Saturday, May 30, 2015

BILL: Straydog radio show covering the events of Saturday, May 30, 2015.  Bill and Juana here with another report from Straydog. Juana, what happened yesterday?

JUANA: Bill, as you can see, it was raining all morning. Luckily, it started raining after we fed our dogs at 6:00 in the morning. Then it rained almost all day long. We still did our work and we had a full crew. As you can see, all of the kennels were in a lot of water. Luckily, we have sand and it’s not dirt. It doesn’t get muddy. The water dissolves into the sand and it’s not that bad.

We had an Adoption Day event at the Dallas International Guitar Show at Fair Park on Saturday. Tom, Linda and David took our dogs and showed them at the Guitar Show on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday they took Spencer and Gina to the Guitar Show. There we are taking them to the van and David drove them to Dallas. They looked very pretty. We bathed them and they were nice and clean and smelled good after we had so much rain.

David takes Gina to the van for the trip to the Guitar Show. It was a very wet morning.

And here's Spencer following them.

There are more pictures of our crew. This is doggie Reyna watching James W., who we call, “W.” We also have another James on our crew and a doggie James and a Dr. James (Dr. James Morton). Talking about Dr. James, I wish he could have been here today to meet everyone. Dr. Dumeyer and Dr. Morton Sr. are here today and we want to thank them.

James cleans out Reyna's water bucket.

There we are changing water buckets and George Jr. is in Jimmy’s kennel. Jimmy stays in the back of his kennel. If you follow our doggies, you know that Jimmy was a wild puppy, who was rescued by one of our contributors. Jimmy stayed at Morton Clinic for two months until we could make space for him at our shelter. This temporary kennel is not the best kennel, but it works for him until we can put him in a bigger kennel.

George Jr. changes water for Jimmy dog.

Dr. James performed a TPLO surgery for us recently and it’s the second one that he has done for us. I want to thank Dr. James for learning how to do this and I thank God for Dr. James. It cost about half the price that we would have paid in Dallas. It helps us tremendously. We only had to raise half of the money to have this surgery for Spice. Spice still doesn’t like people, even though she has been here for a while. She doesn’t do well with an ecollar and, if you put her on a leash, she won’t move. She will walk with me and stay with me. She won’t run. She had just had surgery there. She’s in recovery and we kennel her with Rudy.

Spice is enjoying his park break without that e-collar on.

Rudy is taking it easy inside H1 while Spice is recovering from his surgery.

Look at Noble snatch that new toy.

Rudy was also one of Ms. Pat’s original dogs and he was just a puppy. He’s over 12 years old and he lives in Hospital One. He is Spice’s kennelmate. They live together, but I had to separate them until she has her stitches removed or he would mess with her incision. Rudy doesn’t like being in a crate. Rudy is saying hi to you there.

Our Noble came to Straydog from Angie Manriquez, another rescuer and friend of ours. He’s a diabetic dog. He was born diabetic and he loves toys. He was trying to steal a toy here. He got up on the table. He got down and then he looked at me as if to say, “I didn’t do anything.”

Noble says I really like that toy.

I want to talk about Ms. Pat and the dogs that she left in our care. There were 65 dogs back then and Rudy was one of them. From those 65 dogs, we only have six left at our shelter. We didn’t find homes for many of Ms. Pat’s 65 dogs and I love them. Pokey is here and he’s one of them. When I started here, he was a year old and now he’s 15 years old. He’s still going and he’s healthy and he has a lot more white patches, but he’s doing very well. I want to talk to you about some of our dogs.

Pokie is on handsome fella. We all love this old guy very much.

This is a very special couple, Jack and Jill. They were both born deaf and they are almost blind. They probably see at about 20% or 30%. They know the park. They were just six months old, when we lost Ms. Pat. They are still with us and they are very healthy. There they are saying thank you to all of you.

BILL: Let me just say that they are Australian Shepherds. They call them Double Merles. The people, who breed these puppies, usually have one or two blind and deaf puppies in each litter and then they euthanize them. Pat was at Morton Clinic, when someone brought these dogs in to be euthanized and she took them. They have had a wonderful life with us and they are beautiful dogs.

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Jill is so sweet looking in this picture.

