Blog Archives

Friday, December 11, 2015

12/11/2015

BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog Radio Show covering the events of Friday, December 11, 2105. This is Bill and Juana here early Saturday morning from Hospital No. 1 at Straydog. We are out on the deck, because it’s such a beautiful day. It’s about 70 degrees.

JUANA: One of the first pictures is of our wonderful volunteer, Polly. She came in to help us for the second day in a row. She was helping us with the trifold Christmas mailing. We hope that everyone will get this in time for the holidays. At lunchtime, our crew was trying to do everything at once. Our first priority is feeding our dogs and taking care of them and then, on our breaks, we would come in and work on this mailing. The only smoker here is Wayne and he wasn’t here on Friday. Everyone else always stays indoors during their breaks, because they aren’t smokers. While our crew was on their breaks, they helped too. Ms. Polly brought some special treats. The ones that she likes to bring. She gave them to some of her favorite dogs, like Demon and Josie.

Bug and Oreo2 greet Volunteer Polly.

There’s Demon with his chewy in his new bed.

Demon thanks Polly for his chewy treat.

 I was bringing Josie back from the park and she got her treat.

Josie gets a treat from Polly too.

Stephanie came in on her day off to help us for a couple of hours. There are our young adults, Maci and Shelby, at the table in H1. We wanted to get this mailing out as soon as possible.

Volunteer Polly (who visits and gives out treats to as many of our dogs as she can almost every Thursday) also came to Straydog today to help our crew work on getting the December trifold mailer ready to take to the post office on Monday, 12/14/15 (which did happen).

We named the parvo puppy. This adorable little girl doesn’t have parvo anymore. She had it and she beat it and it will never come back. Her name is Sheila. She got her puppy shots and she is only six months old. Maci suggested that we call her Sheila and we are running out of names. So we have a Shelia now. I took her out to the park with Henry, Bug and Rose. She was running all over the park as fast as she could. Henry, Bug and Rose couldn’t understand why. She was running as fast as her little legs could carry her. Later on, we took her out with Jetta’s gang and she got along with them so well.

Sheila takes off running with Rose right on her tail.

They run all over the place.

Bug gets in on the fun and chases Sheila too.

I don’t know what was wrong with Newly. I don’t know if it is pancreatitis or what it is. He’s not eating very well. He’s still going to the park, but he is arching his back. That means that he must be in pain. I was touching him, when he was in the park, and I realized his stomach is hurting. Bill, you will have to take him to the vet this morning.

Newly is not feeling too well, Bill will be taking him to see the doctor later on.

Ms. Polly brought big dog cookies that look like bones. She can’t walk around anymore and she wanted to walk around and give cookies to blind Cesar, Marie and blind and deaf Colt. I told her that I would give them out for her. There’s Marie and Cesar.

Marie has her eyes zoomed in on the cookies Juana has in her hand. And that's Cesar smelling the scents of the cookies.

I also had cookies to give to all of the other dogs, as I was walking around. She told me that I had to give treats to blind and deaf Colt in pieces. If he bites a cookie and pieces fall off, his kennelmates Miss B and Fatso eat them. I put Colt in the feeding gate and gave him his cookie. He was enjoying it. Then I gave cookies to Miss B and Fatso. Colt was licking his lips. He gave me a kiss to thank me. I told him that Miss Polly sent him that treat.

Fatso and Ms. B see Juana coming with the cookies. Wow, Fatso sure can jump high. That's blind and deaf Colt there in the back sun bathing.

Colt smells Juana with the cookies and is trying to figure out which direction they are in.

Juana puts Fatso and Ms. B in the feeding gate so she can feed Colt his cookies first without them getting in the way and stealing the pieces Colt drops.

Colt enjoying his treat.

Now Fatso and Ms. B get theirs.

Cookie excitement is over and they are all back together again.

There’s Wayne coming with bowls.

Maci was the walker of the day. There she is taking Mario and Judy to the park.

The weather is so crazy. It’s hot. I know that the weather in Texas is unpredictable, but it’s hot everywhere. Willow is still using his swimming pool. Most of the dogs are still using their pools. It’s 8:00 in the morning and it’s 70 degrees. It was 70 degrees at 5:00 this morning.

Willow still uses his swimming pool.

I got pictures of Pepper and Little Girl. They are back in Lena’s kennel in H2. They aren’t squabbling anymore. I don’t want to put them outside. The day I put them outside, Little Girl jumped on Pepper. She wouldn’t leave him alone. But they are okay in a little kennel together in H2.

Pepper and Little Girl say Hi!

