EXCERPTS FROM PAT ARNOLD'S DAILY DOG LOG - First published on www.straydog.org 05/06/2001
MONDAY April 30 2001 Three puppy-dogs rescued from road Saturday are doing fine
Last Saturday shortly after Shannon and her husband, John, had left our shelter for the drive to Petsmart for our Adoption Day, they nearly hit three puppy-dogs that suddenly ran into the street, right in front of the van. John slammed on the breaks and narrowly missed hitting all three pups. Shannon and John were really upset that they had almost killed the pups and the owners, who had watched the episode from the doorway of their trailer, upset Shannon and John even more when they called out to the Shannon and John, saying they didn't want the dogs and told Shannon and John to take the pups or else they'd just get killed on the road. Shannon and John caught the frightened little puppy dogs and took them to our vet for safe keeping under Straydog's care, until we could pick them up.
Now it's Monday and I called the clinic this morning to see how the little fellas are doing (I haven't even seen them yet) and the vet technician said they are going to be spayed and neutered this morning and that they've had their checkups and vaccinations and appear to all be okay. They are Black Lab mixes, size small, medium and bigger and are about six months old. They will be ready to come home tomorrow morning.
TUESDAY MAY 1 2001 The three new arrivals come to our Happy Home for Strays
I'm always curious to see the new pups and dogs when they've been taken directly to our clinic, sight unseen (by us), and like all puppy-dogs, these three are adorable. With the help of the vet technicians we came up with the names for the pups.
We decided on "J.J." for the smallest fellow, who weighed in at 18 pounds. He is a petite, little Black Lab mix and is shy and affectionate. He'll be a small dog when he grows up.
[Photos of JJ to come]
"Missy" is the medium size pup and weighs 26.2 pounds. These three are siblings , the doctor said, and she is also a Black Lab mix. Missy is very timid and very affectionate like her little brother J.J. and she clung to me for affection as I carried her to the van for the ride home.
[Photos of Missy to come]
"Dusty" is the big brother, and weighs 36.6 pounds. He is a sweet fellow too, and the way these three siblings crave attention, it makes us wonder if they had ever been touched by humans. . . . It appears that they had been born outside and apparently left to fend for themselves, outside. Dusty has a cut above one eye which shows he had recently gotten into a scuffle with another dog.
[Photos of Dusty to come]
J.J., Missy and Dusty settle in
As soon as I got these three pups home and settled in their big kennel, I fed them a good meal. Like all strays, and unwanted dogs, they were so thin we could see every rib in their bodies. The pups were feeling better now, from their spay/neuter operations yesterday, and they eagerly gobbled down their puppy food and after their tummies were full, they timidly came over to me for hugging and petting.
Little J.J. and Missy scrambled into my lap and cuddled as close to me as possible as I pet them while their big brother, Dusty, sat leaning against me for petting, and he occasionally looked me straight in the eyes then would lick my face. Those of you who have "been there, done this" know exactly how I felt right then as I held these pups.
Missy goes Back to the Clinic!
It was 3:00 in the afternoon before I ever got around to looking over the puppies health records that I always get from the clinic with our new arrivals, and when I read over Missy's record I noticed that she had been "spayed, in heat," which was something that the vet tech had forgotten to tell me when I picked Missy up. Since this pup was already in heat when she was spayed she can't be with her male brothers right now, and her scent will attract any of the un-neutered, wandering neighborhood male dogs so she can't be in an outside kennel here for a while. Our only choice is to have her boarded at the clinic through the entire time of her "in-heat cycle." I told Shannon, who was the afternoon doggie care-giver, that I'd have to take Missy back to the clinic right away. I didn't like to have to separate her from her brothers, but there is really no choice.
WEDNESDAY MAY 2 2001 I get the all clear signal from new doctor: pneumonia is gone!
Well, it's about time! was my response to the Infectious Disease Specialist doctor when he looked at my new chest x-rays and said there is no longer any pneumonia! And now that I've recovered from the terrible side effects of the last antibiotic I had been taking, I felt Great! It is comforting to know that this doctor wants me to call him at the first sign of any type of upper respiratory problem. He assured me he would get to the bottom of it right away if it happens again.
We can't find Buffy's favorite tennis ball and this is very upsetting to Buffy!
