Juana reports ...      Edited and posted by Bill

Full crew; another hot day

     Today we had a big vet visit scheduled for several of our dogs. We had a full crew, and it was another very hot day. 

Peppy is out of quarantine!

     One of the happiest things that happened today was that Peppy was released from quarantine. She has been so sad having to stay in a small crate and going to a small temporary kennel outside to potty. Jetta, unfortunately, will have to stay in quarantine for a few more days or a week, depending on how soon her ringworm fungus sores heal. 

Peppy is very happy and has fun being back with the Chihuahua gang.

     At least one dog is out of quarantine today. Peppy is completely healed. We can't see any sores or red spots on her at all. Peppy was so happy and so frisky. She ran all over the big room in H1, and when it was her turn to go outside, she ran all over the park. When she came back inside, she just wouldn't stop. Peppy kissed Mackey and Missy, and it was so cute. She picked on Bitty, as she always does, and they were all playing together. It was so much fun to see our Peppy-girl back with the Chihuahua gang. 

Panda gets his second mange dip 

     David Rentz took Pup Panda to the clinic to get his second demodectic mange dip. Panda was so happy to be going somewhere. He is a very hyper and big boy now. He only wants to be loved and petted by someone, and he loves treats. He doesn't like to listen and behave. He enjoys being stubborn, but he is still my baby boy. Panda stayed at the clinic until late today, and he got his second dip. He only has four more to go. 

Noble has surgery to remove growths in his mouth, and all goes fine

     Our "mascot" Noble-man also went to see Dr. Terry today. We noticed a growth in between Noble's teeth that is kind of scary looking. We've had a sad history of cancer lately here at Straydog. We recently lost Cash to a malignant tumor on his mouth. So we didn't want to wait to have diabetic Noble examined. We wanted this taken care of before it's too late. We know how much we owe our vet, but what can we do? We still need to attend to our doggies and take care of the most essential things, so we took Noble in. 

Noble says hi to Melissa on the way out of the clinic

     Noble stayed at the clinic all day long today. Dr. Terry called me late in the day to let us know that Noble had more than one growth in his mouth. She removed them all and gave him a complete dental treatment while he was under anesthesia. The doctor didn't think that the growths were cancer, but she sent them off to the lab just to make sure. We won't know the results until sometime next week. Our Noble woke up and he was doing great. He was ready to come home. During the vet visit, David and Noble ran into our dear friend Melissa (and former Straydog employee). Melissa, of course, said hi to Noble and gave him a hug. "It was nice seeing Melissa again," says Noble.

Scottie needs a checkup as his leg tumor has grown very big

     Yesterday during caregiving time, Tina and Stephanie were brushing and trimming Fluffy's and Scottie's long hair. All of a sudden Tina called me over the walkie-talkie to come and check on Scottie. She had discovered that he had a big lump on the back of his right hind leg. We thought that it felt like a fatty tumor, but it's really big. So today we sent our senior Scottie to the clinic, so Dr. Terry could examine him. 
 
     Dr. Terry and the vet tech had to shave Scottie's leg in order to take a real good look at it. Then they took some x-rays, and the x-rays didn't show that anything was wrong. Dr. Terry wanted to send a smear to the lab, but all she got was fat. So the doctor asked if we wanted to remove the growth. It was big and if we didn't do it now, we might run into problems later on if it gets too big. The doctor thought that it was best to remove it now, and I agreed. Dr. Terry did some blood work to double check that Scottie was okay and all of the results were good. The doctor couldn't do the surgery today, but since we already have an appointment for Fluffy on Monday, we can bring her kennel mate Scottie then too. It was odd, having the two friends going under anesthesia and having surgery at the same time--an unusual coincidence.

Lloyd is free to run again!

     We have some more good news. Our big fellow Lloyd is out of confinement. He is free to run and play as much as he wants. Lloyd has completed his heartworm treatments, and he is now totally free of heartworms! Oh boy, we took him to the park and let him off of the leash. He right away took off running and playing. It was so funny. At first he didn't understand why we weren't following him. He thought he had escaped from the leash. But when he realized that we were okay with it, he stood there trying to figure it out. It didn't take him long and he knew that he didn't have to walk on a leash any longer. He was free to run. He is such a handsome and sweet boy. 

Stephanie and Sherri search the shelter for Black Widow spiders

     Even though we've sprayed poison for spiders and all kinds of poison and bleach and cleaners, we are still occasionally finding some black widow spiders underneath our shelters, where they like to hide. Today after our major doctoring and taking care of our chores, I sent Stephanie and Sherri to search for and kill the spiders in our shelters. They found and destroyed a couple, but not as many as we've already gotten rid of. We are still searching for the anti-venom, but no one seems to be able to get it. We haven't had any more bites, and so far everyone is doing well. But we can't give up on ridding our shelter of this awful bug. 

Bleaching the kennels again

     While the Sherri and Stephanie were killing spiders, our other two caregivers, Wayne and David Ford, were bleaching the kennels again. The surrounding grounds and sidewalks are a big project, but we have to do this several times a week. We are trying to control the ringworm situation. We are really going crazy! 

Four dogs are dipped today

     Today we also dipped four more dogs. They seemed to be doing better, but we can't wait until next week when we get our next shipment of the ringworm-killing dip. We saved a small amount of the dip from yesterday, just enough to dip Thunder, Jazzie and Luigi. I apologized to Luigi that we hadn't dipped him yesterday. But he and Joey were the last ones to be dipped today. Now we hope and pray that our vet clinic will get the medicinal dip soon in order for us to continue dipping the rest of the dogs with the fungus. 

Our dogs love the attention from my 13-year-old daughter, Lucy

     It is always a joy to watch my daughter Lucy playing with our dogs, especially our senior fellas and, of course, our young pups, Panda and Zoey. Lucy (who helped me bottle-feed Manchitas and Panda after they were first born) understood that Manchitas has found her forever home and that we can't keep them all. She knows that part of our mission is to find each and every one of our dogs a good home. Anyway, Lucy enjoyed brushing Reggie, Squirrel and Misty today. She helped me all day long with our inside dogs. We all had fun. We were very aware and very careful not to touch the dogs who still have the fungus. It's very hard for Lucy to understand, but we can't touch Jetta and we can't touch Demon and several others who are Lucy's favorite doggies. It is really sad. 

Thank you Volunteer and Contributor Janice for the goodies!
 
     We want to thank Ms. Janice B., our dear friend, contributor and Adoption Day volunteer. She sent us some goodies, toys and a donation for Bandi and Cici. We got it all today. We shared the treats with all of the dogs. We tried to give Cici a toy, but she wasn't interested in taking it. So I cleaned it thoroughly and gave it to Reggie. He hugged it and went right to sleep. He seemed happy. Let me tell you that Bandi is kind of aggressive with her bones, but she loved her toy, and she was just fine playing with it. Thank you, Janice! Bandi invited us to play with her. She is way too cute, and she seems to be losing weight already. She can even roll over and scratch her back now. She doesn't have that awful smell of infection anymore, and she is doing better every day.

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