WRW? - Episode 4 - “Rudder”

Written By Diane Thomas

Summary - This story is about Suzan and Mike, their love, her loss, and the perfect timing of a rescue dog, that became a source of healing, that no one saw coming.

“Rudder” ~ Episode 4 - Show Notes and Script for the Hearing Impaired*

Summary - The story we have for you today is about Suzan and Mike, their love, her loss, and the perfect timing of a rescue dog, that became a source of healing, that no one saw coming.  

*Below the Show Notes you will find a full script for the hearing impaired.

Episode Highlights/Takeaways

  • Pilots and Paws - (at 02:10 - 02:28) - Pilots and Paws is a rescue organization through which Mike and Suzan rescued Rudder. Pilots N Paws is a non-profit organization that helps coordinate, thru a volunteer network of private pilots who donate their time, fuel and aircraft, to fly rescued animals throughout the country to or from rescues or adopting families. https://www.pilotsnpaws.org

  • Quote - (at 07:05 - 07:07) Suzan shared the quote, “You can't buy love, but you can rescue it.” Author Unknown

  • Quote - (at 07:09 - 07:23) Suzan shared a quote she came up with herself, “Living in this world, with all the strangeness going on, it's hard, especially if you don't have someone to love, and that someone could very well be just a furry friend.”

  • Donation - (at 07:27 - 08:15) - With each episode, in honor of our guests, the Who Rescued Whom? Canine Rescue Tales Podcast makes a $25 donation to the rescue of their choice. We are happy to make this episode’s donation to Mountain Pet Rescue in Grand County, Colorado. Mountain Pet Rescue is how Rudder’s story with Suzan and Mike began. Mountain Pet Rescue is a foster-based rescue that focuses on rescuing active, energetic “mountain” dogs by working with overcrowded shelters in and outside of Colorado. Their Board of Directors strives to match each dog with its perfect home by assessing its temperament, evaluating the potential foster and adoption homes, and following up with the pet owner to ensure a healthy and enjoyable relationship. It’s been just over four years since Suzan lost Mike, and she still walks with Rudder, every day! And recently, she added another furry friend to her home, Baeta, a Labrador, springer/pointer mix that she also adopted from Mountain Pet Rescue. You see pictures of Mike, Suzan, Rudder, and Baeta, by going to the episode page on our website WhoRescuedWhom.com.

  • Who Rescued Whom? Canine Rescue Tales is Seeking Sponsorship & Support - (at 09:18 - 09:53) The Who Rescued Whom? Canine Rescue Tales Podcast is seeking sponsors and supporters. If you’d like to sponsor an episode, or several, please email us at info@whorescuedwhom.com. Or, if you love our show, and just wish to support us in creating more great content, please consider visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/whorescuedwhom, where you can support us by buying us a coffee or puppaccino! Each $3 Cup of Coffee, or Puppaccino, represents the 3+ million dogs that enter animal shelters each and every year here in the United States.

  • Production Note - (at 09:59 - 10:11) - This podcast was edited and produced by Mike McClellan at podcastps.com. Mike also wrote, performed, and produced all the original music that you heard on this episode.

  • SCRIPT ~ created for the hearing impaired, can be found below, or on the Episode Page of our website, WhoRescuedWhom.com (Click ‘Read More’ next to Episode 4)

SCRIPT for the HEARING IMPAIRED

WRW? Canine Rescue Tales - Episode 4 ~  “Rudder”

This script, for the hearing impaired, was created using the online platform Descript, then edited by Host Diane Thomas

INTRODUCTION MUSIC (“Missy’s Theme”) ~

Host - Diane Thomas - Hello and welcome to another episode of Who Rescued Whom? Canine Rescue Tales. The story we have for you today is about Suzan and Mike, their love, her loss, and the perfect timing of a rescue dog, that became a source of healing, that no one saw coming.  

Host - John Thomas - Suzan met her soon to be husband Mike in California while he was serving in the United States Marine Corps as an air traffic controller.  In 1991, Mike got out of the military and began working for the Federal Aviation Administration in Denver. They were married the following year.

