FROM AN UNCERTAIN LIFE TO A HAPPY COUCH DOG, A RESCUED PUP'S PATH!

There is just something quite beautiful about a totally relaxed, upside-down couch dog. 
This one is Guera — and that is pronounced, we’re told, “Where-ah” or “Wear ah” in her native tongue. We mentioned that early because she’s mentioned frequently in this report and you'll want to know how to read it to yourself, right? 

As you know, Dear Readers, our long-running weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap, has a mission of demonstrating how humans and animals can happily live with each other. Everybody gets to speak dog and, of course, cat.
This dog was once an “unclaimed beauty.” But our pals Cindy and Al Gomez of Dallas … well, they fostered this beauty Guera and she claimed the couch. Some things are just meant to be.
This is an international story, by the way. It involves those two Texans spending time in a remote part of Mexico on the Caribbean side of the Yucatan Peninsula.

 At this point in the tale we introduce the legendary Costa Maya Beach Dog Rescue. Why? Cindy explains, “Guera came to us through Heather Johnson and Maya Beach Dog Rescue.”
  [LARRY NOTE: Look at Guera's sleeping face! As an insomniac, I am quite envious of this dog's ability to snooze!!!!]
The story, told briefly, Cindy says, begins with “Heather picked her up in a small town, but her house was full, so she asked Al if he could take her.”

What did Al say? The answer is snoozing upside down on that couch: He and Cindy have had this dog around 5 years now. 

There was this odd episode, however. Cindy says, “Someone came to Al and me after about a year, posed as a guest, and then told us he was here to see if Guera was his dog (Heather had posted her on the website originally before we took her). Anyway, Guera did not know this guy from Adam and his timeline didn't match, but he was insistent. He came back 2 more times, but NO WAY was he taking her! 
“She truly is one of the gentlest and sweetest dogs we've had.”
 [That's Guera lounging in the shade at the beachhouse in Costa Maya.]
Guera is a female and her hair is white so “Guera” fits the pup because it translates, I'm told, as “white girl.”
I mention that and explain further that Al and Cindy’s place in Mexico is near the beach. And the interesting “shell portraits” of Guera are illustrations of the beloved dog that Cindy painted on conch shells that washed up on the sand. 
You can also see that Guera will pose for photos. That’s her on the porch with another rescue, 10-year-old Pup. And the dog out front is “Foster.”
Foster has a rescue story: He also came from the Beach Rescue run by Heather. The story is, he was a nameless fellow and Heather and the rescue were running out of room. So, she asked Al to foster him and, of course, Cindy and Al fell for him. After they decided to keep him, Al named him “Foster.” [Cindy’s sister, our pal Diane Combs, suggests that maybe his full name should be ‘Foster Failure’]
You can read more about Costa Maya Beach Dog Rescue at it’s beachdogrescue.org website HERE.
A note from Heather on the rescue's website explains this critical mission taken on by her and her husband, known to friends as “Saint.” It reads, “Since 2016 we have been taking dogs into our home. Lots and lots of dogs! After we spay/neuter, vaccinate & treat any illnesses, we find permanent, loving homes in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. The most time-consuming thing for us is usually working to build their trust and faith in humans.” 

And on the Beach Dog Rescue website there’s another note from Heather that reads, “Our mission is to help the homeless, abandoned, sick and abused dogs in our area. There are no shelters and very few services for animals here. Dogs are born on the street to suffer and die alone. We are trying with all our heart and soul to change that.”

How did they wind up in a mission like that? Heather wrote, “My husband and I moved to Costa Maya Mexico a few years ago. We didn’t know we would start a rescue, but when we saw the sad reality that street and beach dogs face, we knew we had to help. There was just no other way to sleep at night.”
 [LARRY ASIDE: Tell me, Dear Rescuing Readers, that you haven’t experienced that very same emotion as far inland as we are in the Metrosprawl! “There was just no other way to sleep at night,” Heather wrote and we repeat. Plus, Cindy would have never had the chance to create Conch Art Guera without this rescue!]
And, because of that "no other way to sleep at night" attitude, in this edition of readlarrypowell.com, we have photos of Cindy and Al’s dog Guera demonstrating one of the happy ways that beautiful former Beach Dog has to sleep because the rescuer and the fosters all know this truth: Every dog deserves a safe place to live and show off his or her sleeping couchdog style. It helps humans sleep at night.
Read more about the award-winning Costa Maya Beach Dog Rescue HERE.  Feel free to envy the relaxed slumberlook on Guera's face!
[DEAR READERS: Please send photos to [email protected] of your dogs and cats and other critters sleeping in the loving comfort of life with you. We love demonstrating in Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap how human hearts can beat in tandem with animals who trust the alleged “dominant species.” You’ll be helping, perhaps, a dog or cat find a home because someone saw how wonderful your household companion is living. Not out on the streets dodging cars and villains or in shelters waiting for the needle, but with you, a person with a loving heart. (That's my Apprentice Office Cat Stevie Ray in his Scratching Chair. He asked me, "Doesn't anyone in Texas have a cat that naps except you and Darling Martha, The Animal Nut?"  FYI: Insomniacs do stay up nights worrying about people and animals and, of course, warmongering humans on the planet. Peace now, meow.]
—- Offer tips or ideas by clicking on ‘comment’ below or by emailing [email protected] and put “PEACE NOW? ARE YOU A RARE OPTIMIST?” in the subject line. Peace now, dangit. —-