Daisy was adopted! and other news

Daisy has been adopted, after only her second week at PetSmart. I am sad that she left so quickly - she was a great dog. But she went to a family with three boys who are very excited to have a dog to play with, and are willing to work with her to overcome her fears.

Since Daisy left on Monday, and Murphy went back to his home on Monday, the house is much quieter. It has left me with just Remi, Vala, Kiya, Bailey, Whiskey, Brandy, Ginny, Scout, George, and Ella to take care of. Normally that wouldn't be too bad, and I'm anxious to get Samantha back to foster now that I have room again. However, since I'm going on vacation soon, and since the puppies are starting to need more care, I'm going to wait a few more weeks before I get Sam, unless she gets adopted first of course.

Ella was supposed to go up for adoption at PetSmart last week, but they found a mass in her abdomen during surgery and now we're waiting until the end of this week to find out the results of the biopsy and make sure she can be put up for adoption. She's fully recovered from her spay surgery though, and is even getting braver around the dogs now. So this extra time at my house might help her get adopted since she'll have more options if she is a dog-friendly cat.

Kiya and the puppies went to the vet yesterday for a follow-up exam and they think they might have ringworm (mother and puppies). So now the poor dogs have to stay quarantined for even longer, and start on some medication to treat it. The battle to keep Kiya in the exercise-pen with her puppies has been won - by Kiya, that is. After covering the top with chicken wire and spending a lot of time and money trying to keep her from getting out, I've finally admitted defeat. The puppies need to stay in the ex-pen because there are too many things in the basement that could hurt them -but Kiya is now climbing out of the pen whenever she wants. My biggest concern is I've never seen her climb back in, and her puppies are hungry without her there to feed them. They're starting to eat puppy food now, but they're still trying to nurse, so I need to find out if they'll be okay without her now. They're all continuing to grow - the biggest one (Ginny) is 6 pounds now, and the smallest one (Brandy) is 4.25 pounds. They're walking around really well, and playing all the time - they've even started growling and giving these baby puppy barks more often. They love to be held and be allowed to get out and explore their world. It's always fun to let them out and then try to round them all back up again. They're easier to round up than the kittens I fostered were - which is good, because there were only three kittens and there are five puppies!! Either way, puppies and kittens seem to have an instinctive knack for getting into trouble, but they're so cute that they can get away with it!

Pictures!

Here is a picture of my newest foster - Daisy! As a reminder - click on any picture in the blog to see it full-size.

Here is a newer picture of Sam - just 'cause I like her so much. :-)

And finally - what you've been waiting for - pictures of Kiya and her puppies!

Here is Kiya - we think she is an Ibizan Hound mix.

And here are her puppies....we think they are possibly part Akita. They are now 23 days old!

This is Bailey. She looks a whole lot like her brother Whiskey.

This is Whiskey. He's the puppy with the ear infection - poor guy.

This is Ginny. She has a spot of white on the back of her neck, but not across the top of her forehead like Bailey and Whiskey.

This is Brandy. She has the least amount of white on her - just a little bit on her chest.

And this is Scout. He has a ring of white around his neck.

You may have noticed a theme with the names, other than Scout. One volunteer named Scout after her dog, and the rest were named by another volunteer. I tried to figure out a way to make Scout fit the theme, but when I Googled it, I only found a lot of web sites about Boy Scouts and alcohol... a surprising number of them, actually! So much for that idea. :-)

Here is my favorite picture of all the puppies... aren't they adorable?!

Introducing Daisy, and other news

It's been a busy few days! Saturday was a bit slow for dog adoptions, and once again neither Vala or Sam were picked. There was one dog returned due to her owner having medical issues. Daisy is a German Shepherd/Husky mix who was adopted out last December (she was named Elkie then). She's only about 7 months old now, and is a beautiful dog. I haven't had a chance to take her picture yet, so hopefully I'll get that and post it in the next day or two. She was very shy and overwhelmed by the other dogs, so I offered to take her to my house and help her get used to her new surroundings. To keep from having too many fosters, I let Sam go back to the main foster home. It was hard to let her go, but I went and visited on Sunday and saw that she was very happy and settled in immediately. Sam loves to play and isn't shy at all, so she loves having other new dogs to play with now. Daisy has quickly become a model dog - anyone thinking about fostering should sign up for her - she's practically perfect! :-) She likes to play with Vala, although she's still not sure about Remi. She's quiet and obedient and house-trained and affectionate. I am really enjoying having her around.