"I've looked everywhere," Crystal said as she explained how Buffy's ball just disappeared in the tree that's in the kennel Buffy shares with his sister Fluffy and their "adopted" friend, Muffin (also known as Muffy). Crystal was doing the afternoon "dog rounds," which consists of going into each dog kennel to spend quality, dog-playing time with each set of dogs, and when she goes in with Buff, Fluff and Muff, she plays ball with Buff as she pets the other two.
Buffy looks forward to this time of the day, every day. It's his dog ball playing time! He loves to chase his favorite tennis ball, the very old, chewed up, slick tennis ball, with no fuzz on it anymore, which is what makes it so special to Buffy. Crystal went on to say that she gave Buff a toss and the ball just disappeared into the tree. She shook every branch a zillion times, she said, but the ball never dropped to the ground and Buffy was very upset.
None of us can find Buffy's ball. Poor fellow just sits and stares at the tree waiting for the ball to drop from wherever it's hiding
Seeing how worried Buffy was about loosing his ball in the tree, we all spent a great deal of time throughout the afternoon looking for that little ball. I spent a good half hour shaking every single branch of the tree, and I climbed up on his shelter top to try and get a good look through the high branches, then searched behind his kennel thinking the ball may have gone through the leafy branches and over the fence into the lawn behind their kennel. No ball in sight. Randy searched all over too, and climbed the shelter as I had done, thinking he'd surely find it stuck in the high branches, and Ginnie and Crystal looked again too. No ball! We took other tennis balls in for Buffy to play with, but he wanted nothing to do with those fuzzy, fairly new tennis balls. He wanted his special ball.
[Photo of Randy searching for Buffy's ball.]
At the end of the evening I went out to look just one more time, and again had no luck finding it. We'll just have to look real hard again tomorrow, I told Buff, and I gave Fluffy, Muffy and Buffy all a special good night doggie treat because Buffy was so sad.
FRIDAY MAY 4 2001 Mowing Day, and Joel Finds Buffy's Ball, and we receive a plea to take in a grown Saint Bernard who desperately needs a home
Friday Mowing Day is always a really busy day for Randy and the kennel team. While the dog-walker walks the dogs, a pair at a time, to the big play yard ("the Park") Randy and Mike, the man who does the mowing of the kennel grounds, go into the vacated kennel, and Randy hurriedly picks up the dogs toys and dumps the water buckets and swimming pools, moving everything out of Mike's way, keeping one step ahead of Mike as Mike mows the grass and trims the fence line. Then as Randy and Mike move on to the next kennel, Joel comes behind and refills the swimming pools and water buckets that have just been dumped by Randy. The dog walker then brings that set of dogs back to the freshly mowed kennel, and the same process begins on the next kennel. It takes the whole kennel team to keep things running smoothly on "mowing day."
Randy is always so busy it seems as if he often passes himself coming and going as he hurries from kennel to kennel to take care of things!
It usually takes from 6:20 in the morning until about 1:30 in the afternoon for Mike to do all the mowing in the kennels, the big play yard and the rest of the total kennel grounds.
[Photos of Mike weed eating] [Photos of the kennel team working]
Yea!! Joel finds Buffy's special tennis ball
When Joel came to work this morning I told him about Buffy's lost ball and how hard we had all looked for this old, beat up, worn slick , chewed up tennis ball, because Buffy is heartbroken without it.
A short while later I heard the familiar bouncing, thumping and running sounds of a "dog ball game" going on in Buffy, Fluffy and Muffy's kennel which is just outside our kitchen window. I looked out and saw Joel playing ball with Buffy with the special tennis ball! The ball had been found!
Joel said when he was in visiting with Fluff, Buff and Muff, he went to the tree, looked at the leafy branches for a second and there, at the very tip of a long, low branch sat Buffy's special ball, stuck in the leaves. He simply reached up and plucked the ball from the tree!
Boy do we have a happy pooch now!
We receive a desperate plea hoping we might be able to take in a grown Saint Bernard
When the woman called telling me about a big Saint Bernard that desperately needed a home, fast, my response was that we had just one opening available for a very friendly female dog, or large pup, and that was with Big Boy as his kennel companion. Big Boy's previous kennel companion dog, Cookie, was adopted last Saturday. Big Boy needs a dog playmate, but his problem is that he does not like most dogs (as we found out after Cookie was adopted when we tried to introduce Big Boy to two of our other females to be his companion and he aggressively rejected them both). He is basically not dog friendly, and he is very territorial, which will make it hard now to pair him with any dog, but we will keep trying. I explained Big Boy's situation to the woman who'd rescued the Saint Bernard.
