“My neighbors think I’m nuts. But I’m not. I just like dogs. 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.” The Instagram post by Melissa Rock walking her dogs perfectly illustrates her busy life with a pack of pooches she calls the “potatoes.”
“Most of my dogs are special needs in one way or another, and I don’t even see their handicap at all,” said Rock, who lives with her husband, two kids and a menagerie of animals in her Chicago-area home.
Rock is a rescue partner with MCP Rescue in Chicago and helps spread the word about neglected and abused animals. Rock said she grew up with animals, many with disabilities and deformities.
“That was just a normal part of me growing up my childhood, so I I’m drawn to the story of trying to learn a different way with any kind of animal who has a little bit of what we would perceive as being different,” she said.
Her Instagram, Pudgethepit (Melissa and the Potatoes), features the dogs and their unique personalities. It’s named for her beloved Pit Bull Pudge, who passed away in 2019. Pudge gained a big following because of his chunky stature and goofy antics.
Pudge would often strike a funny pose she came to call the “dog show.”
“He would drop his hindquarters really low to the ground and kind of posture into a position where you see, like on the Westminster [Kennel Club Dog Show] where they’re forced into that position…he would just hold this beautiful statuesque position, and I would just call it the dog show.”
Pudge had cerebellar degeneration and severe hydrocephalus but had shown no signs of it for years.
“We don’t know if the dog show was related,” said Rock. ”You know, looking back, that might have just been an odd thing he did.”
Pudge was very quiet at first but then found his voice. His grumbling entertained his fans on Instagram.
“He was extremely talkative with me. We could go on and on and on,” said Rock.
Meet the current cast of characters in Rock’s lively household.
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Lefty
Fourteen-year-old Lefty is an American Pit Bull Terrier who found in Chicago as a stray. Nobody stepped up to foster the then two-year-old dog.
Lefty was eventually put into boarding.
“He was being boarded near my house, so I felt terrible,” said Rock. “Lefty has severe allergies, I’m talking severe, you would have thought he had mange, and he was basically just kept in a cage.”
Rock would take her young daughter in the stroller and they’d go pick up Lefty every day and take him for a walk.
“Lefty could only walk maybe two minutes and then have to lay down,” said Rock.
Over a period of weeks, she saw Lefty deteriorate.
“And it got harder and harder for them to even get him back into his cage,” she said. “So, one day it was so hot, in July, I just brought him to my house and I let him run in the yard with my dogs. I said, I’m fostering him. I’m keeping him at home. I kept Lefty and I adopted him. He’s just a perfect dog and he’s 14 years old now, so that was about 12 years ago.”
Taco
French Bulldog Taco was born in Northern California and was surrendered at birth because he had a cleft lip.
Rock explained cleft puppies are usually euthanized. “They can’t nurse off their mom and they have to be tube fed, and [to tube feed] you really gotta know what you’re doing.”
Taco eventually underwent multiple surgeries.
“He’s had airway surgery, which is pretty common. But also because his mouth is deformed from the cleft lip he had to have upper and lower teeth removed. They had to remove a lot of teeth off the bottom because he severed the bottom part of his tongue when he was a puppy. But that’s it. He eats normally now, and he’s good.”
Baby Kane
Then we have Baby Kane, an American Bully who was the size of a Tic Tac box when he was taken in by NorCal Bully Breed Rescue.
“He was surrendered because he was obviously blind at birth,” said Rock. “His tail never formed, and he’s a pretty significant cleft palate dog.“
Both Taco and Kane were raised in incubators.
“It’s pretty touch and go when they’re newborns, to hand raise these dogs that don’t have their mom,” said Rock.
When he was transitioning off of tube feeding, Kane had a hard time learning how to eat, Rock said. Then one day he just decided he was going to eat everything.
“And that’s Kane, though,” said Rock. “That’s pretty typical of Kane. He’s afraid of stuff, or he won’t do something until he learns to do it or he wants to do it, and then that’s all he wants to do. Kane is a black or white dog. It’s really funny.”
Kane had to have his blind eye removed, and he has limited vision in the other eye.
“That’s just congenital. He was born like that, and that’s all he’s ever known,” said Rock.
Winston
Winston, a Mastiff, doesn’t have special needs but he came from a bad situation in Southern Illinois.
“The police were involved and he was being kept in a garage,” said Rock. “So, at 10 o’clock one night I got a phone call about a Mastiff about four-and-a-half hours away in a really bad situation. And I drove out the next morning with my sister-in-law and grabbed Winston.“
Cookie
American Bully Cookie was brought to animal control in Charlotte, N.C. She eventually made her way to a foster family in Chicago.
“She had slash cuts all over her body, I don’t know what from. There was no back story, what happened to her, but in the right light, you can see Cookie’s just scarred all over the place, all over her neck, her face, her legs, her chest is really bad. Plus, she on top of that Cookie had really bad skin issues.”
Rock said Cookie was the hardest case she’s seen.
“Cookie was the most shutdown dog, defeated dog I’ve ever had in my life or I’ve ever met, other than street dogs,” said Rock. “She was just the saddest dog.”
When Cookie’s foster family fell through, Rock took her in and worked with her.
