THURSDAY, March 20, 2008, continued - Page 3

Travis does have demodectic mange and will begin the 6-dip dipping process

     "Another dog with mange is all you need now, Juana," Laura said. "That's just your luck." And we were just about to finish with having little Oscar go through his demodectic mange dips, and now it looks like here we go again. It didn't take Laura long to check the skin scraping under the microscope, and she called out from the other room and said that indeed Travis does have demodectic mange. Gosh! So we let Laura take Travis back to one of the clinic kennels in order for them to start his first mange dip today, and there'll be five more to go, poor boy.

     I asked Dr. Terry what would be the reason for these pups who first had sarcoptic mange to now develop demodectic mange, and the doctor said that it is always possible that when a dog or pup first has sarcoptic mange, it may have demodectic mange next because of their immune system being low already. I just hope that the three pups that we have adopted out already (from the litter of eight) won't get this mange. We will be checking LeAnne, Patsy, Reba and Brian for the same thing now. I will be bringing Brian next to be checked because the hair by one of his legs has never grown in as well as we thought it was going to. Brian has no more missing hair besides the spots where it never grew, but I just want to make sure.

Back at Straydog Buddy first goes to the park

     Back at our shelter we wanted to take Buddy to the park first before we brought him took him back inside, but Buddy wouldn't do anything, so we brought his sister Betsy outside, and they were so happy, dancing and playing in the park together. They are so good together. Buddy then did his business and was ready then to go back inside.

A kennel for Oso by the park

     My son Roberto and his friend, Chris Racio (who used to work here part time when he was in high school, and who is the brother of the late Michael Recio, who also used to work at Straydog), came to Straydog during the morning (since the kids are on spring vacation from our local community college) to help us move one of our smallest kennels, located way too far in the back, where it is impossible for any dog in that kennel to see anything but the kennel right next to it. When we constructed that kennel, we really just quickly needed a kennel for Zack, and that became his kennel. But now that Zack is using Rex and Nikki's big kennel (while they're in the hospital), I wanted to move Zack's kennel and put it up right by the park. I wanted to make the kennel bigger with a top covering it because Oso can jump like a kangaroo. The chicken wire that we put on Patsy's and then on Coco's kennel didn't stop Oso from jumping out, and since then we have been keeping Oso inside one of the hospitals. We know, of course, that sometimes Oso likes to be outside and really there is no reason to have him inside, so as soon as we finish getting this kennel top in place, I will be putting Big Oso outside, depending on how he likes being outside. Oso is a really good boy inside, and it doesn't bother me at all having him in, but he might really like outside more.

Another temporary kennel by the park

     Next, if there are leftover fence panels from Zack's kennel, we will be building a small temporary kennel right behind Oso's. Having a small temp kennel always available is always comes in handy for situations when we have to have a kennel immediately. having to take a doggie outside from one of our hospitals, if we need to, when the park is busy, which it always is with so many of doggies spending short periods of time in it all day long.