pet connection

Help! Help! She says she’s going to trim nails today! Can anyone save us? — Love, the retrievers (and Drew)

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Saturday morning and there’s no putting it off any longer. I gotta do something about the taxes, the final, final, final deadline less than a month away. Finding everything for the accountant is Job One, and preparing myself emotionally for his, “You know, if you’d just … ” is Job Two.

But hey, it’s not worse than a root canal and that Special Happy 50th Birthday Screening Test, right? And I’ve survived both of those, plus my invitation to join the AARP, so one must soldier on.

***

Last night I came home to find 13 chickens. Now, as you may recall, I have no rooster, so this increasing of the flock isn’t something I planned for. And since immaculate conception isn’t something I’d read about in the chicken books, I immediately suspected my neighbor Judy had a hand in the mystery.

And indeed, I was right.

If you’ve been following the summer saga,  you know she and I traded some chickens around in the interest of flock harmony, me trading Harriet (Buff Orphington, a big, dopey chicken who has never laid a thing) and Eulalie (Cinnamon Queen, too young to lay and always fighting with Hester) for her Lacey (Silver-Laced Wyandotte with a bad attitude). When all was said and done, I had 11 chickens and she had maybe a half-dozen.

But she liked Eulalie so much she went back to Dr. Sue Chan and got three more Cinnamon Queens, and decided that I needed one to make up for having given up Eulalie. For good measure, she brought back Harriet, who was just as big and dopey in Judy’s yard, but who became favorite pecking target of Judy’s Rhode Island Reds.

What it means, though, is that I have a chicken without a name. She’s mostly red, and kinda related to Nadine and Gladys (and Eulalie, across the street). Seems a nice, friendly chicken, and she’s already laying dark brown eggs.

Ideas?

I swear this is the last chicken I’m adding, although … 13 is an unlucky number, so maybe I should add one more.

***

Pardon me for my lack of confidence in the FDA’s statement about how unconcerned we should be about products tainted with melamine following the poisoning of thousands of infants in China. We’ve been here before, after all, to the tune of several thousand sick and dead pets. … Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly writes about the ongoing melamine mess on Dolittler.

Over on Terrierman’s Daily Dose, a series of posts regarding the backlash against dogs bred to the point of immobility and illness. First to change, the pathetic Peke. …

Last week a stray puppy changed my life for the better, leaving paw prints on my heart that will never fade.

Her name was Maddie, and she was in pain. Rushed to the Whitman County Humane Society in Pullman, Wash., where I work, she whimpered as she was pulled from the crate in the back of the van and set gently on the ground for the shelter team to examine her. Her front paw was held tightly to her chest as she hobbled around on three legs. Despite the extreme pain, Maddie was full of love in the form of sweet smelling puppy kisses, which she did not hesitate to shower on the entire staff.

“It definitely looks broken,” said the shelter manager, Teresa, “We better get her to the veterinarian as soon as possible.”

Unaware of Maddie’s situation, I asked how she came to us, and how she ended up with such an injury. Teresa told me Maddie was found on the streets of Spokane as a stray, hit by a car left to die. The Spokane shelter took her in but did not have the financial resources to pay for the costly surgery of fixing a broken leg. Our humane society has a special service available to all surrounding animal shelters, called the HOPE fund, which is a charity service set up solely for providing medical treatment to stray animals in desperate need of help. Just a couple of weeks before, our Pullman shelter took in a 6-week-old puppy with a badly broken leg. After her costly treatment, the HOPE fund was left with just enough to cover the cost of one more animal. When Teresa received the call from Spokane asking her if she would take in Maddie for the needed treatment, there was no hesitation from her that they would open the door in the last place the puppy could come to for help.

Maddie covered everyone with puppy kisses and was put back in the crate to make the needed trip to the vet. After vets in the area  found Maddie’s break was too complex (in a growth plate, near a nerve) to for a routine operation, Maddie was taken to the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University, where the orthopedics department could care for her severe break. Maddie was scheduled for surgery to fix the break.

