SATURDAY, March 8, 2008, continued - Page 3

Juana reports ...

The day starts off very cold

     Early this morning it was very, very cold at Straydog--about five degrees below freezing. Fortunately thanks to our special contributors who donated the $40,000 to build Hospital II, now our older doggies (and some younger ones with special needs) are staying inside where we keep the temperature at no higher than 60 degrees. Though for humans 60 degrees might feel a little chilly, for the dogs it's nice and warm, and they just love it.

Our dogs all know our daily routine

     After our regular breakfast feeding and subsequent hospital walks, which include taking all the dogs from both hospitals out for their after-breakfast potty break, we next started our kennel work and our outside walks. Our doggies all know the routine and the schedule, and they won't forgive us if we try to change the order of our daily routine here in any way. Whenever we do try to make a change, the dogs start to fuss and bark at us. They all know exactly what is going to happen next.

Ice on the water buckets

     As we were picking up the dog stool during after-breakfast poop sweep, we also went along breaking up the ice on the surfaces of the water buckets, and it was funny to see how our doggies either chew on the broken pieces of ice or start playing with the chunks. I was all bundled up and still freezing, but most of our doggies were just having a blast outside, especially most of our younger ones including the pups. I didn't get any photos of this ice play as I just wanted to get this chore over and done with. I did get a photo of a round piece of ice from one of the water buckets, though.

Adoption Day van leaves for Petsmart Plano at nine a.m.

     As every Saturday, today was our Adoption Day, and the lucky doggies who attended today were Pup Tony, Pup Reba, Wolfie and Bunny. We wished them all good luck as they left Straydog, and who knows? Today might be their day.

News from Adoption Day

     About three o'clock this afternoon Lacie called from the van saying they were going on a home visit with Big Pup Tony. Later at about 4:30 Lacie called again saying that Tony had been adopted! Erin will do the Adoption Day report (see above). We know also that somebody was very interested in Bunny, but we will have to review the application first before we can decide anything at this point in time as there is another pending application on Bunny.

The day warms up

     Back at our shelter as the day went by, it got warmer and warmer (up to the mid 50s with bright sunshine), which we couldn't have imagined it was going to be with our 27 degrees at five a.m., but I guess with Texas weather everything is possible--yesterday snow, this morning ice on the water buckets, and then warm sun in the afternoon. Probably tomorrow we'll have rain. Who knows? Anyway after the day got warm, we took our Hospital II doggies back out to their outside kennels for the rest of afternoon and early evening. Then as soon as the day was getting cold again, overnight man, Randy, brought them all back inside again for the night. Our doggies know this routine now, and they expect this, and they all get excited and happy when it's time to come back in again. (They also enjoy very much going back outside if it's warm enough.) Even Jessie with his blind mother, Laura. Jessie is getting so used to coming in that he waits right by the gate in the evenings. We would never have expected to see this from Jessie, and we were really amazed the first time we noticed him waiting, but we think that he knows we are just trying to help his mother, Laura, who just doesn't like going inside. But Laura is okay to go inside if Jessie is with her. We are so happy to see this happening. Laura, though, has slowed down a lot, and we don't want to think what could happen to poor sweet Jessie when it becomes time for Laura to go Home. It will be so sad, and we really hope that Miss Laura keeps on hanging on, and she really tries her best.

Peppy gets along with Vern and Missy

     After Peppy (our newly rescued Chihuahua) came back yesterday evening from the clinic, we had her in a crate right by Cici's little corral, and little Missy was pacing back and forth in front of Peppy's crate door trying to see who that new girl there was, so today during hospital walks I took Missy, Vern and Peppy to the park together, and they all just sniffed the grass paying little attention to each other, and there were no problems at all. Missy is a really jealous little girl, but with a big heart, and she just would look at Peppy, who wanted to stay right by me. I kept on talking to Missy all the time, telling her that it was okay, and Missy was fine. Of course it helped that Peppy didn't try anything aggressive with Missy either. Sorry I didn't have the camera at the moment, because I was the only one in the hospital trailer today till Bill came over from his office to help me mid-afternoon, and I wanted to just focus on our doggies instead of taking pictures. After all three Chihuahuas did their business, we came back to the hospital trailer, and I didn't put Peppy back in her crate. I just left her loose in the big main room with Missy and Vern, and they really did well. Missy would move away from me every time Peppy would get too close to me, but there was no aggression. The good thing is that little Vern wasn't bothered at all by Peppy. He was fine with her and didn't really care. Vern just went back to bed to sleep some more until dinner time.

Peppy doesn't have much of an appetite

     At p.m. feeding time we had to put Peppy back in her crate because she didn't want to eat anything from her food bowl, and Missy right away wanted Peppy's unattended bowl along with her own. I added some tuna to Peppy's food and put her and the bowl inside her crate, and then she ate a little more, but not even half the bowl. We will keep an eye on Peppy, and if she continues not wanting to eat much, I will call the vet on Monday morning. Peppy's incision looks good, and she hasn't messed with either the incision or the stitches on her forehead. This is fortunate, because Peppy really hates the E-collar that the clinic tried to put on her at first, but they couldn't keep it on her, so we haven't tried an E-collar either, and she's doing all right.

When overnight man, Randy, arrived this evening Vern was sleeping beside Peppy

     It was funny and cute to see that as soon as our overnight guy, Randy, arrived at a little before five o'clock, Mr. Vern woke up, raised his head and though he can't see much, started looking around for Randy. Randy saw our new doggie, Peppy, sleeping there beside Vern in the same bed, and Vern was so cute with her that we just couldn't resist taking some photos of them. They all get along well, and Peppy is now part of the Vern and Missy family. We sure love them all.