There are our little girls. Fallon is the brindle puppy with a white line on her nose. David will be taking her on a home visit. It’s scheduled for this Wednesday in Garland. I don’t think the family has any other dogs.

Fallon and Mercedes say Hi too!

Here's a couple of beautiful pictures of Fred. We have won him over! He’s docile now. We still can’t put him on a leash, but we can kiss him, hug him and pet him. He licks us and trusts us.

There’s Sheila in a little Christmas stocking. If you want to have an adorable puppy in your stocking, we have the perfect puppy for you.

New Rescue Puppy Sheila, who likes Caregiver Shelby very much, wants to go to Juana, who's taking the photo.

BILL: We’ll be back soon with another report from Straydog.

You can listen to today's Radio Show below.

0 Comments

Thursday, December 10, 2015

12/10/2015

0 Comments

BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog Radio Show covering the events of Thursday, December 10, 2015. This is Bill with Juana here early Friday morning. We just walked the hospital gang and all of the dogs in H1 and we’re ready to do yesterday’s report.

JUANA: It was a good day and we had very nice weather. The weather is crazy. It’s December and it feels like spring. I want to say something before I forget. There are bees everywhere.

BILL: They are coming out because of the warm weather. There are flies and mosquitoes everywhere too. They think it is spring.

JUANA: We had a full crew. The first picture that we have on Thursday was of Jacob with Pokey and Bernie.

Jacob with Pokey and Bernie at the park gate.

Bernie is one of our newest rescues and he is an older Beagle. One of our contributors found Bernie roaming in the street. No one claimed him. He didn’t have a microchip or a tag. Our contributor took him to Morton Clinic. After we placed Gracie in an adoptive home, we thought he might get along with her kennelmate Pokey. At first I thought Bernie was a girl. But Bernie is so sweet that Pokey doesn’t even care that he’s kenneling with a male. We have the two boys together and they are doing well. When he first came to Straydog, Bernie would howl. He didn’t know that this was his home. As soon as he settled into a routine and he realized that he was going to be fed and walked and he was going to be loved, he was fine. We never hear a peep from him, unless it’s feeding time or park time. He loves his bed. I gave him a couch-type bed and he loves it. Bernie and Pokey are doing so well. But when Jacob had Bernie in the park, he called me. He said that he had a lot of cysts all over his body. The one on his back seems to be growing. If you squeeze them, little white stuff comes out. It is actually skin and the growth appears to be growing inside out. I talked to Dr. Dumeyer and she said that we should bring him to the clinic. I hadn’t taken a picture of it yet. I examined him all over and, when he first came to Straydog, they weren’t that bad. That’s probably why Morton Clinic didn’t remove them, when he was there. I think they are growing and it looked like one had burst, but it hasn’t. It looks like some kind of skin. It’s hard to explain.

Park Walker Jacob noticed a bump on Bernie's side and called Juana on his walkie-talkie to come to the park to take a look.

Juana finds an odd bump that she will tell the doctor about.

After we did all of our kennel work, we started caregiving. Everyone was enjoying the nice weather. Erika and Junior are doing very well. Our kennels were raked and they looked pretty.

Erica and Junior enjoy the nice day in their big kennel with their shelter building in the back right corner.

The four puppy girls were spayed on Tuesday and they are doing so well. They are about to knock this dead tree out. It’s just a stub and they chew it and pull on it. It’s fun to watch them.

These girls love to chew and play with this dead tree. They are growing up really fast.

There’s Jacob bringing Harley and Nancy to the park.

Photo to Come

Most of the kids are about to be on school break for the holidays and Shelby came to help us.

Photo to Come

Mr. Tyler was repairing the latches on the hinges of one of the gates.

Photo to Come

We were working on the last mailing of the year. It’s a trifold. The crew was coming in and out and helping. The mailing was already folded. We had to stuff them and put them in an envelope with a card and put three tab seals on them. David didn’t bring the labels until later in the day, so we will apply the labels on Friday. We put Polly to work. I texted Ms. Polly and told her, if she was coming today, we could use her help with a big project. She was very happy to help. We had fun, because we got to sit and work and that’s not what we normally do. We worked on it, as we could, all day. I didn’t get very many pictures, because I was working on the mailing. We hope to take them to the Post Office today.

Photo to Come

I want to report that Amy and Tobi are doing much better. They are taking their medicine and eating and Tobi’s temperature is back to normal.

Photo to Come

BILL: We will be back tomorrow with another report from Straydog.

You can listen to today's Radio Show below.

0 Comments

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

12/9/2015

0 Comments

BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog Radio Show covering the events of Wednesday, December 9, 2015. This is Bill, here in my office early Thursday morning, with Juana on the phone from Hospital One at Straydog.

