Austen still needs a haircut!

I have tried and tried to clip this foster dog's face and feet.  All to no avail.  He is more adept than I and he squirms out of my grasp and runs off to hide.  All I have really done is to make his situation worse.  I finally broke down and asked my neighbor, who clips his own dog, if he would help me.  I'll let you know how that goes, but I have some reservations.  I think this dog will outwit both of us.

About the cats--both are still alive and well.  They show up every morning to eat and get fresh water.  The largest one, I call it KT, is very curious about us and he/she has started to let me scratch his/her head.  I even got to pick that one up very, very briefly.  These little kittens hardly weigh a pound.  I have simply got to get them caught and taken to the vet.  With summer coming, I need to get them immunized and neutered/spayed.  I also want to have something done to help them with fleas.  Since they hang out on my porch, I don't want the little jumping bugs to decide to jump on into my house.

I'll just have to continue to be patient and if I can get the one to let me hold him/her, maybe I can get the other into a trap and then take them both together.  More to follow.......

Homeless L.A. man back with his pit bull

Here's a great story about love and loyalty.  Only a dog lover will truly understand, but I think everyone needs to see the connection we have with our dogs.  Pets provide more than just companionship, protection, company, etc.  Pets make up an essential part of our everyday life and living with pets makes us truly human.

Please read the story below.  I found it on a blog, Ohmidog!   I hope you will visit this blog for more wonderful stories about life with pets.  I know I will be back to visit  and soon!

I was driving down Century Boulevard when I spotted them — a homeless man, judging from the Vons grocery cart he was pushing down the sidewalk, and a three-legged pit bull in a service dog vest, hobbling alongside, her leash tied to the cart.
I made a u-turn, saw him walking down Hawthorne and, after one more u-turn, pulled my rental car alongside the man and dog as they turned down 101st Street.
His name is Mike Reed, and his dog’s name is Topaz, and as we sat on the sidewalk and talked — next to his bottle of King Cobra malt liquor in a black plastic bag — Topaz, weary from a just completed walk, snoozed on the concrete, wearing a service dog vest that said “Don’t Touch Me, I’m Working.”
Reed has had Topaz for five years. He takes care of her. She takes care of him, helping him cope with life on the streets — the kind of life that can turn violent at any second, and on Aug. 31 did just that.
On that day, he and Topaz found themselves standing innocently in the middle of a confrontation between another homeless man and officers from the Inglewood Police Department.

Reed had just met the man minutes earlier — after the man entered a store and an employee noticed what appeared to be a gun in his pants. Police were called, and tracked the man down. Not knowing whether Reed was an accomplice, officers put Reed in a squad car. Topaz remained on the sidewalk, leashed to Reed’s grocery cart.

As Reed decribes it, police told the suspect to put his hands in the air. The suspect raised and lowered his hands two times. The third time he lowered them, he reached for what police thought was a gun, and a barrage of shots followed.
The gun turned out to be a plastic toy.
Four or five shots struck Topaz, one shattering her hip bone.
“She pulled my Maserati (his shopping cart) off the curb and fell over, but she kept looking at me.”
He pleaded with police officers to let him go to her. “I said, ‘Let me get to my dog, let me get to my dog, let me get to my dog,’ and they wouldn’t.”
Eddie Franco died in the shooting, in which eight officers fired a total of 47 shots, according to KTLA-TV. Topaz was taken away in a police car. Reed was taken into custody, and his possessions were confiscated. He was later released – but given no information about his dog. Having watched as she was struck, he presumed she was dead.
“It threw me,” Reed said of losing his dog. “I’m OK, I can survive an attack or two; we’re in L.A. But they shot my dog. They shot my dog. You can shoot me, but don’t mess with my best friend.”
Reed, 50, who has been described as having “mental problems,” says he has been homeless, or, as he put it  “pulling a Vons” for the last 10 years
Without his dog, “his world was just taken away,” said his friend Tina Larson, who went to high school with Reed and lives near one of the spots where he hangs out.
Two days later, though, a message was relayed to Reed that his dog was alive.
Months before the incident, Ingrid Hurel-Diourbel, founder of Streetsmarts Rescue, had seen Reed and his dog on the street, collecting recyclables, and stopped to talk to him.  She placed one of her organization’s rescue tags on Topaz, who had no identification, and Reed gave her his stepmother’s phone number.
When the Carson Shelter’s animal control unit — where Topaz was taken after the shooting — saw the tag, they called Hurel-Diourbel, who got the message to Reed.
She also started contacting other rescue organizations to raise money for the surgery Topaz needed.
Meanwhile, Reed retrieved his dog, and apparently wasn’t told about how serious her condition was. For several days, rescue organizations searched for him so that Topaz could get the surgery.
When they finally found him, infections had set in. Vets removed her right rear leg at the hip.
It took about two months for Topaz to get up and around, Reed said, and she can’t cover as much ground as she used to. “We can’t go too far no more. We have to stay close. She’s not vicious or anything, but she’s a good guard dog. She she still watches my back,” he said.
“I help her during the day. She helps me at night.”
(Photos by John Woestendiek/ohmidog!)

