What the Fuck.

Well, third time to call dispatch on those emaciated horses, and this time they wouldn't even send out a deputy.  It's getting cold here, and they've only had hay once since May.

SINCE MAY.

Tonight, one of them was tied to god knows fucking what, ONE of the fucking trees on the side of the road, barely able to move from how short the rope was (maybe two body lengths, tops), sporting new injuries of course, and eating so fast you couldn't have stopped him if you'd accidentally hit him.  Dispatch:  "He's just lawnmowing.  We can't send someone out for that.  He's fine."  Um...after dark?  For hours?  Unsupervised?  On the side of the road.  Tripping over the rope tied to his rope halter each time he tries to turn around and find more grass and weeds.

Fuck you.

I'm just...you know what...I can't write anymore about this tonight.  I'm sorry so glum lately, but I've had my hands so full with wedding shit, working seven nights a week, and volunteer firefighting that I have barely been able to help with animal shit at all.  I feel like I'm letting them down.  You don't take a "break" from animal rescue.  When you live around the shit I live around, it's a part of you, and a part of your life.  You HAVE to care, you HAVE to help.  It pulls you apart.

Here, in case you wanted to be just a little more  pissed off at people tonight, have an actual conversation at a rescue event recently:

"how much is it to buy a dog?"
"to adopt, you mean?  $150"
"shiiiit.  i wouldn't spend no $150 on a dog.  I've never spent $150 on a DOG."
"they come with everything done - fixed, shots, microchipping, everything."
"FIXED, why would you want to buy a dog who was already fixed?"

Ayup.  That happened.
-Mouse

More Sadness, but There Are Kittens.

The six kittens we took from the home with the cats we were fixing for free came home with us, and that very day, were on the verge of death.  All of them had faces sealed shut with eye goo.  I made an appointment, and in the three hours it took to get them there, they had developed fevers and were extremely lethargic.  I honestly thought they were all going to die, and so did the vet.

He gave them SQ fluids, which they HATED, and clavamox.  He says he's thinking an immune deficiency disease, like feleuk, but I've seen this plenty before and I can bet you $100 it's rhino or calici.  My own cat had rhino when she was a kitten, and it took us a year before we figured out why she had developed such horrible fevers as a kitten (so bad she couldn't walk without being in pain), and since she grew up she would periodically get majorly snotty.  I wanna say the kittens have rhino, but they are in such strong quarantine (exit only by window, change clothes on entering, separate air system, betadine scrubs before going in or out, and about five showers a day, easy) and it developed so very quickly (plus all of their siblings out of three huge litters had already died), it could very well be something else.  Still thinking rhino or calici.  At least I know I didn't expose them to it, as was my initial terror.

I've gotten pretty good at quarantine, though.  Since their vet visit the babies have really perked up.  I learned a new trick, too - if you can't get stubborn, solidified, serious eye bogies out, try rubbing neosporin or other oil-based antibiotic ointment into them.  It dissolves right out and they clean it away.  I think we managed to avoid tear duct damage in all six!

They have names now, too.  Freddy is the biggest and definitely a boy.  He was originally named Fraidy because he was practically feral, but he adjusted quickly and now ALL he wants to do is snuggle, cuddle, and purr.  He's from a separate litter from everyone else, and at least 2 weeks older, despite what coked-out-bitch insisted.  The Kitty System is a seal point siamese, the next biggest, and also from a separate litter.  He is the trouble-maker!  If there's a wrestling match, you can bet KS was involved and probably started it!  Pickles is the next biggest trouble-maker, getting into pickles every play time.  He's grey and white spotted.  Traveller is a grey, white-socked well...traveller!  He goes where no kitten has gone before, and exploring is his thing (and so is talking, oh my goodness).  Dove looks just like Traveller but runted.  Dove is the only one I'm still a little worried about, but she's doin' her darndest to keep up with the big kids.  :)  Last is Cowbell.  Cowbell is sweet enough to easily medicate, love on, snuggle with, and catch, but balances his people skills perfectly with that classic kitten playfulness.

I'll post photos as they grow up - right now it's still all very hush-hush.



