Straydog UPDATE posted MONDAY 2/16/03 at ~10:07 p.m. CT

Pat Arnold's Daily Dog Log

MONDAY FEBRUARY 17 2003

Betsy has yet another procedure done on her leg

      Betsy was scheduled to come home this morning, and the doctor was going to take x-rays before Betsy left the clinic to make sure the bone was healing properly. When I arrived at the clinic, the vet tech said that the doctor had taken the x-rays and had seen that the broken bone had shifted again, and he was just finishing up with yet a third procedure, putting in something called a kirschner, "a steel wire for skeletal transfixing of fractured bones and for obtaining skeletal traction in fractures. It is inserted through the soft parts of the bone and is held tight in a clamp." (Definition from WebMD.com.)

      This is the third operation the doctor's had to do because of the severity of the break on the upper bone of Betsy's left front leg, and these second and third operations had to be done because the bone had shifted.

      As soon as Betsy was put back in her kennel, still sound asleep, the doctor showed me the series of x-rays he has taken for all three of these procedures, and he showed me how the bone had shifted the last two times and how the kirschner is holding the bone in place now.

      Then I looked in on sleeping Betsy before I left the clinic. She should be able to come home tomorrow, the doctor said, but maybe I'll have her stay just one more day under their watchful eye to make sure she can get around okay while she's at the clinic, before I bring her home. Whatever the doctor recommends.

Re-adopted Doodles is doing just fine with her new family

      I talked with Doodle's new dad later this morning, and he said all is going along just fine with Doodles. The children love their new pet and Doodles has finally gotten the hang of the doggie-door and enjoys the freedom of going in and outside whenever she wants.

Yea! Cute Puppy-dog Justin is tentatively adopted!

      One of our wonderful dog-sitting volunteers and her husband fell in love with this adorable little six-month-old fellow with soft red fur, during one of our recent adoption days, and they've just contacted us and expressed that they would like to adopt Justin. They brought their dog to meet Justin at the adoption day, and the dogs got along fine, so we'll be making the final plans to take Justin to his new home in a few weeks (timing due to complications on their end) to make sure Justin gets along with the family cat too. If all goes well with Justin and the family cat, the adoption will become final.

      We'll keep you posted!

We have been swamped with calls to take in other rescued dogs and pups

      It seems that at least half of every day is spent on the phone trying to help other people find homes for the dogs they have found, or to give advice to the people trying to rescue strays, and once rescued then hours more are spent trying to help find these dogs a safe haven. It's just never-ending.

Update on the rescue referred to at the end of yesterday's Dog Log entry

      A woman named Pam who has been trying to befriend and rescue a whole family of dogs first contacted me a few days ago. The two-year-old mother and father, their new litter of four little puppies and two six-month-old pups from their previous litter, who had made their home surviving their harsh life as strays at a golf course near Pam's home.

      According to Pam these dogs have been uncatchable strays for at least two years (the guessed age of the parent dogs), and although Pam has tried to befriend the dogs for a long time, the dogs have only come close enough to her outstretched hand to snatch the piece of food she'd be holding out to them.

      During our first correspondence Pam mentioned she had been trying for weeks, through emails and phone calls to rescue groups, to find a no-kill shelter that would take the dogs in (if she could catch them), but not one of the groups she called were able to help her. It was either from one of these shelters or from her search on the internet for rescue groups that Pam heard of us, and now she was praying that we could help by taking in any of the dogs, if she could just catch them. She was concerned about one of the six-month-old pups who had a terribly sore back leg and could barely walk. She was sure the pup had to have been hit by crossing the busy road nearby in search of food at a restaurant on the other side of the busy road.

      I told Pam we'd try to help, and I gave her the names of the Lab Rescue groups to try also, since several dogs appeared to be Labs (or Lab mixes) and I told Pam that our shelter was really full, but if Lab Rescue couldn't help her, we'd make room for any of these dogs that she could catch.

The rescue of the Stray Dog Family began early this morning by Pam and a friend

      At 1:00 this afternoon I got the first report which was good and not so good.

      The good news was that Pam had managed to find homes for the four, five-week-old puppies. The not so good news is that she and her friends could not catch the parent dogs or the six-month-old puppy-dogs, but they were still trying.

      Late afternoon update was not good either. Pam called again very distraught (and near tears) to say that when they spotted the father dog, during their attempted rescue process, he had apparently been hit by a car judging from the wounds they could see, and he seemed to be terribly hurt as he limped along holding his hind leg off the ground. She was so upset because "No One!" would help them rescue the dogs: Animal Control wouldn't help, and she couldn't get in touch with any of the local shelters, just to come and help aid in the rescue.

Straydog is now asking for help in the rescue of these four starving and injured dogs

VETERINARIANS OR ANIMAL CONTROL:

IS THERE ANY KINDHEARTED VETERINARIAN OR ANIMAL CONTROL DEPARTMENT IN THE DALLAS AREA WHO COULD PLEASE, PLEASE, HELP WITH THIS RESCUE BY USE OF "RESCUE BY SEDATIVE" IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER?

WE DESPERATELY NEED YOUR HELP TO SAVE THE LIVES OF THESE FOUR DOGS.

TWO HAVE ALREADY BEEN MAIMED FROM BEING HIT IN TRAFFIC. WITHOUT YOUR HELP ALL FOUR DOGS MAY SOON BE KILLED.

WE DESPERATELY NEED YOUR HELP.

Please call Pam Mitchell at 214-348-4287 or email Pam at pamelafaymitchell@msn.com

Or call me, Pat Arnold, at 903-479-3497