Also, assuming that Big Boy may not get along with the Saint Bernard I suggested that the woman try several other shelters and Saint Bernard Rescue to see if they could be of any help (assuming Big Boy did not take to this friendly big girl), and the woman said she'd try them and would keep in touch.
SATURDAY APRIL 5 2000 April is a very sick dog and is rushed to the clinic; Shannon and John take several dogs to our Adoption Day
April is very sick and as I write this I don't know what the outcome will be for her.
Ginnie noticed something was wrong with April during the 5:30 early morning feeding time. April, a three-year-old, small, fluffy white Spitz mix, was just standing with her head near their little wading pool, staring at the water as if she wanted a drink, but she did not drink or even move as Ginnie went to feed her, Ginnie said. I hurried out to the kennel that April shares with her best buddy, Johnny, and April glanced up at me as I went in to see her, but she never moved. I checked her over as best I could to give the emergency vet as much information as possible, and saw that her gums were still pink. Then I put in the first emergency call to our vet. He said to keep an eye on her for an hour, and to call him again if there was no improvement. He thought she may have bitten (or gummed) a frog and this will bring on a very nausea, which she appeared to have.
As the hour went by I kept a close watch on April. She had lain down to sleep in her scoopy hole by their shelter, but the last time I went out to check on her she had gone into the shelter and into her dog house, so I had to take the flashlight and had to crawl into the shelter and then half way into her house to see how she was, and that's when I noticed the slight hemorrhaging beneath her tail. I put in the second emergency phone call to the doctor right away, and we agreed to meet at the clinic as soon as we both could get there. Within 20 minutes time I had April at the clinic as the doctor drove up. And now April is in their good care as she receives liquids via IV.
The doctor ran some tests and then told me what he thought the problem was, something I'd never heard of before and is caused from some sort of a bacteria that causes, among other very serious things, irritation of the intestines, which I don't really know how to explain. The doctor said that they don't usually see very many cases of this, and the number of cases they've seen just recently at the clinic has surprised them. It can be fatal, but most of the time they get it under control by keeping the dogs on fluids and medication. The doctor began the IV fluids on April Dog while I was in the examining room with her. The doctor said she'll need to be in their care over the weekend, and he hoped he'd have good news for us by this Monday, but he promised to call me tomorrow (Sunday) to let me know how she is doing.
In answer to my questions, the vet said that this is not contagious and there was no way for us to have prevented April from getting sick.
Shannon and her husband, John, take four of the fellas to Petsmart
Because April was so sick I wanted to stay near the phone in case I needed to get to the clinic in a hurry, so Shannon and John, along with Randy's help, put Silver, Jake, Duke and Scooter in the traveling crates for the ride to Petsmart.
"April is holding her own," is the latest report from the clinic
Now it is noon and I just called the clinic for the third time to see how April is doing. She is holding her own the vet tech said. It will take time before they know if there is any improvement. We're all praying that she get better really soon, and we're hoping for good news tomorrow.
A Saint Bernard named "Tootsie" is coming for an introductory visit with Big Boy tomorrow morning
When I talked with the woman today who was so desperately trying to find a no-kill shelter for this huge "lap dog," she said that she had tried calling many shelters and that none could help her, none would take the dog, and now she didn't know what she was going to do to save this dogs life.
So, tomorrow morning (Sunday) the woman and her husband will bring Tootsie to meet Big Boy, and we are all hoping that the two dogs get along. We'll introduce them in an area outside the kennel so Big Boy won't immediately feel that his territory is threatened, then if they get along okay there, we'll walk them together to the big play yard, hope all goes well, and from there, hopefully we'll be able to move on to Big Boy's kennel. If the two of them get along during this three-stage introduction, there should be no problem putting them together as kennel companions. This, at least, is the big plan.
No Dogs Adopted today, Pixie (Jake's companion dog) is happy that Jake is back! She missed Jake terribly
Cindy also missed her best bud, Duke
Our Adoption Policy
Our Adoption Policy is to find wonderful families to adopt the dogs in our care. All dogs deserve to go to loving families who will take care of them for the rest of their lives. Until that day the dogs we have rescued will have a very happy life here at our Happy Home. We love them deeply, and they are all well cared for and well fed. They receive excellent health care from our wonderful vets whenever they need it and all the dogs are kept up to date on vaccinations and receive the monthly heartworm preventive. The dogs and puppies have a happy life here, their days are fun-filled with daily play time in "the Park," good meals, lots of loving and petting from all of us and quality hands-on attention for each individual dog every afternoon. The dogs have four wonderful full time care givers (and me) tending to them constantly throughout every single day.