Meanwhile, down the street from me, I finally managed to get some photos of a trio of horses I've been concerned about.  There's not enough info right now, and they aren't on death's doorstep, so no one will do anything about it.  Yet.  Photos are the first step, though.  Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

Yeah...that's totally a ball of wire and debris fucking everywhere.

And right across the street from them is this poor little guy and his loose-running yippy chihuahua:

He stays chained like that all day every day, and crawls under the tractor when the weather is harsh.  That would be extremely illegal.  But, you have to go about these things carefully, or the animal winds up dead, "lost," or tossed in the high-kill shelter to be killed anyways.

NEVER.  CHAIN.  YOUR DOG.  TO A FUCKING TREE.



-Mouse

If You Can Help, Please Do!

Over the coming month I would really like to help this foster and her dog out.  The whole story is at this link, but suffice it to say, the little pit bull was dumped on the foster when her owner left the state without her, and she just lost a litter and almost her life.  The vet bills are too much for the foster - they could barely handle caring for her in the first place.

If you have a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars, anything at all to spare, please consider it.  Suka needs an adopter, but right now, she just needs to heal.

Suka's Chip-In.

They're COUNTRY Dogs.

This...is one of the stupidest and most common excuses for not taking care of your dogs, and I hear it all the freaking time.

Guess who just moved into the country?

Okay, it isn't REALLY rural, not quite, but we are quite a drive from "town," live on a half acre on a street with four houses, and the defining feature?  Nobody takes care of shit out here, including their animals.

When I was a kid, dreaming about living in the country someday, "country" to me meant crops, chickens, cows, horses, tack, barns, hay bales, and a riding lawn mower.  Country meant cooking from scratch, fixing things by hand instead of running to the phone book, chopping wood when you wanted a cozy fire.  Country meant parking in the grass and driving down dirt and gravel roads.  It meant my grandparents and great aunts/uncles up in the Midwest.

This does not fit that description.  Don't get me wrong, I love where we just moved.  I could just do without the neighbors.  Or neighbors at all.

These people, like so many others, feel dogs are outside animals only (even in the 100+ degree Texas heat), and don't need vetting, collars, ID, or to be contained in any way.  Hey, they're country dogs.  They don't stay in a yard, they roam around.  Yeah, they just automatically know to stay out of the street, and they'll take care of themselves, they'll be fine.

Do you know where dogs like that end up?  Dogs like that end up dead.  I drive past dogs like that on the side of the road all the time.  Those are your ranch dogs.  Those are your fucking country dogs.  No, that isn't an excuse.  Country isn't an excuse not to take care of your pets (And they ARE pets, not working dogs).  It's just laziness.  There's no difference between those dogs and urban dogs, just how they're treated.  Not an excuse.



Our neighbors have three dogs.  One older adult female, maybe 20 pounds or so, and two medium/large breed mutt puppies about her size, that couldn't be more than 2-6 months old (one is younger than the other).  Multiple times we've come home to these dogs digging through our shed, trying to feed themselves.  Today I awoke to the adult barking non-stop at my bedroom window - because the cat was in it.  If I walk my dogs outside of the yard I have to make sure they are out of sight first, and worry they'll come pick a fight.  They are extremely territorial toward other animals, and I recently watched the female chase a liver german shorthaired pointer top speed down the street because he got as far as my house.  Down the middle of the fucking street - a dog more than twice her size.  I've nearly hit the pointer with my car.

These dogs do not have any idea how to stay out of the road.  These dogs have fleas, dry skin, don't wear collars, and don't even get brought in for storms.  They don't get vaccinated, they barely get fed.  These dogs WILL get hit by cars, tangle with predators or other dogs, or die of any of a million diseases while outside and unprotected/unsupervised.  I am terrified that if that little dog picks a fight with either my pit or lab, she'll lose.  My dogs love other dogs, but I don't put much stock in their resisting a fight if she attacks.   And guess whose dog will be blamed?  Oh, it won't be the little dog!

I have brought up my concerns with them twice in the short time I've lived in that house so far.  They spend most of their time in my next door neighbor's yard because she feeds them, but they actually belong to her grandchildren across the street.  The child's solution, endorsed by the grandmother?  She's going to get a collar soon, and tie her up outside.

