Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

SUNDAY JULY 4 2004

NOON UPDATE

For some reason there weren't as many Fireworks shooters last night

     Randy (our overnight man) reported at 7:00 a.m. that there had been far less fireworks Saturday night compared with Friday night. "They're probably saving it all up for tonight," I said, not looking forward to what the coming night might bring.

     We had brought several extra crates into our hospital trailer in anticipation of a bad night, but Randy said he was able to keep everybody calm by continually walking around the entire shelter campus, talking softly to the dogs, reassuring them that everything was all right. There were only sporadic explosions in the distance and by eleven o'clock everything quieted down, and there were no more problems. Even the dogs most terrified of loud noises managed to get through the evening remaining in their kennels outside.

     Let's hope tomorrow's fireworks report is as positive as this one. Tonight could be bad.

Stray Labrador Retriever rescued from road near Straydog

     As Michael was arriving at our shelter to begin a long day of work today (on this 4th of July), he saw two dogs walking slowly along the side of the road just a short distance from our driveway entrance. Knowing we are full (bursting at the seams really) Michael drove on up the drive and asked Juana what he should do. "Go back and try to rescue them before someone shoots them," Juana told Michael.

     Michael got Tina (who was already at work, being an early morning feeder), and the two of them, with leashes and some dog biscuits, went back down the hill to see if they could rescue the dogs.

     One of the dogs ran off into the woods, but the Lab went into the yard of our neighbor across the street, so Michael and Tina went there first to see if our neighbors knew who the dog(s) might belong to. The neighbors didn't know anything about the strays, so Michael and Tina brought the Lab back to Straydog. The other dog, who looked to be in good shape, was long gone, hopefully heading for its home.

     We had to switch some dogs around (at least temporarily) to make a spot for the new fella, who doesn't appear too malnourished but does have goopy eyes, indicating a probable infection of some sort. We will, of course, be taking him to the vet first thing tomorrow (or Tuesday if the clinic's closed tomorrow) for his new arrivals checkup and to have him neutered.

For the first year since we've been at our current Straydog location (October 1994 to the present), ticks are becoming a big challenge

     During our first nine years here we saw almost no ticks whatsoever. Neighbors told us we had no ticks due to the huge fire ant population in our area. Ticks, it seems, are a real delicacy to the fire ants. And the fire ants never really bothered us or the dogs, so we allowed them to coexist with us. But this year the fire ants are mysteriously gone, and the ticks are here, and we're having to bathe various dogs almost every day and spray their kennels, and we're having quite a struggle staying ahead of the ticks. Not ever having had this problem before, we're not quite sure we're doing everything we might be able to do. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Previous Daily Updates

Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS UPDATES

(Click on any day below to see the update of that day)

LAST WEEK

SUNDAY June 27 2004:

* Our June 2004 Straydog Newsletter is finally at the printer;

* Update on Blackie, who's still coughing, but not as much;

* Update on Parvo Puppy Summer: holding her own as of noon posting;

* Report on yesterday's adoption day: no adoptions [PHOTOS].

MONDAY June 28 2004:

* Puppy Summer dies of Parvo Virus;

* Puppy Summer's three sisters seem okay except for diarrhea;

* Big Puppy Dog Jackson joins us.

TUESDAY June 29 2004:

* Puppy Summer's three sisters go to the vet for Parvo tests, and they're negative;

* Newsletters are printed, so I'm driving to Dallas to pick them up;

WEDNESDAY June 30 2004:

* Erin rescues tiny kitten from middle of highway;

* Oliver (the kitten) goes along with the dogs to Dr. Reeves' Tuesday afternoon;

* Bobby, Nikki and Toby go to Dr. Morton's for x-rays of bad backs and bad legs;

* Newsletters are being stuffed, labeled and stamped as fast as we can.

THURSDAY July 1 2004:

* First batch of newsletters in the mail;

* Puppy Dog Jackson (about six months old) and Puppy Louise to be fixed [PHOTO OF JACKSON];

* Coyotes yipping and screaming in the distance at sunset last evening.

FRIDAY July 2 2004:

* We're canceling Adoption Day this weekend;

* The horrible battle sounds of the detonation of fireworks make the 4th of July weekend the worst time of the year at Straydog (and probably at many other shelters);

* Balance of newsletters will go out tonight or tomorrow morning;

* Louise and Jackson came through their spay and neuter surgeries just fine;

* Tons of recent photos to come as soon as I can get to them.

SATURDAY July 3 2004:

* Fireworks began Friday evening;

* Email update from Pat S. on Thelma (who's now named Coco);

* "Slide Show" of a recent afternoon feeding [PHOTOS].

 

WEEK BEFORE LAST

SUNDAY June 20 2004:

* Bad storm hit us yesterday just before final feeding [PHOTOS];

* Gretchen was adopted yesterday by Pam and Gary Bollinger [PHOTOS];

* Patch is back in his hospital kennel at Straydog.

MONDAY June 21 2004:

* More computer problems today after my son, Joe, transferred everything from my "broken" laptop to the hospital office computer;

* LOTS OF PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK.

