Excerpts from Pat's Daily Dog Log:

MONDAY JULY 17 2000 - Katie is moved out of Bishop's Kennel

Katie and Bishop have been kennel companions since May 20th. Sweet older dog, Katie, who's about eight or nine years old, is becoming a bit too irritable for mellow fellow Bishop. She's a wonderful dog, but her irritability toward Bishop makes us think that she just may prefer to be a single dog in a kennel by herself. Her testy and snappish interaction with Bishop is not how we like the companion dogs to behave toward each other, so we decided it would be best to move Katie to a kennel by herself and give happy-go-lucky Bishop a more amiable, playful companion. He loves to play and Katie does not.

To make this move we put Katie in the big kennel along the front row of the kennels (the "front enders") and moved Binks from that kennel to the kennel by the office.

Now, Bishop needs a friend . . .

Bishop loves to play and needed a playful companion. Lisa (mother of the four mix/mix puppies who came to us March 16th), who is Danny Boy's companion, would be a perfect, part-time, match for Bishop! She is our little "nutty dog." She loves to play. We'll put her in with Bishop for the morning, and then she can go back with Danny Boy for the afternoon. We knew already that Lisa and Bishop liked each other since we have had them in the big play yard to play together several times. Problem solved.

We had originally tried putting Katie with Danny, since both of these dogs are really laid back dogs, but Danny didn't like Katie at all! Bishop accepted Katie, so they became kennel companions.

Danny Boy liked Lisa when she arrived, and even tho their personalities are quite a bit different--she's the run-around-the-kennel, "Let's play!" type, and Danny is more the "Ho-hum, let's just sit!" type--they get along fine. When Danny Boy gets tired of Lisa's "nuttiness," he woofs at her, and she goes to her house to lie down and cool off!

THURSDAY JULY 20 2000 - Fluffy cannot stand up!

At a little after 4:30 this early, star lit morning Randy came over from the office to tell me that when he'd gone in to feed "the Triplets" (Fluffy, Buffy and Muffy), Fluffy didn't come when he called her for her breakfast, and when he went over to her, he noticed that she was trying to stand up but that she couldn't raise herself from the sitting position she was in.

I hurried out to see Fluffy and found that there is a definite problem. She cannot raise her rump off the ground. Other than that she seems okay. She ate her meal and appears to be happy and not hurting anywhere, but something is certainly wrong with her.

I'm going to take her to the clinic as soon as they open this morning.

Fluffy comes back from the vet visit and is fine

The scare that fluffy little Fluffy put us through turned out not to be a serious health problem. All of a sudden in the examination room there was a loud noise (flatulence) and poor Fluffy caused a mess all over the floor. It was intestinal cramping due to gas! Seems hard to figure out how, or why, any of the dogs get upset stomachs when we feed them the same good food everyday. They eat nothing unusual or bad for them. Fluffy's vet jokingly said that maybe it's all the grasshoppers she's been catching! ... Maybe it is. There are millions of them everywhere.

SATURDAY JULY 22 2000 Another Adoption Day at Petsmart

Bill and I thought we could make the trip to Petsmart in our two small cars, with the help of Ginnie, in order to give John Pippin (a medical doctor and "Friends of Straydog" volunteer) a Saturday off! This wonderful man ("Big Dog") has been helping us every adoption day for the past several months.

We had it all planned out to take several of the dogs in our two cars, but Ginnie became ill just before time to leave, so she couldn't make the trip to Dallas, and Bill and I had to change plans and take just the one car with Binks and Blackie Blue Eyes.

No dogs were adopted today. We'll try again next Saturday.

If any of you would like to volunteer your dog-caring services to help us out on our Saturday Petsmart Adoption afternoons, we'd love to hear from you. Please call me if you are able to help. Thank you. Pat (903) 479-3497

We continue to thank all of you for you financial and moral support, which has made it possible to save the lives of these wonderful dogs, give them the care they need and adopt them into good, loving homes.