NEVER.  TIE.  A DOG UP.  OUTSIDE.  In Texas heat, 24-7, without supervision.  Don't fucking do it.  You're just feeding the predators on a lead, if the rope/chain and heat exhaustion don't kill the poor animal first.

But you know, they're country dogs.  They don't go inside.  Bitch, please.  I keep two 50 pound dogs in my house and you can't take your little dogs inside for thunderstorms and hail?  You do not deserve to keep animals, and your kids aren't old enough to.


Sooo there's nothing I can do.  If I call animal control they either won't do anything, or will seize the animals and they'll go to our local pound.  Then they'd either be picked up at an expense and the neighbors will cause trouble for us, or they'll be put down.  I can't take them in, and I can't convince them to take them inside.  And you know what?  The children's mother was right there, not saying a damn word to them or me during all of this.  No wonder they think it's okay to tie up a dog.  They're like 8 years old and younger.  Mom should be setting a fucking example, not letting them toss their puppies outside and neglecting them.

Breaks my heart, and pisses me off.

-Mouse

First Surgery

I got to perform my very first surgery today, when my precious pittie Penny did a number on one of her toys.  She'd gotten the torso ripped from the rope and was toting it around happily, staring down the cat, ducking back into her kennel, throwing it out again, snatching it back up, staring down the cat, ducking back into her kennel...when she found the part that squeaks.  I picked the poor thing up and performed an impromptu surgery:



-Mouse

A Whatsa-Poo? Huh?

I think Basset Hounds are the goofiest looking dogs ever.  I mean...just look at them.

That's the picture I think of every time someone mentions them, even though I know I've seen plenty of less floppy, less mid-motion-jowly-wobbly basset hounds.  ...Like this one:

Okay but really...they ARE goofy-lookin' dogs, and that's okay.  They were bred to look the way they do.  A friend of mine has a tricolor female bitch who happened to go into her very first heat at two years old, and guess who the daddy was?

A border collie labrador mix.

Lord.

Can you picture the puppies she might have?  (Might because she hasn't taken her to a vet to confirm pregnancy yet)

Bordersset Colloundor.  Bassador Collie.  Just...gah.  I'm sure they'd be adorable, but I'm also positive they're going to need to be fixed ASAP.  I warned her to have a vet on call in case of a C-section.  Yipers!

You know the frustrating part, though?  The hound has no vetting whatsoever.  She doesn't have tags, is outdoor-indoor in the country, no rabies, no distemper/parvo, no heartworm.  I fear for the puppies, but really, I fear for the whole situation.  If someone can't afford to get their dog spayed or basic vetting, how is someone going to afford healthcare for a whole litter of puppies?

I'm knocking on wood that she isn't prego after all, but I'm knocking hard enough to bloody my knuckles that she doesn't wind up taking them in a box to the hardware store and giving them away like she told me was her initial plan.  Not fixed, not dewormed, just pulling them once they stopped nursing and taking them to the parking lot.

But would it be that much of a gamble though?  I mean, look at the alternative.  I know we all fall on hard times, especially lately, and getting your pet vetted the second their vaccination expires isn't always possible.  Sometimes, myself included, you gotta wait a couple of paychecks.  That's hard, but that's life.  But to NEVER take your dog in to the vet, her whole life?  To leave her outside unprotected?  I don't get it.  Your kiddos may always come first, but doggies are commitments.  :(  I'm not blaming her - she has her plate full, it's just hard to see, is all.

If she has puppies, I promise to post photos of the adorable little ugly-butts.


-Mouse

Got BYB?

You don't have to have 150 animals to be a backyard breeder.  You don't have to be a puppy mill to be one, either.  You could have a breeder's license from your county, only breed dogs with "papers," and only have two litters a year and still be a BYB.

So what makes a backyard breeder a backyard breeder, and why is it bad?  I everyone who breeds dogs in their backyard a bad breeder?