JUANA: It was a chilly morning but as the day wore on it got very nice. Our dogs love this weather. We had a full crew and we did our regular chores of feeding the dogs, raking, cleaning, changing water buckets, caregiving and walking the dogs.

Connor was the walker of the day and here are some pictures of him taking dogs to the park. He was playing in the park with Blondie.

Blondie and Toby are on their way to the park.

Once there Blondie tells Connor to find that ball because she's ready to play. Toby walks off the other way, we can tell he's not feeling too well.

Tobi hasn’t wanted to eat for a couple of days. He doesn’t have an appetite. We’ve been trying to switch up his food and give him more canned food and we have been soaking his food. I thought that one of his teeth might be hurting him. He didn’t have an appetite, but he was eating. Last night he would only eat about half of his food and this morning he wouldn’t eat at all. He would take a cookie, but not like he normally does. Something was wrong with him. We know that it’s been over a month, since the doctor put him on thyroid medicine and he hasn’t lost any weight. I know that it can take longer than that for the medicine to kick in. He doesn’t have any diarrhea or anything like that. So we took him to the vet, to see if there was anything wrong with him. He is aging, so he might start to have some problems. So we took him and Amy to the vet.

Amy has had diarrhea. She has a history of irritable bowel disease and she’s been on E/N food and warm water and nothing else. She’s been eating very well, but lately she’s had diarrhea. We put her on Metronidazole. That usually clears things up in a couple of days but it hasn’t cleared up. Then she wouldn’t eat on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. We feed our inside dogs around 1:00 in the morning and she wouldn’t touch her meal. She doesn’t have any diarrhea right now. I don’t think it’s the IDB. When that flares up, she has bloody diarrhea. She is also a senior dog. She’s much older than Tobi. She was doing fine until Wednesday.

Amy in the van crate on her way to see the doctor.

Toby's on his way to see the doctor too.

George took Amy and Tobi to the vet. Lacie was our vet tech and she knows our dogs. There’s a big advantage in having someone there who knows our dogs and it makes it easier to handle them. Dr. James examined Amy and Tobi. He did blood work and took x-rays. He said that everything looked fine for Amy. He wanted us to stop the Metronidazole and start a different antibiotic. He said it could be IDB, even though it isn’t showing up. She has a little growth on her eye and it is betting bigger and bigger. When Lacie comes to Straydog, she occasionally aspirates it. It doesn’t really bother Amy very much. But it gets in the way when she closes her eye. During the examination the doctor found a suspicious cyst or tumor on the muscle in her leg. He wants to get her well and resolve this problem and then we can take her back to the clinic and have that tumor removed. We will deal with that when she gets well.

Lacie checks out the growth on Amy's eye to see how it's doing.

Then she draws a blood sample.

Next Dr. James listens to her heart and lungs.

Dr. James finds a suspicious cyst or tumor on the muscle in her leg.

Lacie measures how big Amy is and gets her ready for x-rays.

X-rays showed that Amy does have a tumor which will need removed.

When Lacie took Tobi’s temperature, it read 105. She thought there was something wrong with the thermometer and she got another one. When she took his temperature again, it was 105 and that was very strange. The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with him except for the fever. His blood work and x-rays were fine and the doctor even took a sonogram. The doctor said that he couldn’t find anything wrong with him, except for the fever. He sent him home with some Metronidazole and Carafate and some pills to stimulate his appetite. The doctor wants us to watch him and if he doesn’t seem to feel any better we should bring him back to the clinic. He ate last night and he ate this morning. It’s very strange that we can’t find anything wrong with him. His fever went down and he’s eating and taking his medicine. He seems to be doing fine. It was so strange. Even the doctor was scratching his head. His ears were fine and his eyes and teeth were fine. I thought it might have been an infection in his mouth, but it wasn’t.

Toby's turn to get a blood sample taken.

Dr. James examines Toby's ears which look fine.

Everything sounds good too. We will just have to keep an eye on him.

When George came back, Amy was ready to go into H2 and she took her cookies. Sometimes, if we take our dogs to the vet, they get scared and they are all better once they get back home.

After Amy arrives back to Straydog she gets herself a drink of fresh cool water.

And then tells us she wants to go in.

Amy finds the cookies left for her and quickly eats them up.

And then settles in on her soft bed for a nap.