“Cookie’s finally come into her own and really developed her own personality,” said Rock.
Stevie
Stevie was brought into Chicago Animal Care and Control to be euthanized. The pup had bloody ears and a broken leg.
“She was just cropped, her ears [had just been] just cut off, I’m assuming, like at home with fishing line,” said Rock.
Rock said Stevie, an American Bully/American Staffordshire Terrier, was malnourished, had sores all over her body and her feet were splayed from being in a cage.
“She was just in terrible condition on top of having this broken leg, and she was, sadly, already shut down as a puppy,” said Rock. “I actually see this pretty often with dogs who suffer through having their ears cropped off, I think it shuts them down really young. People do this mutilation of their heads for no reason at all, but to have their dog to look a certain way. And the dogs suffer through life one way or another because of that ear cropping.”
Someone from MCP Rescue happened to be at animal control when Stevie was brought in so they took her.
A surgeon friend of Rock’s determined that part of Stevie’s leg problem was a growth plate issue.
“She had two surgeries to fix the leg and pin it,” said Rock.
Buggy
A jogger found baby Bulldog Buggy in an abandoned creek bed in a wooded area in Northern California.
Buggy had very complicated medical issues.
“Buggy had two luxated elbows, he had an airway the size of a pin hole, and I’m not kidding, he was gasping for air. On top of that, he only had one nostril. Bulldogs have complicated airways as it is but Buggy’s [situation] was one of the most severe I’ve ever seen,” said Rock.
Veterinarians at the UC Davis vet school put a plan of multiple surgeries together to save Buggy.
Rock said because of Buggy’s medical issues, including a complicated gastrointestinal system, he would need a specific adopter.
Rock adopted Buggy because she knew she could give him everything he needed and that her dogs would be good to him.
Buggy rests his mouth on various things to help him breathe.
“He came up with that idea himself because it feels good for him to latch his mouth open onto things, and he can fall asleep and relax without worrying about suffocating,” said Rock.
Buggy has developed into a unique character.
“[Bulldogs] are funny, they’re cartoon characters,” said Rock. “They have these wonderful personalities, but they really don’t know a ton of stuff, and they’re really not willing to learn it. So, we just let Buggy do what Bug’s gotta do.”
Buggy has a special relationship with a large water bottle.
“He came up with that, his own idea,” said Rock. “It’s not really uncommon for Bulldogs to have a fixation on something.”
“People either love or hate that he humps water bottles,” said Rock. “But a lot of that comes from Buggy being very bossy, and frustrated. Buggy can’t go very far because his legs don’t work the way normal dogs work because the elbows aren’t normal.”
Buggy rides in his stroller when the pack goes out for walks. He has a special relationship with the stroller as well.
Special needs dogs require additional care, and Rock posts videos to show how the dogs get foot soaks and baths.
Three Little Piggies Join the Pack
Rock has a friend who runs Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital who called her one morning.
“She said, ‘You’re not gonna believe this. We had a chinchilla hanging from our door in a plastic bag this morning and a guinea pig. The chinchilla is not friendly, but the guinea pig is really friendly,’” said Rock.
Rock said she thought about fostering Gerald.
“I wasn’t thinking about adopting guinea pigs, but, you know, I have the room and I have extra cages, and I can do this,” she said. “So, I ended up driving there right away. Gerald just happened to be the nicest guy, so I kept him. And he’s awesome.”
After Gerald came two baby guinea pigs, Emmet and Percy.
“They’re two little brothers who were also brought into the same hospital and they were gonna be abandoned in the forest preserve,” she said. “So somehow the hospital intervened, got the guinea pigs, and no one else offered to foster. So, I ended up taking them, and now they’re living with Gerald. Gerald’s thrilled, and they’re thrilled they have Gerald.”
Taco is also enjoys playing with Gerald.
Sir Deuce
Finally, the pack includes an adorable Siamese cat, adopted from Sgt. Pepper’s Friends, a rescue in Aruba that Rock works with.
Deuce (Sir Deuce from Aruba) was named in honor of Rock’s previous Siamese cat, Grandpa Deuce, who had died.
Deuce was going to be euthanized in Aruba and Sgt. Pepper’s stepped in to save him.
Like his namesake, Sir Deuce loves to lounge on Rock’s bed and trills when approached.
A Fierce Advocate for Animals
Rock is a passionate advocate for honest conversations about Bully breeds, their energy levels, and the commitment it takes to care for them.
“I think a lot of Pit Bull and Bully breeds get misplaced or given up because people aren’t realistic about the energy level of these dogs,” she said.
“Dogs nowadays have become these accessories that people carry around and dress up and take to the groomers and put their hair in ponytails and dye their hair and carry in purses,” she said. “Dogs are still biologically related to wolves. They want to walk, they want to go places, they want to explore. They have to do those things for them to be fulfilled. They have to exert their energy and have an enrichment in their lives and that is just a biological demand. And most dogs that are in shelters were failed in that way.”
Rock said she goes to such lengths for these pets “because I can.”
“Any animal, including humans, can develop special needs throughout their lifetime, so I prefer to have animals with special needs. Because they deserve as much of a shot as anything else on earth.”