Save Spork!

Image via Wikipedia

February 19th, 2010

The city of Lafayette currently has a 10-year-old weiner dog named Spork targeted for either death or kenneling after he bit a veterinarian technician.

Spork, a 10-year-old weiner dog, during a stressful visit to the Jasper Animal Hospital in Lafayette, bit the vet technician on the face when she tried to cut away something around his neck.
Lafayette is now ignoring state law – invoking “home law”- which states that professionals who work with animals take the risk of getting bitten, and is attempting to have Spork either put down or kenneled for life.

Here’s the full story from the Save Spork! facebook page.

Last August the beloved 10-year-old miniature dachshund, Spork, snapped at and bit a veterinarian technician at Jasper Animal Hospital as he was being held by his owner. He has been at the vet on numerous occasions over the years and had been there just the week before, without ever having any issues except that he is usually very scared and shaking, sometimes defecating (which some dogs do if they are scared at the vet). In fact, he had been there just the week before when he got his shots and examination for oral surgery.
Spork’s owner was doing exactly what she was told and was holding the 17-pound dachshund firmly in her arms when the vet tech suddenly, and without warning, put her face in his, which resulted in the bite. He was shaking badly before this happened which was noticed by the entire staff, and had pooped on his owner just before the accident. Clearly the little guy was just scared to be at the vet and that was obvious.
Spork’s owner was utterly unaware that it had happened until the vet tech stood up. This is a sad accident, but YOU must realize that it is a very common risk at the vet where it is imperative for everyone involved to follow procedures and best practices, including training to avoid being bitten.
Spork, unfortunately, didn’t have the benefit of any of these at Jasper Animal Hospital.
WHY THIS IS VITALLY IMPORTANT TO YOU:
About a month after the bite, Lafayette Animal Control charged Spork’s owners with having a vicious dog in the City of Lafayette. Please look into this for yourself and understand that this is an extremely serious charge and it is a guaranteed risk you face if you do veterinary business in Lafayette.
The owners have spent more than $6,000 dollars already defending their 10-year-old little buddy!
Despite specific and unambiguous Colorado state laws specifically excluding veterinary health care workers, the City of Lafayette will declare ‘home rule’ and can kill your dog, make you relocate or, maybe worst of all, kennel your best friend for long and cruel periods of time, even making you pay for the kenneling and even if you are found innocent!
The staff at Jasper Animal Hospital endorses this action which could very, very easily happen to you today. Dog bites are very, very common in the industry and you have no way to know what provocation could trigger a reaction from your pet.
IF YOU OWN AN ANIMAL YOU HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT IT!

While HOWLColorado is focused on education about, and the advocacy for, wolves – such stories are particularly interesting to us as it shows, even in the field of animal medicine, there is still a remarkable lack of understanding about “man’s best friend.”
We find this story to be shocking and are hard pressed to see any reasonable explanation for it.
If you wish to join the facebook group, join the Save Spork! group.
If you wish to sign the petition calling for Lafayette to reverse their decision, do so here.
Resources
Motion to dismiss filed on behalf of the defendent – the owner of Spork
City of Lafayette denial to dismiss statement
Colorado State Statute
note: HOWLColorado makes no judgements of the vet involved. We have not spoken with the vet, or the vet tech, and are unaware of any policies which were in place at the time of the incident and whether the vet tech followed any of those policies. We are concerned that a trained vet tech would not have received the appropriate training necessary for dealing with animals of this disposition. It is for this very reason that professionals should be exempt – as they are in state law – from the laws covering animal bites. They should know how to avoid such things, and they should assume the risks of working with animals.

____________________________________________________________________________________

This is a post from a blog, Howl Colorado about a dachshund in trouble.  Please read the comments at this site as well as the original posting and join the fanpage on Facebook if you want to.

