|
I realized that I haven't introduced most of you to my other dogs, Pierre and Baxter.
Please forgive me for being so rude.
As I've mentioned before, we have 4 dogs and 4 cats. Two of the dogs came from Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina....
At the time, Mary had volunteered for the state animal Emergency Preparedness Group. What I should have seen coming about that is that meant that I also volunteered for the state animal Emergency Preparedness Group.
As you probably remember, Hurricane Katrina displaced many pets from the south. The system many southern states had for strays and unwanted pets was rapidly over capacity.
The folks at the Knox County Humane Society had volunteered to go down and return with 40 dogs. Now, since then there have been alot of concerns about dogs from the south bringing up novel diseases to Maine and introducing infectious diseases to our area that are not prevalent. I'm sure that is true. I'm also sure that these dogs were in sad shape.
I had never worked with the Knox County Humane Society, but they needed a vet to examine the dogs and vaccinate them before putting them into the shelter here or into foster homes. I have to say, I can't say enough good things about the team at Knox County.
They had rented two vans, taken their own time and traveled to Louisiana. On the way home, they arranged to stay at the homes of family members to minimize the cost of the endeavor. The vans arrived in Maine in the morning. The executive director had teamed up with another humane society in Vermont and found homes for 10 dogs. That morning, they had the remaining 30. 17 people were waiting with foster homes and they had 10 cages.
The dogs were in poor health. Some had foot infections. Others had skin infections. Many had heartworm.
We set up an examination area and one of the technicians organized the vaccinations. I remember there as a skinny bulldog with patches of hair missing. A skin scraping confirmed sarcoptic mange.
A small area with many dogs meant they would all have to be treated for it.
Becca and Daniel had wanted to go to see all the dogs. They helped walk them, they helped brush them out.
Mary helped organize with the executive director while I examined the dogs and took blood for heartworm tests.
After completing all of the exams I came in to the main building to wash up. The foster families were leaving with their new boarders. My hands were filthy, my clothes smelled of old feces.
Mary, Becca and Daniel were standing in the hall with innocent looks and 3 dogs.
"Don't even think about it, we already have a dog and two cats at home" I said resolutely.
"But dad" Dan said, "17 dogs are going into temporary homes, 10 dogs can stay here."
"The executive director is taking this one home" said Mary on cue.
Becca's big brown eyes looked up..."and these two have no homes and you said they have heartworms. Maybe we could take them home?"
So, 6 years later we are 'fostering' Pierre and Baxter.
Pierre is the smaller of the two and I think he is part papillon. He had been caught as a stray with a rabies pole. If you haven't seen a rabies pole, it is a wire loop that is passed through a long aluminum pole, designed to keep animals that are nasty or may have rabies away from you.
I thought that was just mean.
Baxter had been surrendered by his family. On the paperwork under "reason for surrender" the owners had written "no home to go back to"
So we brought them back and I neutered them both. We treated them for heartworms and gave them the treatment for mange as well. Because the modern treatment for mange kills a large number of the circulating larvae of the heartworm and puts the dog at risk for a systemic reaction, I had to use the stuff we used 20 years ago. It was a dip that smelled horrible.
In the first few days one of the neighbors came over and Pierre went over and bit him. I found that Baxter urinated on everything vertical. ..including Gizmo.
When I gave Pierre's second shot to treat his heartworm, he bit me. He meant it.
I had never had a biter before.
...and he was so cute...
Flash forward to now. Baxter doesn't like to be home when we are gone, so we bring him to daycare. He knows that if we are both getting ready at the same time, that usually means he is going to go to "school". He loves barging through the door at El Rancho kennel.
They call him Sir PeesAlot
He still does the peeing on vertical surfaces thing. So now he wears a belly band with an absorptive pad in it.
Turns out that of male dogs that urine mark after they are neutered, 85 % will stop the marking behavior. 15% continue marking.
I didn't have that in my discussion of when to neuter a male dog.
I do now.
He goes through absorptive pads pretty slowly. That's good because the ones he uses are the Men's Incontinence Pads.
I've always enjoyed shopping. But now I am grateful that they put the Incontinence pads in the second to the last aisle.
Because there aren't many days I go shopping where I don't see at least one of you. You've never seen me with the incontinence pads though, because I stuff them under something else.
Pierre doesn't go to daycare because he bites randomly. Some people he jumps up on and wags his tail and is friendly. He loves Vicki's husband. However, with some people he puts his ears back and bites them.
Out of the blue.
Take a moment to look at his face.
It seems as though the cute ones shouldn't be the ones that bite...just seems unfair to me...
Anyway, back to the last email about the hospice idea. Yesterday we had the first meeting and I am totally psyched. We had 45 people and a puppy show up. We are making the puppy our mascot. His name is Foof....at least that is what we are calling him.
I have to say this group is wonderful. The energy was amazing. It'll be awhile until we are ready to actually help, but I am certain that this will be a resource for people experiencing loss and facing end of life care of a pet. We have people from the human hospice side, 4 ministers, nurses, two vet techs and alot of people who thought they were alone in the signficance that their pets played in their lives.
and we have a Puppy Mascot Foof.
Good thing Foof showed up because my plan B was having Baxter be the mascot.
That would have meant alot more incontinence pads.
So I'm just sayin...if you see me at Hannaford with Incontinence pads peaking out from under the grapes...its for the dog.
| 