A backyard breeder is a person who breeds as a hobby or as a business, but can not or does not do so responsibly.  You (or your neighbor) might be a BYB if:

• You do not have a vet
• Your animals do not have county licenses
• Your animals do not have current vaccinations (including rabies, which MUST be administered by a licensed, practicing vet)
• Your animals are not on other advisable medications like flea preventative if relevant to your area or heartworm tests/medications (which once again are only available from a vet!)
• You can not afford to feed all of the animals you have or cannot afford said medical care
• You do not get your animals examined before breeding them for genetic problems, physical problems, or general health
• You do not have a vet to call if an emergency C-section is needed
• You do not have space to appropriately quarantine new animals, moms, puppies, or in general to prevent communicable diseases
• You do not have the time to keep your living spaces for the animals clean and sanitary
• You do not have the appropriate breeding license if required by your area (in most cases this requires annual and surprise inspections to remain valid)
• You do not have a goal in breeding the animals - showing perhaps, but most importantly improving the breed
• You think having "papers" means a dog is automatically breedable
• You do not take into account the community's policies or where the animals wind up when you sell them
• You sell animals that are not fixed or vetted

Plenty of respectable breeders do so on their own property.  That's not the issue here.  A person who breeds animals responsibly rarely, in fact, I'd venture to say never, makes a profit.  This goes for every animal I have ever seen bred, from mice to dogs and cats, to horses.

It's not a matter of honor, it's not like they are refusing a profit because it's the right thing to do, it's because breeding is EXPENSIVE.

There are vet bills.  Exams.  Checkups.  Vaccinations and health care.  There is food and space, housing considerations, grooming if necessary.  You need to take care of every animal you have as though it's your own pet.  Yeah...that costs A LOT OF MONEY.


When people ask $600 for a dog it's because they spent $700 on it and its mum.  A responsible breeder doesn't breed an animal unless there is a reason to.  It's not to sell as pets, it's to improve the breed, the temperament, the conformation, the health, every quality that makes a dog, cat, or horse excellent.  A responsible breeder is up at 3:30 AM to help a momma horse give birth, a responsible breeder sleeps with a damned baby monitor by their bed in case the kittens start crying.


A responsible breeder is not at Tractor Supply, asking a girl with an adopted pit bull who just had leg surgery from a gunshot wound if he can breed her dog and if she has papers.  He isn't saying he doesn't have a vet because they're too expensive, that he just breeds them to sell them as pets, that he has no idea the local shelter puts all pit bulls down.


I guess I was wondering why there were so many blue pit bulls showing up lately.  Asshole.




In other news I got a call last night from my mother, who informed me the rabbit I'd had for the last ten years (and left in my hometown when I had to move for college a few years ago) was dying.  He had been laying on his side, refusing food and only drinking water out of a spoon for the past three days.  My mother had him put to sleep this morning.

He was ten years and two months old - the oldest rabbit the veterinary clinic had seen.  He was a Californian we had adopted from a man whose children didn't want their Easter present anymore (an all-too-common tale) and was going to drop it off on the side of the road.

He was old and we all saw it coming.  The vet said he hadn't been using his back legs because he had likely had a stroke.  That's particularly interesting to me because I get several questions about mice who don't have spinal injuries but drag their back legs - it means there was nothing they could do for him, though.  He'd lost two pounds in the previous months, and with his refusal of food, it was clear he was saying it was time.

Unfortunately when I got the call I was at work, and I had to take a couple of hours off to pull myself together.  Knowing it's coming doesn't make it any easier to deal with, at least not for me.  I'd lost my rat that morning, too, and I just couldn't handle it very well.  I still cry when I think about it.  Bunny was a family member.  Our cat sat by his cage with him day in and day out until my mom took him to the vet.

He will be so missed.

-Mouse



http://www.pet-loss.net/

Radiation Therapy for Hypothyroidism

Gah, that last post was so catty (punny...) that I couldn't just leave it at that.  Yeah, it bugged me, but I'd rather post something a little more interesting to balance it out.  For the record, I feel it's incredibly important to hear all sides of an argument, especially if they tick you off, because people who disagree with you still have says.  It's most important when you feel strongly about something, because you may be less inclined to notice when they actually have points.

It just sucks and makes your blood boil a little bit.

ANYhoo...


The cat I posted for today's Texan Shelter Pet-of-the-Day has hyperthyroidism.  Until today, I didn't even know what that was.  I mean, I knew about the thyroid gland, but had no idea what hyperthyroidism in cats meant.  It sounds scary, like having a diabetic cat, where you have to give them two shots a day at very specific times.  Only in the case of hyperthyroidism, unless you can afford surgery, it's giving them multiple pills a day.