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Here's a follow-up on the status of Austen's haircut

Image by muhammad.u via Flickr

I went and bought a clipper that is small and made for faces and feet.  I really only want his face clipped and for his feet to be clipped so he doesn't get soggy when we go out in the rain.  I did get his feet clipped with quite a bit of argument from Austen.  However, when I started on his face, he went crazy and flipped his body every which way until I turned him loose.  So, he has small sections on his face that are clipped, but that's all.

What I need is for someone to give me some pointers on how to go about doing this.  I don't think it should take very long and I hate to have to take him to a groomer and leave him for several hours just to clip his face.  So, can anyone out there give me some pointers?  I'm desperate.

Cody Brody had his surgery and is doing better!

Back on December 4th I posted an article about a little rat-man that was in dire straits.  He had been thrown out of a moving vehicle and both front legs were broken.  He was to have surgery to repair these breaks and Ratbone Rescues was collecting money to help pay the $2000.00 costs.  Below is his story and if you follow the link to watch his progress, you will get to see pictures of him without his casts and walking!

Well, here is an update from Ratbone Rescues blog:

Cody Brody Ratbone

Cody Brody is a
10 pound, blue
tri-colored Rat
Terrier, estimated
to be 2 years old.
Little Cody was taken
to an animal shelter
in east-central Florida
after being tossed from a moving car.
When Cody Brody
hit the ground he
fractured the radius
and the ulna in both
of his front legs.
His right leg had a
"compound fracture", which means the broken ends of the
bones came through
the skin.
The shelter took little Cody to a vet for treatment, and then started looking for a rescue to take him and get him on the road to recovery. A local rescue offered but backed out, so Ratbone Rescues was contacted - and we picked him up the next day; this was 9 days after the local vet had cast his legs.
 

Little Cody was very fearful in the shelter. He was also in a lot of pain, so he showed his teeth and growled at everyone. He also tried to bite if anyone made a move to touch him. We were sure that Cody was just in pain, and that once he was out of the shelter he could learn to trust again. This was proved after his arrival at his temporary foster home, where he slowly showed his care-givers that he was open to their attempts to "connect" with him.
After 3 days in his temporary foster home Cody made the drive north to Daytona to meet his permanent fostermom - and his orthopedic surgeons. But the enclosed cars soon made it clear that there was something very wrong with Cody - something really stinky! Instead of waiting for his appointment the next day, Cody's fostermom took him straight to the vet's office, where we found that the fiberglass cast had not been padded - and had cut into his right leg and foot. These wounds and the open wound under the cast on his right leg had become septic (infected) - which was what caused him to smell so bad. Cody was not especially happy to see the staff at our vet's office,
but that would soon change.

X-rays revealed that Cody's legs had never been set, and the bones were overlapped by 1/2 inch on the right leg and 1 inch on the left. Once our vets removed the painful casts and got his wounds cleaned - and gave him medications for infection and pain - Cody was a new dog! He is friendly, trusting, and sweet.
 
Cody's surgeons - Dr. Robert Goring and Dr. Steve Neihaus, of Affiliated Veterinary Specialists (Orange Park, FL) - have a plan for our boy. First, they will give him time for his open wounds to begin to heal. Next, they will operate on Cody's legs, removing a small section of each bone to allow proper alignment; stainless steel plates and pins will be used to hold the bones in place while they heal. Before surgery and during the healing process Cody will be given antibiotics and medications to manage his pain. Cody's surgery is scheduled for December 8, 2009. After surgery he will spend several days in the hospital, so a close eye can be kept on his progress. Then Cody will return to his foster home for 8 to 12 weeks of recovery and rehabilitation. At 4 and 8 weeks post-surgery Cody will probably need x-rays, to make sure his bones are mending as they should.
To watch Cody's progress please use this link.
WARNING: graphic photos of open wounds - not for the squeamish!
The estimated cost of Cody Brody's surgical and medical care is $4,000 - if there are no unexpected complications. Our wonderful "Dr. G" gives us a 50% discount, so we need to raise at least $2,000 to pay for Cody's care. Please help us to reach our goal.


Cody Brody has had surgery on both legs, and so far things look very good. The first surgery was done on December 7th, on his left leg. His right leg was repaired on December 9th. Cody had to donate a bit of his shoulder bone to help repair his right leg, so he was a little bit more uncomfortable after that surgery.

Cody spent the weekend (December 11-13) at his foster home, getting extra attention and lap time, and returned to the hospital on December 14th for bandage changes and a check-up. He will need daily bandage changes for the rest of the week, and possibly physical therapy. We hope Cody can go back
home on Thursday or Friday.
Cody Brody will need x-rays in about 4 weeks, to make sure the bones are healing as they should; he will need additional x-rays 3 to 4 weeks after that. All in all his doctors expect Cody to be ready to play in about 12 weeks, after strict crate rest and leashed walks only (with lots of lap time).
 
