Over the next few days, I'm going to be posting up the latest and possibly last batch of dogs rescued from the puppy mills of Ontario by Kismutt Rescue and brought to Toronto Animal Services South for rehoming.

Here's the first, a hopeful-eyed little pup, possibly a Pointer/Collie mix.

In the second photo, he's with his good friend, a Collie mix, with whom he shares a kennel and who will be featured in tomorrow's post.

Kiki and Shadow meet for the first time when they took a ride up together to Toronto from that pound in Georgia but now they're best buddies. That doesn't mean they're bonded but it is indicative of how affectionate these two dogs are.

Dogs like Kiki and Shadow never would have stood a chance at being adopted back where they came from - not just because that pound had no adoption program - but even if the pound had one, big black dogs always seem to be passed over down there.

Luckily, they're both in Toronto now. Toronto may have the worst professional sports teams in North America; we may have a perpetually insufficient transit system coupled with some of this continent's worst traffic congestion; we may keep putting up ass ugly condo towers along our waterfront even though we keep saying we won't allow it anymore; our Gardiner Expressway may be raining down concrete on the cars below; but, one thing Toronto does well is we keep damn fine care of our dogs regardless of their colour.

Ashley Hyslop, who was instrumental in bringing Shadow up here, adds:

Shadow is ball of love! Her main mission in life is to please, please, please. Her love of affection could be compared to Winnie the Pooh’s love of honey – endless love! Winnie the Pooh was also best friends with every character in the 100 acre of forest – Shadow is very similar – she will instantly become your best friend! Shadow is approx 1.5 years and gets along very well with other dogs! She would be a great pet for an active family who is looking for a loyal companion.

Kiki looks like she's wearing those short, sports socks that some people wear in the summer. I'm not sure if that's a fashion faux pas or not but it certainly gives her a very distinctive look.

Kiki is a happy, all round dog's dog who really likes her dog buddies. Definitely a strong candidate for dog park fans.

Ashley Hyslop, Kiki's rescuer, adds:

Kiki was overlooked down south simply due to her black coloring! She doesn’t hold grudges however and in fact is a very laid back, gentle soul! She is extremely friendly and would do great in any loving home! She loves playing with other dogs and giving big kisses to anyone who pays attention.

Todd is the subdued one. He is the other Plott Hound who, along with his pal Chipper, were brought up from a high kill shelter in Georgia in the hopes of finding a home here in Toronto.

If Chipper and Todd were a comedy duo, they'd be Laurel and Hardy with Todd being Laurel (Laurel's the quiet, sadly perplexed one). Todd seemed to constantly be getting climbed over and pushed around by Chipper's exuberance and he just mostly stood there and wagged his tail. Good practice for being around toddlers I suspect.

You won't be needing that down comforter if you've got Tristan snoozing beside you. He might be a dog but he's got a polar bear coat - not that I've ever felt a polar bear coat. I imagine it would be a lot coarser than Tristan's downy fur but hey, what do I know? Maybe polar bear coats are as soft as cotton balls.

I'm pretty sure, though, that Tristan is significantly more friendly than most polar bears so it would likely be a lot easier to invite him onto your couch to warm your lap in the winter.

Rolling in the grass is a state of mind.

From the owner of Todd, now Banjo:

"i wonder what percentage of rescue people are crazier than shithouse rats?" - from a friend after reading about the death of Henry the Sharpei while he was being restrained by a would-be "rescuer" up at Toronto Animal Services North (Here, here and here - the last link is now dead with the police investigation going on).

Sometimes people are crazy from the get-go. Sometimes, a little crazy blossoms into a big crazy. Sometimes the work, the internal struggles, the losses make a once sane person borderline schizo.

Compassion needs a thick armour to protect it from blunt force trauma. Some people don't have those defence mechanisms in place in which case it might be better for them to stick to the non-lethal stuff. That's not a dig. We need our soldiers, our police to protect our innocent. That's not a dig against those who need protecting, nor is it even a compliment to those who do the protecting because sometimes those who are given the task of protecting turn out bad and become the ones we need protection from.

I'm sure the woman who walked out of that room with a dead dog at her feet, her clothes splattered with its blood and shit and piss, had no intention of incurring such events when she woke up that morning. I'm sure her intentions, at least in her own mind, were good.

And yet, there it is. Right there on the floor. Dog. Dead. Noose around its neck.

The dog would've died anyway. A few hours later, it would have been euthanized. Rightly or wrongly, for biting, it would have been euthanized. But that death would have been a softer death. Some anxiety perhaps as the dog is placed on the metal table, probably muzzled, and then a needle, a quick sleep, maybe some internal turmoil as the life inside realizes its end, death.

Whatever euthanasia would have been, it would not have been this. Not this wretched physical struggle for its life against some terrifying stranger. Who cares what the woman's intentions were. Who cares what the staff's intentions were. We look at the outcome. The dog suffers the outcome.

At some point, Henry starts to bleed. At some point, Henry pisses himself because he is terrified. At some point, Henry defecates because he is about to die. At some point, Henry dies.