Caring for Maddie had taken up the last of our HOPE fund resources, so I began using all of the media training I learned from my college courses. I wrote her story and called newspapers and radio shows to try to get their help in talking about the HOPE fund,. I rushed up to the vet school to get a picture of Maddie to go with her story.Maddie was carried to me in the waiting room at the vet school, tail waggingand body wriggling, but now with an enormous red cast on her front leg. Guessing by Maddie’s whole spirit, which continued to lap me up in kisses, you would never know anything in her was broken.

My husband, the vet school staff and I walked outside to take pictures of Maddie with her new cast, which she seemed to show off as she bounded around on the freshly trimmed grass, with the most agility a three-legged dog could muster. My husband took out his camera to take pictures, and there began an unbelievably humorous struggle to have Maddie pose for the camera. We struggled to hold cookies in front of her to have her look at the camera. For a moment she would look at the cookie, but before we could get a shot she would flip around and run to another person, hopeful to find a play partner. Pat desperately tried to get “the photo of all photos,” but Maddie just wasn’t having it. As he crouched next to her face, I tried to distract her with cookies and praise. She all the sudden diverted her attention from me and decided the camera was a much better object of her affectiona as she began licking the camera lens. We laughed as Pat wiped the drool from the camera, and managed to catch a few shots of the joyful pup. Only a dog can be in that much pain, but be so happy!

Soon after my visit, Maddie was able to get her much needed surgery to repair her leg, thanks to the generosity of donors who supported the HOPE fund. The story ends even better though, as Maddie was placed immediately with a new loving mom, one of the orthopedic veterinarians from the vet school, who welcomed her into her new family. Although the work is not over, and I am still working on raising money for the next stray animal that fund will need help, I can’t help but smile when I think of the help we were able to offer Maddie; but more than that, the joy she was able to offer us.

Images by Pat Shannon

Our next PetConnection giveaway (sign up for the Nov. 1 drawing) — Aspen pet-care products worth $250 — marks the first time we will choose four winners, one for each gift basket.  I’ll put up all the details this weekend, but I do know that some of the products really caught my eye at Global Pet Expo, the big annual pet-industry trade show.

But more details later about that, as I said.  Instead, I was thinking about what our ever-professional contact at Aspen, Kelly Nelson, wrote recently in sending over the information on the prizes. “TGIF!!!,” she wrote. “What a whip of week!”

That phrase has really stuck with me, and this has been one whip of a week.

If I weren’t so darn busy, I would stay in bed and pull the covers over my head.

It started Sunday when my brother hit some road debris on the Interstate. His car’s front tires shredded under him, but he was able to pull to the shoulder without further damage or — most importantly — without any injury to himself. But the arrangement of the tow truck, the moving of people and vehicles here and there, the decisions (two tires, or all four?) just seemed to be a yawning vortex of time-suck that the whole family was dragged into. And the expense — not covered by insurance — was considerable, $1,100 to put four new shoes on the T-bird, plus alignments of various sorts. My brother’s a teacher, and that kind of dough is never easy to turn over. But what can you do?

The news wasn’t better on Monday, even if I wasn’t personally involved. And all animal-related, in one way or another:

• The ongoing deaths of babies in China proves for sure that certain elements in the Chinese manufacturing community and the government didn’t care about the death of thousands of pets from adulterated ingredients in 2007. They don’t care about their own children, so you know they didn’t care about our pets … or American children, for that matter. The Wild West of Chinese capitalism continues to run amok, and the powers that be there don’t care about anything  except money. (Here’s the latest.)
• The leveling of entire communities along the Texas/Louisiana coast, by the one-two punch of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. These people are suffering, and so are many animals, domestic and wild, and this will continue for a long, long time, no matter how much help they get.
• The financial meltdown on Wall Street, which means the housing market isn’t getting any better any time soon.  When people leave their homes, their pets suffer, too. This week I’ve already gotten an significant uptick of e-mail (some meant for me, some meant for the rescue group of the same name in the Kansas City area) from people who are looking for options that will let them keep their pets when they lose their homes — or looking for places to take their pets when they can’t find pet-friendly housing. Not to mention: With so many people living on the razor’s edge of solvency, it’s easy to predict that even for those who can keep their pets, there may be sacrifices in terms of the care those animals get.

