Shelby update, and Thank You

Shelby is feeling better!!  She has not had any more seizures in the last 24 hours, and she came home from the E-clinic and is doing well.  She is still ataxic, but that is hopefully just due to the medicine she is on.  If you don't know what ataxic means, well, here's a hint:

Ziggy enjoys a beer.

Unlike Ziggy, Shelby hasn't been drinking, but she walks around like she's drunk, bumping into things and occasionally falling over.  But she's starting to act more like her old self, and hopefully within a few days will be back to normal.  She'll be on seizure medicine the rest of her life, but that is not too expensive so she should be able to be adopted without much trouble once she is recovered from her heartworm treatment.  Someday she will have her Happily Ever After!

Merlin the cat is also fully recovered from his run-in with Ziggy.  Thanks for all of your well-wishes!

Rescue is expensive, and I'm grateful to work with a rescue group that covers all foster pet medical expenses as well as providing dog food for the fosters.  Shelby's emergency vet bill was over $600, and that doesn't include the several hundred dollars it will cost for her heartworm treatment.  Her adoption fee is only $125, so as you can imagine, the rescue group relies heavily on donations from the public in order to continue to help animals.  It always amazes me how many people out there are happy to give just a few dollars to help when they can.  Without so many people giving, we couldn't save dogs like Shelby.

It's great when people donate to the rescue, which by the way is tax deductible, but recently something even more amazing happened.  A very special person read about the problems I've been having with my foster dogs escaping my fenced yard.  Living in a rural area is wonderful, except for the mindset many people have about animals.  If people see stray dogs, they are as likely to shoot them as call the owner, even when the dogs are wearing collars and tags.  So when a neighbor stopped by to warn me that my dogs were going to be shot if they got out of the yard again, I was desperate.  I was out of work and couldn't afford a better fence, but had nowhere else for the foster dogs to go.  So I bought a fence and shared my concerns about paying for it.  I love writing this blog because I get to share the good and the bad of rescue, but I never expected what happened next.  Jess from At A Glacial Pace created a wonderful fundraiser to help me buy the fence!  She spent so much time and hard work, just to help keep my foster dogs safe and me sane (well, relatively sane).  The fundraiser was a lot of fun - an online Valentine's Day Party - and many people in the blog community donated.  I am grateful to each one of you who participated and made this a successful event.  My fence is up and is working perfectly to keep the dogs in the yard!

Shelby in the back yard

Thank you Jess, and everyone who contributed!

Jefferson - trying to help build the fence!

We're Having A Party: Guest Post by Remi

Remi

Hi everyone, remember me?  I'm Remi the Great Dane. I don't get to be in my mom's blog much anymore since she moved out to the country.  She really likes to help homeless animals, so she bought a house where she would be allowed to have foster pets.  But my dad is still living at our old house, so Noelle and I stay with him. He doesn't ever take my picture so I don't get to be in the blog very often.  But today I have some really fun news to share, so I get to post even though there are no new pictures of me!


Some of my mom's blog friends read about her problems with the foster dogs escaping the fenced yard and being in danger of being shot by the neighbors.  My mom is real worried about that, and she says the only way to make sure the foster animals are safe is to put up a privacy fence.  Now I don't know why these foster dogs would want to leave the yard in the first place.  But you know, some of them come from shelters where they ended up as strays, because they had become experts at escaping their yards at their old house.   So maybe they just have bad habits that they need to give up.  But since running around the countryside is not such a good idea, mom has to put up a fence that will keep them in the yard.  She just hasn't found a new job yet so she's not sure how she's going to afford it.  This is where the really exciting thing takes place.  Those blog friends decided to have a fundraiser to help my mom pay for a fence to keep all the foster dogs safe.  When my mom heard that she couldn't believe it.  She was so shocked that they would do that, and that so many in the blogging community would want to help.  She is grateful beyond words, which is probably why she's letting me tell you this news instead of telling you herself.  So here's the deal - we're having a party!!

Jess and Glacier are organizing the event, and it is going to be great!  There are even rumors that Ziggy has volunteered to help staff the Kissing Booth!  You can read more about it here.  Thanks to Jess and everyone else who is helping to put this pawty together - you are wonderful!