Local couple nurses, nurtures dogs back to health
There’s a superstition that if you name an animal it becomes yours. That’s why when Dave and Anita Mayo found Gertie they called her “girlie” — not a real name. Twelve years later, she is Gertrude Maybelline, or Gertie May. She followed the Catoosa County couple home one day and has been with them since.
Gertie is just one of many dogs that have become a part of the Mayos’ lives.
“When we first met,” says Dave Mayo, “my wife and I each had a cat. Cats are easy — you can leave them alone for a couple of days with litter and food and they’re fine.”
When Mayo and his wife first started entertaining the idea of getting a dog, they knew they wanted one that didn’t bark much and one that didn’t shed. That led them to the Basenji, an African hunting dog. One of Mayo’s coworkers had a friend who raised Basenjis and had one that was considered imperfect because it had an underbite. The couple adopted the dog and named him Mickey.
Their new pet came with issues bigger than his dental problem. “We were both working at the time,” says Mayo, who was a career police officer in Dayton, Ohio, before retiring to Northwest Georgia in 2003 where he worked as a shuttle and limo driver for awhile, “so we would put Mickey in a crate while we were gone, but he hated it.”
Basenjis are known as escape artists, Mayo says, and Mickey proved true to his breed. “He got out of his steel wire crate one day. When I used copper wire to secure it, he broke off a couple of teeth escaping.” Mickey demonstrated his unhappiness by urinating and defecating around the house then running all over and spreading the mess. He also tore down the blinds.
Left in the fenced back yard one day, Mickey jumped the barrier and found his way five blocks down the street, to the home of a mechanic who recognized him because Mayo had taken the dog with him to have his car serviced. The neighbor returned the dog to its home, and the Mayos finally found a solution to Mickey’s anxiety — he was okay loose in the house as long he could look out a window.
“That made us more sympathetic toward other dogs,” says Mayo.
Their sympathy was put to the test when a friend needed a home for his dog, Ross — named for Ross Perot because of his prominent ears. “We took him in, but he didn’t get along with Mickey, so we had to find another home for him.”
Thus began years of rescuing dogs, keeping some, finding homes for others, always tending to the physical and emotional results of neglect and abandonment.
Dogs are kind of like a simplified version of humans, Mayo believes. “They deal with many of the same issues we do. They get lonely, they get sad, they need love and companionship. When a dog is dumped, it tends to stay close to that spot, hoping someone will return for it.”
Most of the dogs the Mayos have rescued they’ve found within a three-mile radius of their home, along routes they like to walk. “Anita spotted Casper on a neighbor’s property,” says Mayo. “He ran if anyone got too close to him. I got my neighbor’s permission and started putting out food and water for him. He was dirty and his fur was matted in huge globs.”
Unlike other dogs, food and sweet talk were not enough to earn Casper’s trust. Mayo invested in a trap, caught the dog and took him to a vet. Someone had peppered Casper with bird shot, and he had heart worms.
“It took me three days to brush him out and get him cleaned up. I thought at first I’d have to shave him, but he was so patient and sweet.” Mayo found a good local family for Casper.
The day Gertie followed Mayo home was close to his birthday. He took her to a vet, who told him that Catoosa Citizens for Animal Care (CCAC) could help him with spay costs. Mayo contacted the group and had the half-Australian cattle dog fixed, then placed her on a web site devoted to finding homes for animals. A month later, someone finally called wanting to adopt her, but when the moment came, Mayo decided Gertie May was a “birthday gift from God” and decided to keep her.
Mayo became a member of CCAC and has worked with Dade Animal Resource Team, but all the dogs he fosters and sometimes keeps are ones he and his wife have found close to their home.
“Daisy was a fullblooded Treeing Walker Coonhound,” says Mayo of yet another of his rescues. “She showed up at my house a few weeks before my dog Mickey passed away. She was scared and sad. She laid her head against my leg and looked up at me with huge, brown cow eyes and whimpered.” Mayo took the dog in and tended her until he was able to find an adoptive family with a 100-acre farm in Alabama. “It was a perfect fit for her.”
Toby, Ladybug, Little Man Tate, B.G. and Peeka are five more dogs the Mayos have discovered near their home and rescued.
Mayo, who is deeply interested in the natural sciences, believes that dogs played a major role in the development of human society. “Dogs were first domesticated when humans were living a huntergatherer lifestyle. Dogs helped hunt and made finding and securing food easier. They also provided protection during the night, when people were most vulnerable. They alleviated humans of many burdens and freed them to live more settled lives in which they could make advances and progress.”
The Mayos are returning the favor in their part of world.