I did it again. About two weeks, one of Morton Clinic’s clients brought a six-month-old Chihuahua to the clinic. She was really, really sick and she had parvo. A lot of people don’t have the money and they don’t want to deal with a dog that is going to die. The owners wanted to put her to sleep. Gordo and Lacie called me, because she was so sweet and asked if I wanted to help her. I said, “Why not? She’s just a baby. Let’s see if she makes it.” She had been at the clinic for two weeks and she is now all clear. She’s had her puppy shots and she’s not contagious. Because she’s had parvo, she won’t get parvo again. She’s all better, so I brought her back to Straydog. They didn’t name her at the clinic; they just called her the parvo puppy. She’s so terribly skinny, because she had been so sick. I hope to put some weight on her and find her a good home. She’s made it through parvo. I feel so badly for this baby and she’s lucky to be alive. If we didn’t step in and help her, she would have been put to sleep. We need to name her, but for now she’s the parvo puppy.

Puppy Parvo made it through the parvo and is lucky to be alive.

Tobi was so happy to be home. Blondie was kissing him. I went out there with some canned food and he took several bites of food from a fork. Then he ate at feeding time. I am telling you, sometimes we run into the weirdest things and there’s no explanation.

Blondie is so glad her kennel mate Toby is back from the clinic.

I brought Annie and Wup to the park. Wup is so handsome, but he’s rambunctious. Miss Annie’s face is going white. She’s getting old and she’s slowing down. We’ve tried to move her to a different spot and keep her closer to us. But she doesn’t want to be anywhere, but her kennel. Tyler built her a bigger shelter, so she could have a big doghouse. He installed a heating lamp for Annie for this winter. I was worried that Wup might mess with it, because he is so rambunctious. Tyler hid the cord and secured it, so Wup can’t mess with it. I hope that he leaves it alone, so he and Annie will be warm this winter. Wup hasn’t messed with it and I am crossing my fingers that they will have a heating lamp this winter.

Wup says Hi!

This is Annie walking around the park. She sure is getting up there in years and is slowing down. Her face is going white more and more each day.

The parvo baby needs a name. I’m sure we will name her today. Shelby and Wayne are here. We are working on a trifold Christmas mailing. Polly is coming to volunteer and we will have several people helping and working on this mailing. We will name this little girl.

Puppy Parvo is a skinny little girl.

But we will get some weight on her with some good healthy food.

BILL: We’ll divulge her name tomorrow. Thank you very much. We will back again tomorrow with another report from Straydog.

You can listen to today's Radio Show below.

0 Comments

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

12/8/2015

0 Comments

BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog Radio Show covering the events of Tuesday, December 8, 2015. This is Bill and Juana here on Tuesday evening with today’s report.

JUANA: Today was a very, very exciting and busy day. It was a very good day. We had an appointment to take the four Boxer/Hound mix puppies to the vet. We were taking these four girls to get spayed. As soon as they are spayed, they can go to their forever homes. Maybe it’s the season, but we have a lot of applications for these puppies and they will be going to different homes. We hope that we can place them all, before they get too much older. It is much easier to place puppies, than it is to place older dogs. The girls are adorable and they are so beautiful. They are about six months old now. They’ve had their rabies shot and all of their puppy shots. The only shot they need is their last booster for distemper/parvo and they will get that next Tuesday. Our overnight crewmember, Brandy, didn’t feed them in the morning and we dumped their water bowls last night atmidnight. George took them to Morton Clinic first thing in the morning and they were back at Straydog by noon. Their names are Fallen, Mercedes, Morgan and Talena. There’s Lacie getting the puppies together to take them to the kennels in the back.

It's quite the chore trying to round all the pups up.

Another exciting thing was that Lena had a home visit scheduled for today. The family, who wanted Lena, met her at Petsmart in Mesquite. They live in Kaufman, which is about 45 minutes from Mesquite. Judy, her new mom, is a foster parent. She has foster children living with her all of the time. She wrote a lot about her life on her application. She asked why Lena hadn’t been adopted in the two years that she’s been with us. I think it’s because of her age. She’s nine years old. Some people don’t want to adopt an older dog, because they don’t want to lose it. I agree with Judy and our contributor Teddy, who adopted Gracie. They think that you should adopt a senior dog and give that dog a good life for the time that he or she has left. Lena might have five years or more left in her. A lot of people agree with that, but some people can’t take the sadness of losing a dog so soon. I went out to Lena’s shelter and took some photos of her, before she left.

This is Lena's home, little does she know that her life is about to change.

Wayne was caregiving and, in order for us to brush a dog, you sometimes have to put their kennelmate in the feeding gate. When he was brushing Aggie, he put Moe in the feeding gate. Then he switched them. Aggie can be jealous and she sometimes jumps on Moe Moe, when she’s jealous of the attention we are giving Moe. Otherwise they get along really, really well.

