[title subtitle=”words: Marla Cantrell
images: courtesy Danielle Sewell”][/title]
In July, as the heat of summer spun out of control, Finnie (Finn) Wigglebutt struggled to survive. At ten weeks old, the part Australian shepherd, part Catahoula, weighed only nine pounds. Lost in the woods in Alma, Arkansas, he hunted for food and water to keep him alive. Mange had taken almost all his fur, and his skin, red and inflamed, hurt as he walked. When he heard a distant howl or a hawk overhead, his head, which was perpetually bowed, dropped even lower. If Finn was good for anything, his demeanor seemed to say, it was probably as a snack for a predator as hungry as he was.
In time, he made his way to the house of a kind woman, who looked out her door and saw Finn. Just a few weeks before, Finn’s sister had shown up, and she’d treated her for mange. But Finn’s condition was so much worse, and she knew he needed professional help. She contacted every place she could think of. A call to Kitties and Kanines Veterinarian Clinic in Fort Smith connected her to Janet Sewell, a volunteer at the Charleston Dog Shelter, which is about thirty-five miles from Alma.
When Janet got the text message on July 11, her heart broke. There on her phone was a photo of little Finn. He looked as if he’d been dipped in a pot of boiling water. Janet called Susan Hayes, another volunteer with the Charleston shelter. “I said, ‘Susan, you may shoot me, but there’s this pitiful little dog,’ and Susan, without missing a beat, said, ‘Go get the puppy!’ If she had said the expense would have been too great because Finn was in such bad shape and it was highly likely he couldn’t have been saved no matter how hard we tried, I would have understood, but that’s what’s so great about Susan.”
The following morning, Janet and her teenage daughter, Sophie, picked up Finn to take him to their vet. On the way to Dr. Holden’s office, Sophie held out great hope that Finn would live. “But I had to tell her, ‘You need to prepare yourself that he may not come home with us. You can hold him as he leaves this world because I don’t think I can do it.’ And she said, ‘Mom, don’t even talk like that.'”
In the time it took Janet to reach the clinic, Sophie decided things would get better if the pup had a name. “Sophie was on her phone, looking at options. She said, ‘We need a name that means warrior or survivor.’ And as she searched those words, the name Finn came up.”
Naming the puppy seemed to be a turning point. When they carried him into the clinic, Finnie Wigglebutt was a puppy with a future, not an abandoned stray whose life was unbearable.
Dr. Holden had good news. He could treat the pain, the parasites Finn had picked up, and the mange. And so Janet took him home. For days, he slept on towels because his skin kept peeling off, and his bedding needed to be changed often. Janet got up through the night, checking on Finn, her hand softly touching the crown of his sweet head. She and her family massaged him with coconut oil. They hand-fed him. They carried him outside to go to the bathroom for the first two days. When it seemed as if his kidneys might be shutting down, they gave him Pedialyte, a drink to combat dehydration, to pull him out of the crisis.
“Honestly, I fell for him the first time I saw him; there’s something about his eyes.”
– Janet Sewell
Three days after Janet brought Finn home, he stood up and ate. The first week, he gained a pound a day. After he had mastered standing up, he walked, and then trotted, and by then, he’d stolen Janet’s heart. “Honestly,” she says, “I fell for him the first time I saw him; there’s something about his eyes.”
Janet, who works at Charleston Schools, realized Finn’s story needed to be told. She started sharing his plight almost as soon as she met him, on the shelter’s Facebook page. She’s a great storyteller, and that gift along with the photos of Finn resonated across the nation. Soon, people from California and Wisconsin and Illinois and New York and South Carolina were commenting on the plight of this incredible dog. And many of them were sending donations.
When followers found out Finn could only eat scrambled eggs and chicken, they donated fifty dozen eggs and eighty pounds of chicken, and since Finn couldn’t possibly eat it all, the dogs at the shelter benefitted greatly. Then, Susan set up a Go Fund Me page to help defer the high cost of treating Finn, and in three hours, the one thousand dollar goal had been met, and not long after, the number had risen to three thousand.
The money made a big difference to the Charleston Dog Shelter. They need about fifteen hundred dollars a month to operate, taking care of approximately twenty-eight dogs. They don’t receive municipal monies, so their funding comes from donations and an occasional fifty dollar adoption fee.
Behind the scenes, Janet was growing closer and closer to Finn. As the days passed, his fur grew back, in tufts on his ears and tail, and the effect was like comic relief in a room filled with tension. Janet knew she’d have to give him up one day—she has four rescue dogs of her own—but the idea caused her heart to ache. Several people wanted Finn, and a few visited, but none seemed to make a connection the way that Jacky Fleming did.
As for Jacky, she knew the first time she held Finn, that her heart belonged to him. Since December 2015, she’d been unemployed. Jacky needed a purpose, and even though her husband assured her they’d be fine, she felt empty. “I needed a point to my days,” Jacky says, “and I already loved him. I begged Janet to let me have him.”
When Finn was six weeks old, Janet agreed. Taking Finn to Jacky was too much for her, so Janet’s husband drove him. Since that time, Jacky has found her purpose again. And this time, it’s playing second fiddle to a dog whose popularity grows by the day. “He’s a born healer,” Jacky says. And so she takes him places, driving him to visit the elderly or kids who are in crisis. Finn seems to know what people need, his gentle heart the exact right medicine.
In August, Finn was helping raise money for the Charleston Shelter at Pet Smart in Fort Smith, and fans of his came all the way from Little Rock just to meet him.
These days, Jacky is filled with ideas. She thinks she’ll have him certified as a therapy dog so that he can do even more good. “I know it’s cheesy, but they say a rescue dog can rescue you, and that’s what he’s done for me. Finn’s done way more for me than I have for him. Janet saved him; she trained him, she taught him love. I got the easy part.”
As Jacky says this, Finnie Wigglebutt shuttles between Jacky and Janet, his tail wagging. He jumps onto Janet’s lap, and he is so big Janet has a hard time holding him. But she draws him closer anyway and brushes a tear from her eye. And then Jacky wipes her eyes, and Finn jumps down to go to her, nudging her hand with his soft head. He has found a world where people are kind, he is adored, and treats keep coming like it’s Christmas morning. And that is miracle enough for this happy little dog named Finn.
For more on the Charleston Dog Shelter, visit their Facebook page. Charleston Dog Shelter has been caring for our area’s homeless, adoptable dogs since 1997. All-volunteer staff. No paid personnel. No outside funding of any kind. Donations and an occasional $50 adoption fee for a fully-vetted dog make up our operating fund.
Community spay/neuter outreach program involving financial assistance to people in need who wish to spay/neuter their pets.
The shelter thanks the City of Charleston for allowing them the use of city land, city water, and electricity.
