Every dog has its day out

ALONG THE SNOQUALMIE RIVER, King County — They're long of tooth and short of breath, but big in heart. And that's just the dogs.

Dozens of elderly dogs from Pasado's Safe Haven animal shelter in Monroe enjoyed their weekly trip to the beach Friday, thanks to their volunteer companions, some of them no spring chickens themselves.

"We're a pack," said John Wagner, a Boeing retiree with time and heart to foster seven elderly dogs from Pasado's who are awaiting adoption. In a throwaway society that too often shunts aside the old for the new, Wagner said he can relate to these dogs, cast aside to shelters by owners who couldn't be bothered with their needs. So here he was Friday, amid a swirl of dogs on the bank of the Snoqualmie River.

"Here, they think they are young again, " said Susan Michaels, co-founder of Pasado's, as about 20 gray-muzzled and cloudy-eyed dogs carried sticks in their mouths like stogies, swam against the current for the sheer pleasure of it and rolled on their backs in the sand.

"It's giving them their life back. These are all garbage dogs," Michaels said. "They're all rejects; the shelters are all full of these older dogs who have been just dumped there. Someone's retiring, and they don't want the pair of 12-year Labradors in their RV that have been together their entire lives. Or it's, 'I'm having a baby and I don't want the old dog.' Or the new boyfriend doesn't like dogs. I mean, he doesn't like dogs? Is there even a question which one you should get rid of?"

Not for her, plainly, or for any of the others taking Friday to give these dogs their day. The 10 or so volunteers seemed to get at least as much out of it as the dogs.

At Camp Charlie Park, an off-leash, privately owned dog park, the soft sand of the beach and glide of the river were just right for elderly joints.

Some of the dogs are being fostered by volunteers who have taken them into their homes until they are adopted. Others are living at Pasado's home for elderly dogs and cats, lovingly called AARFF — the American Association for Retired Fidos and Felines.

Michaels said AARFF is for elderly pets dumped at shelters all over the region, where they are often dubbed unadoptable and then euthanized.

At Pasado's, these elderly rescuees live out their days in comfort, with love and fun along the way, Michaels said. Including trips to the beach.

Wagner, covered with sand with a stick in one hand and a leash in the other, said it was the loyalty and trustworthiness of dogs that won his heart.

He fosters a blind and deaf cocker spaniel, a black Lab who had her vocal cords cut by her former owner and five other senior dogs cast adrift at shelters. His reason was simple: "People have given up on these dogs, but they still have a lot of life left."

Megan Wolf of West Seattle adopted her black Lab, BJ, who had been picked up as a stray and rescued by Pasado's from a Tacoma shelter. BJ was too arthritic to swim, so Wolf held his salt-and-pepper muzzle to her face and stroked his soft ears.

"The simple pleasures make their day," Wolf said. "It's that unconditional love; they have simple needs and live in the moment. And he'll sleep with his head on my shoe."

She didn't mind adopting an old dog, knowing their time together would be short.

"The thing that matters to me is he is here now," Wolf said. "Why worry about how long he has? We don't know how long any of us is here anyway.

"I just wanted him to have a soft, sweet place the rest of his life."

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com