From the old Cairn list, posted in January 2000 (3 of 3 posts on
Impossible Placements.)

Enter Brandie, she has been mentioned on the list recently.  Raised
by an elderly couple, until the man died, she lived in a nursing
home with the lady for 5 years, who, at 95, finally had to give her
up.  Brandie is an old 10+ year old dog, probably due to being
raised in a sedentary environment.  Going blind, somewhat deaf, and
with less than the government issue number of teeth, she was not
high on the list of adoptable dogs.  She got around OK but was a
little arthritic in the hind end.  Loved to eat because someone had
spent a lifetime overfeeding her.  "Terry, who is ever going to
adopt this old dog?"

We put her on a diet, 1/2 cup of Senior food, supplemented with all
the puffed rice she could eat, with maybe a touch of canned pumpkin.
Her main job, other than finding a place where the sun warmed the
floor, was to scamper through any open door and dash to our bedroom.
We have a young cat and she is fed there.  Brandie learned very
quickly that sometimes we forgot to pick up the cat dish, plus there
was always the possibility of Cairn Rochas in the cat box.  She
loved her food and, even with failing eye sight, would beat either
of our dogs to any crumb of  food that hit the floor.

We only had her about two weeks and got an inquiry. It didn't pan out
and we thought we would  have the old gal, we now called, "Gramma",
forever. Let me tell you, at this minute, Brandie is flying off to
Seattle, with her new owner.  She flew into SFO this morning. We met
her and had her go for a walk with Brandie in a close by park.   We
had been emailing for the past week and she had the full story, and
wanted her with all her warts,still...  She has Beardies, has bred
them, and had a Cairn once and just wanted someone small to join her
household.  I was never quite sure how she found out about Brandie
but once more a Cairn angel appeared out of nowhere. I am still
smiling at her thanking us for giving Brandie to her, as she moved
down the ticket line for the ride home.

Oh, there were the others: Sweet Bonnie, (AKA Wide Load), who stayed
around over a year, because Sue really didn't want to place her, but
then one day the perfect couple showed up,Clyde, a scrawny pup, who
was easily placed with the first person who saw him,and Annie,
looking like a perfect Toto, who caused her new owner to call
and email me numerous times, because she and their unsuspecting
Lab, did not understand about alpha Cairns.  But those were the
"normal" looking,fairly easy to place guys.

I am just amazed when these Cairn Angels show up just when that
impossible to place cairn needs a home.

Hoping that 2000 has fewer calls for Rescue.