In other news, its been a long week with Kiya and the puppies. One of the puppies has an ear infection, but other than that they're all doing great. They've started sitting up, and walking around a little bit. They're very wobbly and fall over sometimes, or they'll nudge each other and knock each other over. It's so cute to watch. Kiya has been a bit of a challenge, as she needs to eat a lot to feed her puppies, and therefore needs to be taken outside a lot more often than other dogs. Since this isn't always possible to take her out every few hours, she has become an escape artist at getting out of her kennel to go as far away as possible. I can't blame her, I would want the smell as far from me as possible too! But instead of using the puppy pads that I've strategically placed around the basement in case she does get out, she prefers to find more interesting places to do her business. My husband's working on finishing our basement, so there's a lot of tools and construction items lying around. The tools are a favorite spot of hers. Also in boxes of spooled wire, inside a bookshelf that he built into the wall, and even on top of the extra-large container of Nature's Miracle stain/odor remover that was sitting on the floor (guess she told me!). It's been a losing battle on my part to keep her in her exercise-pen where she's staying with the puppies. First, she squeezed between the door and the side of the kennel. I blocked that off, and she managed to get under the kennel by pushing it into a corner and squeezing underneath. I blocked it in so she couldn't move it around, and she somehow lifted the whole thing straight into the air and got out underneath. I tied it down with bungee cords, and she started climbing over the top. I tried a blanket over the top yesterday, which didn't work, and this morning I tried a fitted sheet which will hold better than the blanket. If that fails, my husband offered to find me a piece of plywood to try next. Hopefully that will work!! It'd be funny if she didn't make such a big mess everytime she got out. :-)

In happier news, Murphy is coming back! Murphy, who used to be called Coal, is my favorite previous foster dog. Every now and then I get to dog-sit for him while his owners are gone, and this weekend is one of those times. I am so glad that his owners kept in touch and let me be his honorary aunt. I generally don't have favorite fosters - or actually, I tend to think of each one as my favorite whenever I'm around them. But Coal somehow snuck in and stole favorite dog forever spot in my heart. So I'm really looking forward to seeing him again.

And finally, there's Ella. She's the mother of the kittens that I fostered, and she's finally almost ready to be put up for adoption. She goes in to the vet tomorrow to get her vaccinations and be spayed, and then on Saturday she'll be moving up to PetSmart to find a home. There are some cats that live at Petsmart 24/7, and volunteers come in during the week to care for them. Ella will become one of those cats, and hopefully someone will see her during the week and fall in love with her and adopt her. She's a great cat, and I hope she finds a home quickly, although I hear it will be challenging during "kitten season".

Why I like people...

Those of you who know me well are probably thinking "What? You don't like people..." and that's usually true. In general, people scare me. They say mean things, and care mostly about themselves, and are generally harmful to other people, animals and the environment. I usually try to avoid people whenever possible. But sometimes I meet people who say nice things, and care about others, and help other people, animals and the environment. That's when I decide maybe there are more people who I do like than people who I don't. So here's a story of something that helped me remember why I do like people:

Our rescue group received a call from a shelter about a beagle. The problem wasn't the beagle, it was the beagle's owners. They had not spayed the beagle, and when they found out she was pregnant, they decided to get rid of her. So because of these selfish people, the beagle was going to have to be put down. The shelter called us yesterday. It was the beagle's last chance - they'd contacted all the rescue groups and people they knew of, but no one else had room. Our main foster home had received two of these calls in the past month -- she already said "yes" to both of those dogs, so had no room left for this one. Likewise, I couldn't take her since I was well over my limit of dogs and didn't have the time or resources to care for another one. So it looked as if this beagle would die, as would her puppies, just like so many other dogs before her. But I just received word that another Heartland volunteer would take the beagle. Even though she's also very limited on time and resources, she managed to make room for one more.

