The Rescue of Meena, aka Momma Dog
In spring of 2011 the Sac Fund was asked to help Nowzad find a home for a dog that Pen had rescued from a US base. He rescued her as a favor to the soldiers who had been caring for her there. The space where Meena was living with her puppies was soon to become part of a no-man’s land and Meena and her puppies would be destined to a miserable fate – likely starvation.
Pen transported Meena and the pups to the Nowzad shelter and from there the pups were adopted out to Afghan families. The SAC Fund was Meena’s hope for a new life.
We put out an appeal to our donors asking if anyone could offer a home to this dog and five extremely generous families stepped up. We had no easy choice. Meena could have lived in New Jersey, Illinois, or Washington, and any of the offered homes would have been great. But we decided to place her with a lovely family in New York.
The next request to our donors was to help us fund her transport costs. We dedicated May donations to her rescue and by mid-month, Meena had enough to ensure a ticket to the States.
In September when Meena was to arrive, a SAC Fund member (who is also a dog trainer) flew out to New York at her own expense to ensure that Meena’s transition would be as smooth as we could make it. Our SAC member spent five days with Meena and her new family. During that time Meena was
introduced to her new dog brother Xeno, the dachshund, and her new cat siblings Jaguar, Spice, and Mezza.
With Meena along every step of the way, trips were taken to Petco to buy a new dog bed and supplies, outdoor lunches were enjoyed at restaurants, and walks were taken all around her new neighborhood in Greenwich Village. Meena and Alex, the son in her adoptive family, worked on training in Meena’s new back yard.
At the end of the visit, the SAC Fund bid a sad farewell to an extremely great family and a wonderful, wonderful dog.
This is an incredibly loving dog. Not only did her rescue mean so much to the soldiers who wanted her saved, it has also meant a lot to those of us who have met her.
This is truly a dog that is worth saving, and we again thank our donors who made this fantastic rescue happen.