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About 2 years ago I rescued an Akita mix from the ditch by my folks' farm.  She was dumped and left along with 6 siblings.  The neighbor girl caught a couple and took them to the animal shelter, and the dog catcher came out and got the rest... save One.  The couldn't catch her and said they didn't have the time/manpower to chase after her.  Long story short, I caught her between the field and the culvert under the road she was living in and sat in the ditch and waited patiently for her, and within 20 minutes she was in my lap, and has been in my life ever since.  She's a very unique dog, and there's not very many of them around here (small farm community in Ohio) and being mixed with what we've generally assumed was Lab makes her even more unique.  I always wondered what happened to her siblings and about a month ago I was at our small town local little festival and was talking to a friend of a friend (etc) and she mentioned she had an Akita x Lab mix.  Well, we got to talking and she may very well have my dog's brother.  However, she didn't get him at the shelter.  From her story, she stopped at a house just out of town w/ a "free puppies" sign out and got her dog as about an 8wk old puppy.  She got him about a month before I found my pup, who was guessed to be about 12wks when I took her to the vet.  She said there were about 10 pups when she picked hers out, so my theory is (and I could either be right on or WAY off, so it's just a theory) that perhaps they tried the "free puppies" sign for so long and then just took the rest of them and dumped them?  At any rate, I drove by the house in question and they in fact have a Black Lab type dog (had some white on his chest) running lose in their fenced front yard, and an almost all white w/ a dark brownish or black head, but definitely Akita, in a small kennel run next to their barn.  This could be where my dog came from, and I want to find out, but I don't want to barge up to these people's house and say "Hey I got this dog from the ditch and blah blah blah...." so I was wondering what you all would do if you were in this situation?

Our beloved Foxi, an almost 2 year old female Jack Russell, had been missing since Wednesday morning. Her and my female rescued Akita, whom were bosom buddies, were out in the cornfields trucking around, as they do on occasion, but this time Ty (the Akita) came home and Foxi didn't. We were thinking that either something got her, coyote?, or she got hit, or someone picked her up w/ no intention to bring her home, as she had her collar on w/ county tags. I miss her so much. I never wanted a jack, I always heard how obnoxious they were, plus I've never been a "little dog person", growing up with Great Danes, but this little jack was the best dog in the world. She was the friendliest and calmest Jack you'd ever know. She had the cutest little brown eyebrows. *sigh*  She was technically my 6yo son's dog, as it was a bday present for him almost 2 years ago, but she followed me around like a little shadow and would just sit and relax with me and I grew to love her I think even more than my kid did.

We checked the ditch lines on the road Wed night, but didn't see anything, and then Thursday my son and I spent half the day printing flyers and then knocking door to door up and down the roads around the farm here, but nobody had seen her.  Finally a lady called me saying she had seen her in the back of her property early Wed morning, which I figured was when her and Ty had gone off trucking.  But Ty had come home about 3 hours later, at least.

Friday morning I spent some time calling the local Sheriff and all the local vets offices to report her missing, drained the pool (it needed it anyway but we wanted to make sure she wasn't in there), and then I got on the 3wheeler and started off thru the corn/bean fields. Somehow I guess I was just meant to find her because on my way down to the crick, about 1.5 miles from our house (which was the general direction she had last been seen by that one neighbor), out in the bean field, along side their property line, I found her little body. The cyotes musta got her. Fortunately she was still mostly in tact, but you could tell she died fighting. She had the most horrific little snarl on her face. I hope she critically wounded what ever attacked her. I think they left her alone and didn't drag her off or do more damage because Ty kept them at bay or ran them off and then stayed with her until she finally came home by herself. I just knew something was wrong all day Wed, and Thurs because of the way Ty was acting.  She kept whining and acting nervous.

I'm gonna miss that little dog sooo much. She was so a-typical of a jack. She loved cats, she was extremely calm (calmer than Ty and our other dog, a Great Dane), was awesome with my kid (who's unfortunately horrible to animals), and she didn't mind the horses. There will never be another dog like her. She's now in Heaven waiting for me, keeping my great old QH mare company.

I know it's been almost 3 days since I found her, but I can't seem to stop crying.

I rescued a puppy from the ditch by my parents house about 2 months ago.  She's an Akita-cross (lab??), and is about 5 months old now.  She was dumped there along with 5 of her brothers and sisters, all of whom a neighbor lady caught and took to the animal shelter.  However, this last little gal wouldn't come near anybody, and I tried helping the neighbor lady but we couldn't catch her.  I didn't see her for a few days and assumed she got her and took her to the shelter too, but when I saw her a few days later, I realized nobody would be able to get her if I couldn't, so I stopped my truck and sat down in the ditch along the road and waited for her to come to me, which was only about 10 minutes.  Long story short, I'm 100% convinced that not only were these pups neglected, probably not kept inside at all, but also abused to various degrees.  They were all "skittish" to say the least, but my little gal was VERY shy, especially around men.  She's warmed up some, but it's taken 2 months, and she still has issues with men.  She won't "come" to anybody if she thinks you're trying to "catch" her.  She's got very good natural manners, but it's time for training (past time) and I'm afraid I can't accomplish anything with her, and I'm afraid to do anything to harm her further... if she does something wrong, I don't want to tell her "NO" because it scares her, (tho she really doesn't do much wrong)... but like she gets up on the couch (my fault, I know) but if I try and "happily" convince her to get down, sometimes she gets scared and pees on the couch.  She has not yet been leash trained, and I'm really up a creek on this one -- I put a leash on her the other day and she *FLIPPED* out, tried running from me, peed, tail 'tween legs, flopped over and submitted, wouldn't get up, just totally scared to death.  I'm really hoping someone else out there has had an abused puppy and could give me pointers on how to train her.  I want to take her to the local PetSmart where they offer training puppy classes and so forth, but I can't even get her on a leash!  I don't know what to do and I love this little gal, I don't want her to grow up with no training!

Thanks!