Meet Our Spokesdogs | caninecastaways

Meet Our Spokesdogs...

UNO, the original castaway

In 2003, we founded Canine Castaways with the motto "Saving one dog won't change the world but it will change the world for that dog". When we rescued a tiny, sick chihuahua puppy from Desoto County Animal Services our world changed along with so many dogs in the future. Since he was our first official rescue we named him Uno and decided to keep him as our spokesdog. Uno attended events with us over the years and made many friends; however, as he aged he chose to stay home more.

November 2013 - July 2020

RAVEN, carrying on where Uno left off

Uno was our spokesdog for almost 17 wonderful years that we will always treasure. After he passed away, we had no intention of filling his job but sometimes the universe has other ideas. In November of 2020 as we were approaching our 17th birthday, we rescued another tiny, mostly black chihuahua from Desoto County Animal Services just like Uno all of those years ago. Raven weighed in at 2.5 lbs and was found with her tongue dangling by a thin piece of flesh. We knew we had to give her a chance. She was rushed into surgery to deal with the injury which required the majority of her tongue to be removed. After three days of feeding thru a nasal tube, she had an esophageal feeding tube placed.

She must stay upright and be hand fed. Due to her tiny size, it took a lot of creativity but we came up with a way to get her in position to try to eat and it worked! Next problem was figuring out how to get her to drink without a tongue to lap water. When we least suspected it, she solved that problem herself. In the blink of an eye, she found a way to drink all by herself. She basically bites at the water. It's a little sloppy but it gets the job done!!

Raven is full of personality and now barks when she is ready to eat and gets so excited when she sees her "chair". We couldn't be prouder of this tiny fighter. Raven is a daily reminder that we can change the world one dog at a time!