FRYEBURG — It's hard to keep track of who's who in the scamper of feet as nine dogs rip around the Smith house. A chaotic scene, nine sets of legs running in and out, dogs barking, jockeying for attention and wrestling for toys. Thirty-six legs, and a pair of wheels.
Johanna, a rusty-brown 5-year-old dachshund with more energy than a bumblebee in a sugar fit, isn't one to stick to the back of the pack, despite an attack last year that left her hind legs paralyzed.
These days, she relies on a specially made cart to chase around the yard.
"You can't trust her for a minute, she's very naughty," said Lauren Smith, Johanna's owner.
The dog tends to try to slip outside with the others, or dig around in the yard.
Though it is likely she will never regain the use of her back legs, if life is different for Johanna, you would not know it by her disposition.
The story began last fall in a town in Tennessee, where a group of teenagers beat her with a baseball bat because she would not stop barking, paralyzing her hind legs and leaving her incontinent.
Johanna, then called Boo, was then left outdoors for long stretches by her owner, who did not want the dog to mess up the floors and rugs around the house, said Deborah Winter of HandicappedPets.com, one of the groups responsible for coordinating Johanna's new wheels.
The Humane Society of Warren County, Tenn., was monitoring the situation and took in the dog. But rescuers there knew the dog could not stay indefinitely, so they put out a plea for help.
Smith learned of Johanna's situation through another Web site, DogsDeserveBetter.com, and felt the need to help.
She got in touch with the shelter in Tennessee, and with money raised on DogsDeserveBetter.com was able to get the dog a plane ticket to Maine.
Meanwhile, in Velma, Okla., Kathy Barton's fourth-grade class was learning about disabled animals and raising money to help handicapped pets, Winter said.
When they heard of Johanna's plight on "Animal Radio," a program out of Utah, they had found a match.
"The timing was perfect, everything came together," said Winter.
The class then contacted HandicappedPets.com. The kids had raised $423, which went a long way toward paying for Johanna's new cart.
Last month, Johanna arrived at the Portland International Jetport. A few weeks later, her specially made cart was delivered.
Smith said the decision to take in Johanna was not difficult. Smith and her family have opened their home to many animals, some disabled like Johanna, for several years.
But living with the zippy dachshund has not always been easy. It is a crowded house with nine dogs and five kids.
The dog needs physical therapy to keep her legs from atrophying further, and regular diaper changes. But when she has her wheels on, it's a whole different story, Smith said.
"She acts like she could go for two days and think nothing of it," she said.
Even though she enjoys the cart, Johanna can use it only a few hours a day. But she has become healthier since coming to Maine and gets around fine on two legs as well.
Smith said she takes in dogs like Johanna because they are often overlooked. Smith said it is important to show people that even unusual pets deserve a home.
"They need someone that will take them in, someone willing to find them a home," she said. "Just because you don't think someone would want a blind dog or a dog missing a leg doesn't mean it's true."
Sharon Turner, director of the Coastal Humane Society in Brunswick, said that too often, people drop off their pets at her shelter and fail to reveal a serious ailment.
But people's attitudes are changing, she said, and the shelter is finding homes for cats and dogs that are blind or have other disabilities. She said it's a matter of finding the right match.
"People adopt an animal that they think is absolutely perfect . . . and that animal could have some horrible accident," she said. "I want to think we are adopting to people who would love their pet regardless."
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