Christmas Day Update:
Cody Brody is feeling fine! He's had all the sutures removed from both legs, and will be getting follow-up x-rays on January 4th - to make sure his legs are healing as they should. Cody is having to spend his days lounging around in his crate (with very short, leashed walks for potty breaks), but he's taking it all in stride. What a Champ!!



We accept Paypal:  

 

You may also send a check or money order to: Ratbone Rescues P.O. Box 3237 Seminole, FL 33775-3237 All donations made to Ratbone Rescues are tax deductible

Here's some ratties that need new forever homes

DogTime launches 'Save a Dog' Facebook app

http://apps.facebook.com/save-a-dog/

Chances are, your Facebook time is devoted to some pretty serious stuff: trying to determine whether your high school boyfriend is now bald, learning which Golden Girl you most resemble, that sort of thing. But imagine if you could use this precious time for even worthier endeavors, like helping dogs in shelters around the country.
Dog lovers, now you can.

Save a Dog

Save a Dog is DogTime's brand-new Facebook application--and the only one leveraging social media to help real dogs in need of homes. The way it works is simple. Once you install the Save a Dog application, you earn points by simply selecting one of the actions presented (for example, "foster a dog" or "walk your dog"). For every 2500 points you earn, Dogtime donates the financial equivalent of a cup of food to RescueGroups.org. Here's the great part: It's free to use. The only thing you spend is a moment of your time. And yep, you're helping to save real dogs.

Rescue is in DogTime's bones

DogTime's mission has always been about helping dogs, specifically keeping them happy, well-behaved, and in good homes by providing straightforward information to the humans who love them. With Save a Dog, we're taking the effort a step further by actually supplying needed resources to shelters and the volunteers who run them.

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Find out more about how easy is it is to sign up for Facebook--and help save dogs--with just a click of the mouse...

Maggie

• Breed: Rat Terrier
  Learn about Rat Terriers
• Age: Adult
• Size: Small
• Sex: Female

Love to Spare Rescue and Sanctuary

(254) 717-2417

Eddy, TX 76524

 

Description

Please contact Shirlene (Lovetospare@peoplepc.com) for more information about this pet.Maggie was found running along Lasalle in a rainstorm on a Sunday afternoon. My friend saw her in her rearview mirror, and had to go back and pick her up. Maggie had heartworms and was undernourished. She has been treated and fattened up. She just wants to be a lap dog. She would be great for older folks who want a quiet companion. 

 

And here's another:

Sissy

• Breed: Rat Terrier
  Learn about Rat Terriers
• Age: Adult
• Size: Small
• Sex: Female

SPCA PETS SNAP of Montgomery County

(936) 444-2080

206-A South Loop 336W 332

Conroe, TX 77304

 

Description

See Sissy's HomepageMeet Sissy. She is a female Rat Terrier adult that weighs about 17 lbs. She is very well behaved and has great house manners. She is crate, leash and house trained. She gets along well with other pets and does not seem to mind cats. She has had her shots and been spayed. She did test positive for heart worms and has been started on her monthly heartworm prevention which she will need to stay ... (more)

See Sissy's Homepage

Meet Sissy.  She is a female Rat Terrier adult that weighs about 17 lbs.  She is very well behaved and has great house manners.  She is crate, leash and house trained.  She gets along well with other pets and does not seem to mind cats.  She has had her shots and been spayed.  She did test positive for heart worms and has been started on her monthly heartworm prevention which she will need to stay on and then be retested in 6 months to re-evaluate her heartworm status.  We are not going to put her thru heartworm treatment at this time.  If you are interested in meeting  Sissy  in person please go to our home page at www.spcaofmc.com and fill out an on line adoption application so we can set up a time for you to come and meet this pet in person to see if it is the right new pet for you and your family.  Thank you for considering a rescue pet.  Please spay or neuter your pets.

Austen needs a haircut

Here are some pictures of the foster-dog/newly adopted dog, Austen.  I don't want to take him back to the groomer because he had very little hair and it is about to get really cold here again.  So, I got the clippers out and tried to groom his feet.  Got the front two done, sort of, but will have to catch him to get those back feet clipped.  After her recovers, I'll try to catch him and clip his face--he has a hairy chin and can't see where he is going very well.  If I am successful, I will post pics here of his new look. 

You may be able to see his clipped front feet here, but maybe not.  He does not want me touching them!