I sometimes question my motives. Are they pure enough? Are they truthful enough? I sometimes question my methods. Are they objective enough? Are they effective enough? And now I question my own level of sanity, degree of compassion. This news, which once would have horrified me and compelled me to inform immediately, now I've sublimated for the last several days before feeling a need to write about it.

What percentage of rescue people are crazier than shithouse rats?

Maybe not many but that's still too many.

I could've gone to a friend's cottage, could've brought the dogs, both Simone and Smitten - they would've enjoyed that. First I had said yes, then ten minutes later I phoned her back and said no. There's too much I need to get done in town this weekend, before next week when work is going to take over my life for a while.

I'd said no and was fine with that but then this morning came along. I had 1200 nickels in rolls in my bicycle pannier and I was taking them to my bank. I'd accumulated them over the past fifteen years or so in a pink plastic piggy bank which one day Rocky decided he needed to maul and then the wounded piggy bank just became this ugly weight I had to constantly move around whenever I cleaned house and every time I moved it, nickels would fall out.

I don't know why I decided to roll them and bank them. I should've just dumped them into one of those rip-off coin sorting machines they have at the grocery stores.

Instead, this: I was riding my bicycle to the bank when I hit a bump in the road and the weight of the 1200 nickels pushed the edge of my pannier into the rear spokes. The edge caught and the spoke pulled the pannier hard into the wheel, jammed the wheel and ripped open the pannier. Rolls of nickels fell out of the bag and were thrown into the derailleur, chains and spokes upon which many of them were torn open and the tinkling of nickels hitting the asphalt greeted my ears even before I turned around to confirm the sad event with my eyes. My bike, with its jammed wheel, was ground to a halt in the middle of an intersection - not a major intersection but busy enough. About a third of the nickels had fallen out of the bag and I figured twenty bucks was not worth risking my life for so I abandoned the nickels in the middle of the road and carried my bike to the sidewalk. I didn't turn around even when I heard car tires rolling over the pile of nickels crunching them and exploding the remaining intact rolls.

I surveyed the damage to my bike. The pannier was in shreds. The bicycle pump inside the pannier was busted in half. The rim of the rear wheel was so bent that when I rode, the whole bike wobbled. In total, I figured getting these, what once used to be sixty dollars worth of change, to the bank, would set me back about three hundred dollars once I had everything repaired or replaced. Plus, I had to walk my bike, couldn't ride it anymore with the busted pannier and the bent out of shape wheel.

The rest of the day was spent bringing the now mostly loose change to the bank (cashier was not impressed), getting my bike fixed, arriving into work really late then staying late to make up for it, picking up my bike, finally getting back home, where Simone was slightly frantic because she should've had her dinner and walk a few hours ago.

Shoulda gone to the cottage.

The evening, though - partly why I decided to stay in town, because I knew there would be this or something like this. I take Simone for her walk. She sniffs every sniff along the way, takes her time doing it. We reach the park. The sky is dimming. The clouds are turning pink. There's a couple on the baseball diamond playing bocce ball, their dog quietly lying beside them watching. There's the guy with the wispy white beard sitting at his usual spot with his two dogs. There's a younger woman in hot pink yoga pants sitting on a bench, plugged into her smartphone, with her oddly shaped Chihuahua on guard in front of her. There are small groups of friends and families congregated all around the park.

There are a few people inside the fenced in dog area but I don't recognize any of them or more importantly, Simone doesn't recognize any of them in there so I decide to give her a break from having to meet more new dogs. We walk by the woman and her Chihuahua and the Chihuahua eyes Simone suspiciously and advances slowly. They air sniff each other and when the Chihuahua tries to come closer, Simone hides behind me. The woman is watching. I explain, Simone is shy. She asks, How old? I say, Maybe three. We smile, talk.

I walk on, towards some bleachers where I take out Simone's brush and give her a quick groom. A father walks by holding his young daughter's hand, says to her, Look, the sky, the clouds, and so the daughter looks and they stand there both looking and I say to them, Waiting for the blue moon? and the father says, That'll be out a bit later. Then the mother comes over to where I'm sitting and the father and daughter come over and we are all around the bleachers and Simone is wagging her tail and letting the girl pet her and I say to the girl, Watch out, you might get some kisses. The Chihuahua comes by and the father says to his daughter, Be careful, hon, with that one. The mother says, Wow, look at that dog go and she's pointing at Razor, the Border Collie, who is almost famous in the neighbourhood, who runs laps around the outside of the fenced-in dog area and we talk about dogs and cats and their neighbours' cats and going back to school and the huge gourds hanging up on some particular porch and the big sky and pet stores on Roncie and living in the neighbourhood and dogs and cats. Then it's eight o'clock and the father says it time to bring the girl home so they leave.

I see Stephen and his dog Holly going into the dog area and I could yell out hello to them but I don't. The night is almost here now and the quiet isn't meant to be broken. Simone is lying in the grass, looking up. The moon is just passing behind the only wisp of a cloud in the sky and for a minute, it does indeed look blue.