TUESDAY June 22 2004:

* Puppy Summer has symptoms of Parvo Virus [PHOTOS];

* Puppy Lucy (the white Pit Bull) was spayed Monday;

* Russell was vomiting this morning and wouldn't eat breakfast;

WEDNESDAY June 23 2004:

* Puppy Summer is taking her meds and holding her own against the Parvo Virus [PHOTOS];

* Russell still won't eat his regular meals, but he'll take biscuits;

* Yesterday's vet visit to Dr. Reeves' clinic;

* Lucy will go to her new home tonight;

THURSDAY June 24 2004:

* Parvo pup, Summer, ate a half can of tuna this morning;

* Dr. Reeves says to stop the anti-diarrheal meds;

* Gordo just announced that Puppy Summer ate some more of her tuna fish;

* Blackie's got a cough that started yesterday; Toby started coughing today;

* Lucy had a good night at her new home with Caregiver Bobby;

* Misty's skin allergies are acting up again;

FRIDAY June 25 2004:

* Not much change in Parvo Puppy Summer; at least one of her sisters is beginning to show symptoms of Parvo;

From Yahoo News ...

* Schwarzenegger Wants Strays Killed Faster;

* Bill's comment on "The Terminator's" proposal;

Back to Bill's Straydog Report ...

* Blackie's got a bad cough and will see the doctor this morning [PHOTO];

* Russell's eating again;

* Katie's still going through her daily routine seemingly okay;

SATURDAY June 26 2004:

* Roster for Adoption Day at PetsMart in Plano (Texas);

* Update on Parvo pups;

* Update on Blackie, who's still coughing [PHOTO];

PREVIOUS WEEKS (TABLE OF CONTENTS of Previous Updates)

      Mandy is one of our long-haired dogs who would rather be in Canada or Alaska than here in Texas! She would love a home where she could be inside the air-conditioning and on a loving guardian's bed! Mandy is very sweet and playful. She's is approximately seven years old and gets stressed out going to Adoption Days, so we don't take her often. Occasionally (but not often enough) we feature Mandy here on our update to give her another chance at someone seeing her who might want to adopt her. Some folks have written in about her, and contacted us, but no potential adoptions have worked out so far. Sometimes Mandy is picky about being friends with other dogs! Right now Mandy has a loving kennel-mate named Bear, so she isn't too lonely here at Straydog. But it's just not the same as being an inside member of a family that would be able to spend a lot of quality time with Mandy. Does anyone know of a nice home for Mandy? You can read more about Mandy via "Our Dogs for Adoption" link above, which takes you to our Straydog pages on Petfinder.org.

Spanna, Degenerative Myelopathy help and information: Spanna  (has good cart links)
 
Doggon' Wheels - Wheelchairs for pets, dog carts: Doggon' Wheels
 
Dog Mobility - boots, harnesses, equiwrap: Dog Mobility
 
WHEELCHAIRS FOR DOGS: providing mobility for dogs with hind leg disabilities: Wheelchairs for Dogs
 
Ty-Lift Enterprises® - Specializing in Patented Animal Transport Units On Wheels: Ty-Lift
 
Dog Cat and Handicapped Pet Care Products Services Support and Classifieds: Handicapped Pet Care

     Thanks very much to those who have printed out even just one copy of the above three pieces of our newsletter and have passed the newsletter on to (or mailed it to) a potential Straydog supporter. If you can, please print out two or three copies (or five or 10 copies) and distribute them to potential supporters. If all 300 of our daily readers printed out and distributed just one copy, Straydog would be exposed to 300 new people. If all 300 of you printed out and distributed 10 copies, we would reach 3,000 new people!

First email from a reader who printed out and mailed out copies of our April newsletter

     Thanks a lot to longtime supporters Deana and Jim Hanson, who followed my suggestion to make copies of and mail out to friends the PDF files of our newsletter--with color photos too!

     It probably won't happen anytime soon, but the technology is here to do away with mass printing and mass mailing altogether. It's already possible to read and print out entire books on the Internet.

     We encourage others to do what Deana and Jim have done:

Bill,

We printed newsletters, and Jim put them in the mail today. Good luck! Please let us hear from you if your shelter runs short on anything. We'll try and help.

Deana and Jim

     If you have a big enough list of people to pass out (or mail out) our newsletter to, you can simply call your local copy center (a Kinko's, for example) and tell them to go to this website (www.Straydog.org) and print out as many copies as you want of the three PDF files via the above three links. Then you can have the copy shop deliver the copies to you or you can go pick them up and do your own mailing of our three-piece newsletter. (And please never worry about the copyrights to our website materials. We want as many people as possible to make copies and distribute them!)

Expanding (or growing) our list of contributors will be our salvation

     If a mailing list of 2,500 people can sustain our operation as it has, just think what a mailing list of 3,000 or 3,500 contributors could do.

     Before the first article about Straydog was published in The Dallas Morning News (on March 13, 1997) we didn't know there was anyone else in the world who felt the way Pat and I felt about homeless dogs, and we had never asked anyone to help support our shelter. We believed that most people thought we were crazy. (And indeed many humans did and still do.) During 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 and the first quarter of 1997, we (with no donations from anyone) paid all the expenses of taking care of all our rescues--a total population of eight rescued dogs in 1992 which had increased to 24 dogs at the time of the publication of the first article about our shelter in The Dallas Morning News in March 1997. Pat and I always felt tremendous appreciation for the financial and moral support we began receiving from our supporters after that first article appeared in the newspaper. Six hundred people contributed more than $40,000 to Straydog (or the original "Arnold Stray Dog Fund") in March 1997, and from that point we continued to grow and grow and grow until we finally (two years ago) put a limit on ourselves of 65 dogs, which population has since swelled to 80+ dogs, which total population we are finally controlling here at Straydog by taking in a new dog only after we adopt at least one dog out.

     Thanks so much to all of our contributors! We couldn't keep this operation going without you. Pat always said you all would continue to support us, and you have. And we at Straydog continue to rescue, care for and adopt out homeless dogs exactly the way Pat would have wanted. Thank you so much for your continuing support! ... Bill Arnold