AFRP puppy finds a happy home in Monterey -- or D.C.

Health Plan: No evidence remains that AFRP’s Donna Pederson once found herself “pulling wads of puss” from Mystery’s infected belly to help him survive. Mark C. Anderson

AFRP puppy finds a happy home in Monterey -- or D.C.

By Mark C. Anderson

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Keeping presidential company can be unnerving– most civilians tend to tighten up, perhaps stutter here and there. So it can come as a relief when said company loosens the mood by yelping, licking things or gnawing on its crate.

The package of panache behind the hyperactive mayhem is carousing around his potential owners’ studio apartment in Monterey. He could call it home in a month. Or he could be wreaking havoc in slightly more resplendent digs– the White House.

The possibility came as a shock to all involved. One moment Animal Friends Rescue Project’s Donna Pederson was approving local finalists for adopting a dog they temporarily named Mystery, a boxer mix whose survival was once far less likely than Barack Obama’s victory. The next AFRP Executive Director Alexandra McCabe was fielding an e-mail requesting pictures of puppies with interesting back-stories– Obama was looking to make good on the promise he made public before millions as part of his victory speech in Chicago on Nov. 4, when he acknowledged that now he owes his daughters a puppy.

According to Pederson, AFRP’s satellite adoption coordinator, Mystery barely survived his first night after being discovered severely dehydrated and abandoned in a Salinas field– and with his genitalia sealed inside his skin.

“His chances of making it through the night to reach surgery to put his penis on the outside was 10 percent,” says Pederson, who also doubles as Mystery’s temporary foster mom. “I took him to vet, they made a temporary hole, so I spent the rest of the night draining infection from there to keep him alive.”

Nine weeks later, Mystery is a furry tornado of activity.

“If you want the puppy, he’s yours,” Pederson told the admiring couple. “Unless we get a call from President-elect Obama.”