Have you ever given a cat a pill?  Goes something like this:

From Married to the Sea

That sounds horrible to me.  I mean sure, you could probably hide them in food, but some cats (ahem...mine) will just eat around the pill and leave it for you, untouched or perhaps licked clean of food, sitting right in the middle of the food bowl.  It's like they just know.

Well, someone linked to an extremely interesting site in the comments on that cat.  It explains what hyperthyroidism is and pitches a radiation therapy treatment they claim completely cures the problem 98-99% of the time - no blood tests, no pills, just a single treatment.

They don't say anywhere on the site what that treatment costs, but if it's that amazing I am sure it'll catch on, leading to competition and better prices.  I imagine it would be difficult to save up for a more expensive procedure while also buying your cat multiple pills per day.  I also imagine they are exaggerating the hassle of handling a cat with the condition in order to sell their treatment, of course, and one person mentioned they have a cat affected by hyperthyroidism and don't find it to be terribly inconvenient.


Needless to say, this is extremely interesting to me and I'll almost certainly be doing a lot more reading on it over the next few days!  In between studying for my week 8 exams, socializing the kittens, and training/fostering Lanie, of course.

Oh my goodness, that dog pulls like none other.  That is NOT a puppy that can go in an apartment, she needs a yard.

She has also taken to ONLY using the restroom in our bath tub, rather than behaving like the house-trained little girl I was told she was.  Oh well, better than the carpet!!

-Mouse

Oh Nose.

I know I've complained about this already but...

If you are going to run a shelter you HAVE to properly quarantine and isolate your animals to keep them from getting sick!

It sucks, it's hard, I knooow.  Whoever told you rescue was easy was stupid or fucking with you.


I know this is probably one grumpy post too many, but this was an extremely difficult day.  I drove 8 hours this fine Sunday.  Four hours to McKinney, where I picked up Lanie (who does not appear to be full lab) and another dog on its way to Houston.  Then I drove four hours back.  No, actually, my fiance drove four hours back - I sat in the back of the car with two dogs.

But..that's fun, isn't it?  Not when one of those dogs is aiming sneezes at your face.  Lanie had a wicked sneeze.  It wasn't an occasional blast, either, but a frequent sniffle.  Her sneezes smelled like dog blood.  I couldn't nap because my hands and face reeked of blood.  The fluid was clear, but this makes me wonder if she has pneumonia.  Sure, she was vaccinated for bordatella (actually caused by one or more of about a zillion things) and her distemper/parvo combo, but those shots take a few weeks to protect a dog.  And the sneezing was horrible.  I'm wondering at this point if perhaps something in the car was irritating her.

An hour away from home it starts to get cold, now that the sun has gone down.  My fiance turns on the heater, only for the entire car to fill with the most sudden and pungent stink of death.  He quickly shuts it off, but we're gagging and wondering what the hell died in his car (it recently broke down and sat by the woods for a week - anything could have crawled up in there).  He rolls down the only functioning window and blasts the AC.  Eventually the stink fades (I feel for those poor dogs and their noses!), but we discover we can't roll the window back UP.  Now there is freezing cold air blowing in at 70 mph for the last 60 minutes of highway.  Just...ugh.  I'm not really in heaven.

We get home, hand off the other doggy to its new owner, and I get the genius idea to call the girl who picked her up from the shelter for me and ask her if she had been sneezing with her, too.

It turns out she had been.  It turns out, MOST of the dogs at the shelter are sick.  I don't understand how a shelter could adopt out an unhealthy animal.  Now MY dog is at risk, my dog who just had surgery 3 weeks ago and just now finished her antibiotics.  You HAVE to tell people that stuff ahead of time, and if they're on meds, SAY so and INCLUDE it!  Don't just ship it home with someone without a word of warning!  Few things could be LESS safe or responsible than handing off dogs without mentioning they are sick with an unknown sneeze that smells like blood.