Host - Diane Thomas - Suzan has always loved dogs. Suzan and Mike had recently had to say goodbye to two dogs so she began volunteering at the Retriever Rescue of Colorado to fill that void, and consequently adopted a 12 year old dog, named Faith. Later, while working at a special event for the rescue, Susan was paired up with a dog named “Boomer”. 

MUSIC FADES…

Guest - Suzan - The reason they named him, his actual name was Boomerang, was that he had been rescued four times, but had the ability to jump a six foot wall, so he kept escaping. He was a runner and so he would run away. So when I was done showing himwe left and I was supposed to take them back to a kennel and I called my husband and I said, hey, would it be okay if I bring back this dog? And he said, sure. We lived on acreage at that time. And so Boomer came there and he was happy because he could run and run and, we didn't have to worry about him.

Host - John Thomas - It was a good match, so they adopted him. As Mike worked many long shifts for Denver air traffic control, and Suzan worked from home, isolated from neighbors, she and Boomer spent a lot of time together and grew close. Mike loved to fly himself, and was a private pilot. Suzan and Mike owned a small airplane and combined their shared love of dogs and flying by volunteering for Pilots N Paws.

Host - Diane Thomas - Pilots N Paws is a non-profit organization that helps coordinate, thru a volunteer network of private pilots who donate their time, fuel and aircraft, to fly rescued animals throughout the country to or from rescues or adopting families. In early November 2016 they got an email about doing a rescue flight.

Guest - Suzan - 2016 was kind of one of those weird years. My dog boomer started getting sick in June and progressively got worse and he passed away. It was kind of rough, cause he was my dog. At that time, my husband was still working a lot, he was still flying part-time and so I didn't see him a lot.

Host - John Thomas - The email they received from Pilots and Paws was a request from Mountain Pet Rescue of Colorado seeking a flight for two dogs to be picked up from Denton, Texas. The night before their flight, the rescue had provided pictures of the two dogs they would be transporting.

Guest - Suzan - One of the dogs looked a lot like our dog Boomer. So we requested that we could take him and adopt him. And so the lady said, sure, you know, why don't you bring them home and you can foster him first and then decide whether you want to adopt him.

TRANSITION MUSIC Fades in and out ~

Host - John Thomas - And that’s exactly what they did. Rescues don’t always know a dog’s name at the time it comes to them, so they will often give the dogs names in order to sort them.  The dog they brought home, came with the name Ravi, but Mike had always wanted to give a dog an ‘aviation’ type name. 

Guest - Suzan - So he started looking and found the name Rudder. A rudder is something that steers your airplane, and so it's like a dog steers your life if you think about it that way.

Host - Diane Thomas - In early December, Suzan began preparing for the holidays, and Rudder was excited because of all the different activity.  They couldn’t know the significance the name Rudder would have until one night, when everything changed.

December 9th, my husband started not feeling so well and, and he ended up staying in bed. And then on the 10th, he was still not feeling well. I wanted to take him to the doctor, he said, no, he figured it was just a stomach flu or something. Anyway, so him being sick I didn't want to sleep in the bed with him. so I had Rudder out in the living room with me and I made a bed out on the couch and just around midnight, Rudder barked and it startled me awake, because apparently I had fallen asleep, and I looked over and he was sitting by the master bedroom door.

I opened the door and found my husband laying. And unfortunately he had passed away

TRANSITION MUSIC Fades in ~

Host - John Thomas - Mike had died suddenly of an unknown heart condition. Perhaps Rudder was brought into Suzan’s life to fill this very unexpected void so he could ‘steer’ Suzan’s life through grief, sadness, and loneliness. So we asked Suzan, Who Rescued Whom?

Guest - Suzan - Losing my husband was like one of the worst things in the world because I didn't have children. I lived farther away from most of my family, and so I had Rudder.

MUSIC Fades out ~

Guest - Suzan - What the amazing part was he actually, helped me overcome some of the heartache and, a lot of the heartache, because every day I'd have to go out and walk him.