And because we love these dogs and care about their welfare, some of the dogs will have to be adopted in pairs. Many of the dogs that were rescued together have remained together, here, for a long time. To separate many of these long-time pairs of dogs would be devastating, so we want them to be adopted together.
Many of the dogs must be adopted in pairs
Recently a woman came to our shelter to adopt a dog and she became very upset with me because I wouldn't let her adopt Little Lassie without adopting Lassie's best buddy, Sandy, too. Then realizing that she was not at all interested in adopting Sandy, but would have anyway, just to take Lassie, I refused the adoption. Lassie may have been well cared for there, but my main concern was how Sandy would have been treated and I felt very uncomfortable about his welfare at this woman's home.
Sandy: I rescued Sandy from an animal shelter the day they were going to euthanize him because he had a broken leg and the poor fellow also had big cuts on his body. Seeing how much pain he was in and knowing of his fate there broke my heart. I asked to adopt him and took him out of that "shelter" as fast as I could, and since they were going to "kill him anyway," as the woman put it, they did not charge me the adoption fee, which I gladly would have paid just to get Sandy away from there.
I took Sandy to our vet for treatment, and his leg healed over time.
Little Lassie: Lassie had been rescued about a week before I rescued Sandy. Her owner just up and moved away, leaving Lassie locked in the fenced yard of the rental property. For two weeks she was there while a neighbor woman threw food over the fence. Then the woman called us for help because the local animal shelters said the location was "out of their district," whch meant they would not help the dog.
Little Lassie and Sandy became kennel companions the day I brought Sandy home. They are inseparable friends and shall always remain together, no matter what other people may think about this policy.
Stevie (the blind dog) and Pete are another "pair" of companion dogs that we wouldn't allow to be separated. Mike and Ann, Stevie and Pete's wonderful new mom and dad, never questioned for an instant Straydog's policy of keeping this pair together, and Mike and Ann adopted both dogs because they wanted them both.
Keeping long-time pairs together is just one of the many "problems" that we have to think about when it comes down to doing what is best for the dogs, and we try our best to do what we think is right.
UPDATE on sick dog April Dog: Dr. Stephen left a message that April seems to be doing a bit better!
I'm so sorry I missed this phone call from Dr. Stephen. I was out tending to the dogs when he called around 4:30 this afternoon, but the message he left sounded a bit uplifting. He said that April seems to be feeling better and that she is right on track and doing exactly as they want her to do at this time with this specific illeness, and he just wanted us to know. This is very good news!
SUNDAY MAY 6 2000 Big Boy and Tootsie, the Saint Bernard, don't get along
This morning at 9:00 the Gormans brought Tootsie, the Saint Bernard, to us. We asked them to park outside the fence and wait till we brought Big Boy to them. We didn't want the other dogs to witness this meeting, as their barking would make it more difficult to have a non-aggressive introduction.
Unfortunately Big Boy and Tootsie are not compatible. We tried twice (both on leashes, of course) to let them get close enough to almost touch noses, but they both showed their teeth and snarled ferociously, and tried to lunge at each other, and we had to pull them apart. It wasn't going to work.
This was Tootsie's last chance. All the other no-kill shelters had turned her down. Saint Bernard Rescue had turned her down. The Gormans (a retired couple with two cats and no yard) could not keep Tootsie at their home.
The only thing we could do was to move the three new pups to the tiny kennel attached to the side of our trailer and give Tootsie their kennel.
The Gormans were very joyful that their rescued dog, Tootsie, had indeed been rescued again--this time forever. After some fast rearranging of the three puppies, we showed them to Tootsie's new kennel as Randy walked Tootsie to where she would be staying and they were amazed at the large kennel Tootsie would have here at Straydog, and they were so pleased to see the "swimming pool" and big shelter with a big dog house inside. They could not thank us enough, as they had nowhere else to turn for the dog. We assured the Gormans that we would either find Tootsie a good home at our Saturday Adoption Day, or Tootsie would stay here at Straydog, our Happy Home for Strays.