There’s more behind my malaise, but that the most of it.  Whip of a week? You betcha.

But then …

Our editor at Universal Press, Greg Melvin, rescued a feral kitten over the weekend. He was helping to handle a death in the family, on a farm a few states away. One of the barn cats had a litter with her, and she and her babies were all too wild to be pets, except one little kitten who walked right up to Greg and started purring. That little guy earned himself a plane ride back to Missouri and a great new home. Greg and his veterinarian are working to get the newly named Harry through the next couple of days. The kitten is loaded with every imaginable parasite and extremely malnourished. Dr. Becker and I both talked to Greg yesterday, to answer questions and offer encouragement.

Greg promises kitten pictures later just sent me a pic!

The Saving of Harry has been the only bright spot on what has been and likely will continue to be a Whip of Week. Never will I be so glad to see Friday come along.

Seattle is world-class when it comes to people-watching. For me, it’s a visual feast: the girl with lavender pigtails atop a shaved head, the man in full Scottish regalia, the woman wearing gigantic goggles in the library. For the dogs, it’s probably best described as a scentsual soiree. Every once in a while, however, they see something that takes them aback. Specifically, a young Japanese tourist pulling a purple suitcase emblazoned with a death’s head. Bella did not care for that one bit. It was right at her eye level, and she backed away and wouldn’t go near it. I guess some symbols cross species boundaries.

Last week we visited a dog park near my sister’s apartment off Sandpoint Way. It had a separate area where small dogs could play and several chairs and a little table for the people. Harper and some Pugs took turns playing with one of her toys. Twyla hopped up on the table and looked at me expectantly, so I pulled out her Furminator and did a little grooming. The owner of a Cavachon (a Cavalier/Bichon cross) was quite intrigued by it, although she claimed her dog didn’t shed at all. It’s true that the hair of Bichon and Poodle-type dogs has a longer growth phase than other types of dog hair, but I imagine if she went without brushing long enough, she’d start finding little Cavachon dust bunnies around the house. A picnic at another park and a stop at Scraps to buy more food–the highlight of their day–rounded out our excursion.

Coming soon: Stroller Daze  and Elevator to Success

A couple years ago I dropped my personal Web log to devote all my blogging time to this one. That was fine, since most of the things I have strong opinions on fit more or less into the PetConnection blog. (Christie and Kim both kept their personal Web logs, although neither blogs there much, preferring to put most of their online thoughts on this blog, too.)

But with an election looming, I got to itching to write about it. So I had an idea that was, as blogger Kathy Flake put it, “barking mad.” I decided to start a group blog, short term, to have an outlet for my thoughts on the election. And I decided to invite a a few of the bloggers I most enjoy reading.

And so, Bark Obama! was born.

I’m happy with my decision to keep presidential politics off this blog — the subject really doesn’t fit, and besides, the entire PetConnection team is decidedly not of a single mind on the issues (again, we consider this, as blogger John Scalzi is fond of saying, a feature, not a bug).

Christie, Kim and I are members of the group blog. But here’s the whole list (and we’re still adding to it):

• Patrick Burns, Terrierman’s Daily Dose
• Kathy Flake, WhatDoIKnow
• Christie Keith, Dogged and PetConnection
• Dr. Patty Khuly, Dolittler
• Susan McCullough, The Allie Chronicles
• Luisa Serrano, Lassie Get Help
• Gina Spadafori, PetConnection
• Shirley Thistlethwaite, YesBiscuit! and Everybody Secede Now!
• Kim Campbell Thornton, PetConnection
• Mary Young, PhD, Windfall Ranch

What a line-up, huh? Come over, come over, read and comment. You can even spread the word by picking up a badge for your Web site or blog. And we’ll be selling T-shirts and mugs starting next week to help cover our design and hosting costs, so you might want to check that out. I promise the goodies will be gorgeous, since my friend Jay Gavron of Gotham Park Studios — who designed both the PetConnection and DogCars Web sites — is handling the work.

I’ve put BarkObama! in our blog roll, but this is the only actual post you’ll see mentioning it here. We’ll be blogging here as always, pretty much non-partisan, and barking for Obama there until Nov. 5.