MONDAY AUGUST 2 2004

7:00 P.M. UPDATE

HOT! UPPER NINETIES AND HUMID!

     Why are we NOT doing the kennel work and caregiving at night when the temperatures are in the mid 70s? We talked about doing this last summer, but we've never been able to get far enough ahead in our Operating Fund to spend the money on adequate lighting. Last summer, you may remember, we had the electric company put up five of their 750-watt mercury vapor security lights [search for "security lights" in our search engine to find the pages regarding this event last summer], and those lights have brightened up the place quite a bit, but there's still not enough light for a kennel hand to distinguish between a dog toy and a pile of dog do, so it's "dangerous" to walk around the kennels at night -- even with the five security lights. We've got to do something, though, because this is ridiculous. From noon on the dogs don't really want to do anything but lie in the shade and sleep, just waiting for sunset and the 15 hours after sunset when the temperatures are bearable.

Old Happy, Pat's first Straydog rescue back in '92, was moved into the hospital trailer today to get her out of the heat

     This poor old lady's looking like she can't stand it much longer. I know that my father (who's 95 years old) has said several times already this summer that he simply cannot stand being out in this heat more than a few short minutes at a time.

What about the rest of the old timers?

     There aren't enough hospital kennels and there isn't enough space inside the hospital trailer for all of them to come in. So they suffer along with the young dogs, who at least are young enough and strong enough to take the extreme heat of the Texas summers.

And what about Malamute Mandy, who, if she got loose, would head straight north and wouldn't stop till she reached Alaska?

     We've been running the following "ad" regarding Mandy for several weeks (if not months) now (see "Our Dogs for Adoption" link below), and only one person, who happened to be from out of state) called about Mandy, and just recently two others emailed me about Mandy. The woman from out of state and her husband made a special trip from somewhere in Louisiana with their current dog to visit with and hopefully adopt Mandy, but Mandy didn't get along with their dog. (This event was so disappointing that I didn't even report on it here in our Daily Dog Log.) Erin is in the process of corresponding with the two people who emailed us.

      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 below, which takes you to our Straydog pages on Petfinder.org.

     If we could just find homes with air-conditioning for the northern dogs and the old dogs!