Wayne brushes Aggie while her kennel mate Moe watches.

It was 72 degrees and it was a beautiful day. There’s a bright, good picture of our central doggies. Mario and Judy are in the background. You can see Travis and Maria. There are two of the Three Amigos, Jazzie2 and Fletcher. Fritz2 was probably hiding behind the shelter.

All eyes on the camera person.

There’s Skylar. He didn’t need a sweater today. I put pictures on Facebook of Skylar modeling sweaters. But there was no need of sweaters today.

Skylar wants the camera person to come over spend some time with him.

There’s Lena at the gate. I asked my sister to put her in the park so she could go tee tee, before she left for her appointment. And that's Rudy on the right. He’s been a little stinker. When we walk the H2 dogs, he barks and barks, because he wants to go outside. There’s a temporary kennel outside of H2 and we put him out there. He loves to stay outside. Some days are beautiful, like today, and some days are too cold for him. He’s a senior dog and he thinks he’s a puppy. On nice days, we put him out there. There he is enjoying the day.

That's Lena on the left and Rudy on the right.

I asked my sister if I could take a picture of her saying goodbye to Lena, because she is Lena’s caretaker most of the time. There she is hugging Lena.

We are all going to miss Lena and we are so happy for her.

Then we put Lena in the car, because George was using the van to pick up the puppies. The family lives in Kaufman, which is about 30 minutes for Straydog. I didn’t need anyone to help me with this home visit. This family didn’t have another dog and they had a fenced yard, so I could do this visit on my own. I’ve been talking and texting with Judy and I knew that it would be an easy home visit. She has a big, beautiful backyard. The only thing that worried me is that she only has a four-foot fence. But Lena isn’t a jumper and she likes to be indoors with you. Judy takes care of children and she’s always indoors. Judy is always busy and she has baby gates. Lena met a two-year old baby and she didn’t even bother with him. Lena was just walking around the yard. Another child, who was at school, has a playhouse and Lena just sniffed the playhouse. Then Lena met one of Judy’s daughters. Lena was rolling around outside. There was a nurse there, who helps her with the smaller children. Judy walked us into her bedroom, which she set up for Lena. It’s a place where she can secure Lena, if she wants to. It was a really good setup. I was really happy. Judy was really happy and Lena was happy. There were very secure baby gates in the home. Judy had it all planned out to keep the children and Lena safe. There was teenager there and a small child. I asked Judy if I could take a picture of Judy and the children. This Saturday or Sunday, Santa is coming to the house for pictures. She said she would text us a picture of Santa with Lena. She invited us to drop in at any time, to see Lena. I don’t want to bother Judy or Lena. I want Lena to know that this now her home. When I was ready to leave, I asked Judy to take Lena to the back. I know that Lena will be a happy girl. She will have a great home and she will be loved by Lena and the children.

Juana drives Lena to her new home.

Lena arrives at her new home and is greeted at the door with love and affection.

Out in the back yard there was so much room for Lena to check out.

She trots back over to the nurse and kids and tells them she likes this big backyard.

Then she heads out to do some more exploring.

New mom Judy watches a happy Lena rolling around on the ground.

Everywhere Lena goes she gets a hug.

She figures she might as well roll around here too.

Next it's time to explore the house.

This bathroom is not used for anyone and is Lena's room if she wants it.

Now this is a gate.

Lena with part of her new family.

Lena tells Santa she does not need anything and that she has already gotten her Christmas gift, a wonderful forever home.

When I got back to Straydog, it was almost feeding time. Connor was in the park with the Three Amigos, Jazzie2, Fletcher and Fritz2. They were ready to go back to their kennel.

The Three Amigos head back to their kennel.

We’ve made it habit to feed Fatso, Miss B and blind and deaf Colt before feeding time. Fatso and Colt get into fights sometimes, when we try to feed all of the other dogs. If we feed them first, they’re happy and satisfied and calm. They can watch the other dogs getting fed, if their tummies are full. Either Wayne or Ronnie or whoever is feeding Colt stays with them, when we feed them, and they don’t have any problems at all. It’s something that we came up with and it works.

Ronnie watches Fatso and Miss B to make sure they eat without any problems. Colt is over in the feeding gate so he's fine.

There are the four babies. They were still groggy and they were sunbathing. Gordo, who was at Morton Clinic, told George that they were just waking up but, if we wanted to take them home, we could. So George brought them home. We fed them around3:30 and they were starving. They are doing so well. They can’t go in their swimming pool until they get their stitches out. And, If they start running around, we will have to bring them indoors and put them in separate crates. We have been keeping an eye on them and they have been very calm. They are very good babies.