I'd get outside, I'd see people. I would talk to people, people would ask me about Rudder and I would start taking him to dog parks. And so him being in my life was the biggest rescue I could think of, of rescuing me. I don't know how people say, divine intervention. Something had made us adopt Rudder at the time we did, because somebody knew I would need him.

TRANSITION MUSIC Fades in ~

Host - Diane Thomas -  “And God said, I will send them without wings so no on suspects they are angels.” A quote from an unknown author.

Host - John Thomas -  Rudder is special in many ways.

MUSIC Fades out ~

Guest - Suzan - Rudder’s actually very attached to me. Um, he will walk with me off-leash and stay with me, but when he hears me getting upset or sometimes if I sit and cry, he will come over and put his head on my knee and just lay there and all I can do is pet him and as I pet him, I feel better. And so I think he actually understands that. Somehow he has the empathy to sense me feeling bad or getting upset or hurting. And so he's very in tune with that. He'll always come over and bring me a toy, he’ll bring me a toy. Like, Hey, play with me even though I might be crying or whatever. And so that always seems to make me feel better.

Host - Diane Thomas - We often ask our guests if they have a favorite quote about dogs. 

Guest - Suzan - So one of my favorite ones is one I got from Mountain Pet Rescue. She sent me a book marker and it said, “You can't buy love, but you can rescue it”.  And then the other thing, which is kind of something I put together was, “Living in this world with all the strangeness going on, it's hard, especially if you don't have someone to love and that someone could very well be just a furry friend.”

MUSIC (“Missy’s Theme”) Fades in ~

Host - Diane Thomas - The Who Rescued Whom? Canine Rescue Tales Podcast makes a donation to the rescue of choice in honor of the guest(s) we feature on each episode.

Host - John Thomas - Suzan would like this episode’s donation to go to Mountain Pet Rescue in Grand County, Colorado. Mountain Pet Rescue is how Rudder’s story with Suzan and Mike began.

Host - Diane Thomas - Mountain Pet Rescue is a foster-based rescue that focuses on rescuing active, energetic “mountain” dogs by working with overcrowded shelters in and outside of Colorado. Their Board of Directors strives to match each dog with its perfect home by assessing its temperament, evaluating the potential foster and adoption homes, and following up with the pet owner to ensure a healthy and enjoyable relationship. We will post a link in our show notes in case you’d like to donate to Mountain Pet Rescue as well. It’s been just over four years since Suzan lost Mike, and she still walks with Rudder, every day! And recently, she added another furry friend to her home, Baeta, a Labrador, springer/pointer mix that she also adopted from Mountain Pet Rescue.

Host - John Thomas - Dogs. There are so many anecdotal stories of dogs sensing danger or sadness in our lives, and then warning or comforting us. Science fiction author Dean Koontz describes his experiences with his dog named Trixie as a theophany, a visible manifestation of a deity. Trixie had changed his life in so many positive ways. Was it fate, destiny, coincidence or divine intervention that brought Rudder to Suzan and helped her cope with an unbelievable loss? It really doesn’t matter why, or how, Rudder just did, a dog did. One could be there for you in your time of need, so consider rescuing a dog and developing that unique bond. Dogs are truly a gift, a joy and comfort to have in your life.

Host - Diane Thomas - The Who Rescued Whom? Canine Rescue Tales Podcast is seeking sponsors and supporters.  If you’d like to sponsor an episode, or several, please email us at info@whorescuedwhom.com.  Or, if you love our show and just wish to support us in creating more great content, please consider visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/whorescuedwhom, where you can support us by buying us a coffee or puppaccino! Each $3 Cup of Coffee, or Puppaccino, represents the 3+ million dogs that enter animal shelters each and every year here in the United States. 

Host - Diane Thomas - This podcast was edited and produced by Mike McClellan at podcastps.com. Mike also wrote, performed and produced all the original music that you heard on this episode.

MUSIC (“Missy’s Theme”) Fades out ~

Diane Thomas
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WRW? - Episode 3 - “The Mountain”