It's just a dog, right? Lots of dogs being killed all the time - lots of reasons we can't save this one. Because no, we can't save them all. But I can save two... and Gina, Angela, Donna, Karen, Lori, Shannon, Donna and Sue each save more... and if we could get a few more names added to that list, we could save even more. And maybe, someday, we COULD save them all. It took one person to be a bad owner, not bother to spay/neuter their dog, then dump her and create this problem. It took several people, from the animal shelter where the dog was taken, to the HHS volunteer who answered the phone and sent out the plea, to the foster mom who took the dog, to solve the problem. It'll still take more actually - people to donate time and money to HHS to pay the vet bills and supplies for the dog and puppies, and then people to adopt the beagle and her puppies once they're ready. That is a LOT of people I like, all to fix a problem of one person I don't like. So all in all, I'll have to say that at the moment at least, I like people!

Puppy Pictures, Petropolis Event

I finally got some pictures of the potatoes - I mean puppies. They don't look so much like potatoes anymore now that their eyes are open and I think their legs have started growing. One of them even gave a real dog "bark" yesterday! They are supposed to be able to start crawling by 21 days old (they're 18 days old today!) In another week or two, they should be moving around quite a bit on their own. Here are some pictures...

In other exciting news, we have signed up to do an adoption event at Petropolis at the end of this month. It sounds like a lot of fun - hope you can come out and join us! Click on the image below to see a larger view of the flyer.

Introducing Kiya and Puppies!

First, to catch up from last week.... Sam and Vala went to PetSmart on Saturday, but neither one found a home. However, two other dogs did get adopted this week. Emmy is a pug that has been in foster care for awhile. My best friend was hoping to adopt her, until she found out she's very allergic to dogs. But she did spend enough time with Emmy that I got to hear about what a sweet wonderful little dog she was. Emmy got a lot of attention at PetSmart, and was adopted right away by a family with two other pugs, so she'll have new friends to play with. Ozzie was the other dog who was adopted, and we're very happy for him. He is a very sweet bassett hound mix, and he went to a home with another bassett hound mix! So both of our adopted dogs this week found homes with families who are already familiar with their breed - always helpful!

Sam and Vala have both been getting away with too much at home lately, and I need to get them back onto a better routine. They were both spayed a week ago and were told to "take it easy" until the stitches were removed, so they haven't been able to spend a lot of time playing or going for long walks or anything. This means I felt sorry for them and let them loose in the house without keeping a close eye on them. This is not good for their housebreaking, or for my shoes that they've chewed on several times. Well, one of them - the other downside is I can't tell who the culprit is, since I haven't caught them in the act! Oh well, they're both too cute to be mad at for long. Sam (the most likely culprit) is always ready to greet me at the door and give me puppy licks to say hello. She's very easygoing, and always ready to play. Vala, on the other hand, has become a bit lazy, and doesn't jump up and down like a bouncy ball anymore. She prefers to be a lap dog, and fortunately she's only 28 pounds, because she won't hesitate to jump onto the bed or couch or wherever a person is to make herself comfortable in their lap.

As if these two foster dogs weren't enough, plus one foster cat, and my own dog and cat, I brought home a mother dog and five puppies last night. This time I asked my husband *first*. Kittens aren't too hard to hide - but six more dogs in the house is another story. ;-) Another foster mom had taken in the pregnant dog (Kiya), and she had her puppies two weeks ago. Since the foster mom had company coming into town and needed to get them out of her house for a couple of weeks, I offered to dog-sit. So she said okay, but we worked out the details through some other volunteers. Imagine her surprise when she got home last night and the dog and puppies were gone! They'd been dognapped by me - and now I may not give them back! :-) The puppies are 17 days old today - they've just started to open their eyes. They can't walk or bark, and they just look like little potatoes. Cute potatoes, but potatoes nonetheless (sorry Gina, but its true). I'll post some pictures soon so you can see for yourself. They are happily ensconced in our basement now, safely away from the rest of the animals in the house. They weigh about 2 pounds and 12 oz. I'll post more about them soon!

Kittens were Adopted!

It was a good weekend for my foster kittens, as they were all adopted and went home to new families. I will miss them, but I'm glad they have new families and can get the love and attention they deserve. Now I just have Ella, the mother cat left. She'll be ready for adoption in two or three weeks.

The dogs didn't have so much luck this week in finding new homes. We took seven dogs up to Petsmart, and none of them were adopted. My two foster dogs, Sam and Vala, are at the vet today being spayed and getting their rabies and tests to get ready for adoption. I will be taking them to PetSmart next weekend for adoptions.