comes in dog-breath face licks, contented snorts and knowing that they will be loved until the end.
She picks up Duncan, blind in his left eye. He came to her a year ago with a hole in his mouth’s upper palate.
Despite a tough life, he is gentle and calm.
“When I get a new one, he’s the one who goes over and makes friends,” she says.
When Sheltie came from a humane society, he would lay in his cage and not eat. Christine believes it was the magic of peer pressure that inspired the 15year-old Shetland sheepdog to perk up.
“If you come here and everyone else seems happy, you eventually decide you should participate,” she says.
These days, he employs his herding tendencies to corral dogs when Christine calls them inside the house.
She pauses a moment to consider a deeper, more meaningful way to explain her dedication to dogs, then settles on this: “They love me and I love them.”
To learn more about Angel’s Rest Dog Sanctuary and Christine Van Moorsel, call her at 905-262-6585.