She says she had put her on doxycycline for "2-3 days," and that most of the dogs put on antibiotics (doxy "or you can put her on any other general antibiotic") cleared up after a few days.  You know how when you go to the doctor with the sniffles, and they hand you antibiotics and warn you not to stop the antibiotics before you've taken them all, even if you feel better?  It's not different for dogs.  Dogs and all animals on antibiotics need to finish a full cycle of antibiotics once they've started.  Was I given antibiotics?  No, but I'll be at the vet tomorrow, spending surprise money on an office call and antibiotics, won't I!  And in the meantime, I have to sterilize every single thing that comes into contact with her every single time it comes into contact.  I don't even know what food she was on, so she's probably going to have the runs on top of it.  Yay...a dehydrated sick dog.

The good news?  She's damned adorable, and very friendly, and obedient.  I can't look for a home for her until she's no longer sick, and I can't get her spayed/vaccinated until that point, either.  She doesn't look to me like she's completely lab, but you can definitely see it in her.  Maybe it's just that she's young?  Here, have photos!

It's the narrow nose and the backwards ears that confuse me.  She certainly seems to have lab in her, but could she be a mix?

The color's awful in this, but see what I mean?  That doesn't look like a lab type conformation to me.

The Houston-bound doggy

That's what strikes me as a lab-face, but I'm no expert!

-Mouse

Whoops!

Okay, so you know that little voice in the back of your head that says "NO!  You have enough animals, you can't take care of another one, not even for a little while.  You are maxed out.  *slaps hand* STOP IT."

Then you know how there's a little voice just in front of that one that waves its arms around and screams how for two or three weeks out of your life you could keep at least one dog from being put down?


You know that dog I posted this morning, the 7 month old female lab?

She's coming home with me Sunday, if all goes well.  No, not permanently, but just until we can find her a good home.  What can I say?  The adoption is free, and she was scheduled to be euthanized yesterday. She still needs a home if anyone is interested - I'll put up more pics when we have her home safely.

It's a really, really dumb idea.  The only reason it's even feasible is that we already have a baby gate up to keep our cat (who has rhino) breathing+ distance away from the quarantined fostered momma cat and her three kittens - one of whom had severe pneumonia for the first few weeks of his life.  (Yes, we have many more precautions in place - rhino can kill kittens!  But if you must know, the hoarding situation they came from was infested with it, so no high hopes on keeping them disease-free here)

The baby gate also serves to keep our pibble out of our bedroom, because she just had leg surgery to fix an old gunshot wound.  Very expensive surgery that we could only afford because our local shelter helped us out tremendously.  After months of saving.  She's crate confined for now anyways so she can heal up, so there won't be any surprise doggy interactions to worry about at least.  Seriously, though, our apartment is carefully segmented and we're pretty much maxed out.  To be fair, before the foster kitten got so sick, everything was organized beautifully and the critters really fit.  But the kitten DID get sick.  And now things don't fit just right, and we have our hands full.  I didn't expect to have to give the entire mouse room to the kitties.  It was a surprise.

But Lanie is 7 months old AND a popular breed, and there is no reason to put down puppies or young, healthy, adoptable dogs.  If technically we *can,* it's beyond my ability to step back and say "go ahead, kill her."  I'm a sucker like that.  Really, you can blame my fiance, who told me to first.  I just ran with it.  All I can say is, we'll be in trouble if we don't find her a home in the next few weeks.  I'm not exactly whatcha'd call "rich."  :)

Ah well, it may be the first time we've done this with a shelter, but it's certainly not the first time we've helped out a dog this way.  I'll keep ya updated!


-Mouse


Update:  Yeah...I'm glad I took her, honestly.  You know what the adoption form was?

Name:
Address:
Phone Number:
Driver's License #:
(photo of DL)

That was it.  Yipes!  They got no clue where these doggies are going.  At least we'll have her Sunday, and will be able to follow up with her rabies vaccination, HW test/meds, and a spay.  Then we get to pick the home she goes to, and you can bet we'll be asking for a little more info than what they asked for!  There will be no out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire crap for Lanie, oh no.  We've had a tragedy like that before and I will never, ever, EVER do it again.  Story for another time.

Oh wow.  I just adopted another dog.  I need a beer.


...Time to dog-proof the master bedroom.