Jimmy stays in his house if you get too close.

JUANA: I want to talk about Jimmy again. We took him in December and we couldn’t even take pictures of him. He would shake and he was terrified of people. He’s been with us several months and I havn’t lost faith. I know he will eventually let me pet him and hug him. They had to trap him to rescue him. He must have been on his own, since he was a puppy.

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We have a lot of grass. We have to get one of our crewmembers to help us mow.

Wayne is taking care of the tall grass. With all this rain lately the grass grows and grows.

This is Portia. Doesn’t she look like Noble? This is another dog that Angie brought to us. We are taking care of her. I hope that we can find a home for her. She loves to run and play and she’s doing very well. She loves that toy. It’s all muddy from all the rain. She tosses her toy up and down and plays with it. She’s a very, very good girl.

Portia sure likes it here at Straydog.

Sherri was the walker of the day. There she is coming back from the park with Willow, Noel and in the corner is puppy Genie. Genie is the star of the Guitar Show today. We walk our dogs to the park every day, as Ms. Pat always did. We try to give them extra time in the park. We have over 150 dogs. We are working on a second park and I will talk more about that later. Then we could have two walkers and give our dogs more time in the park.

It looks like these guys are walking Sherri.

One of the things that we do every day is fill holes. Our doggies dig and we cover the holes. James was filling a hole. There’s Mr. Friendly looking at the camera as if to say, “It’s not possible. I didn’t do it.”

What are you going to do, some dogs dig holes.

This is Collin and Kayla. Collin is the bigger dog without an eye. We took him to Dr. Morton to have his eye removed. When we rescued him, he was already having problems with that eye. Medicine didn’t work for him and he was in a lot of pain. He had to stay indoors in Hospital One, while he was recuperating. He was able to go back outside with his kennelmate Kayla about three days ago. Kayla was really sad without Collin. This is where they were sniffing each other in the park and greeting each other. We rescued these guys from Explore USA in Canton. They just happened to show up there.

Collin is doing great after his eye surgery.

Another one of our rescues is Colt. He’s totally deaf and totally blind. He is amazing. He lives with two of Doxie’s puppies. We rescued Doxie, when she was pregnant and we still have Miss B and Fatso from that litter. Fatso isn’t too fatso, but he was, when he was a baby. Colt was off by himself and licking his paws. How did he know that I was right there with the camera? He came to me. He has no eyes and he can’t hear. He can go to the park and do everything that any normal dog would do.

BILL: When I think of him, I think of Helen Keller. He is amazing! You would think that he wouldn’t be able to do anything. But, with just smell and touch, he can do anything. He knows what the world is like around him. It’s incredible to watch him. He knows the park and he runs. He memorizes the areas and he doesn’t run into trees. Once in a while he does, but not very often. It’s amazing to watch him.

Colt smells Juana, he has a nose that works incredible.

He knows Juana is over at the fence and heads that way.

Colt with his kennel mates Miss B and Fatso all want a treat.

Beautiful Colt

JUANA: Charlie is amazing. I didn’t know a dog could have Muscular Dystrophy. He’s only four years old, even though he looks like a 10 or 15-year-old dog. One of our contributors rescued him and he didn’t get along with her other dogs. It’s not our policy to exchange dogs, but I felt so badly for Charlie. This lady really wanted to save him and she did, but he couldn’t get along with her other dogs. This contributor took two of our doggies and we took Charlie. She still has our two dogs and she is an amazing lady and she’s a very good friend of Straydog. Charlie has been with us for three years. He knows how to sit and get cookies. He can’t eat hard food. His tongue is very, very large, because all of his muscles are outgrowing him. He walks funny, but he doesn’t miss a beat. He’s doing well.

Juana walks Charlie thru the Kennel Office back to his kennel.

Charlie will shake for a treat every time.

This is Ethel and Fred. They were wild and just babies, when two of our contributors tried to rescue them, but they wouldn’t let anyone touch them. They stayed at Morton Clinic for a while until we had a kennel available for them. Ethel is super friendly now. We can put her on a leash and she goes to the park. Mr. Fred will take a cookie from you and I leave the gate open to see if he will follow us or run. He won’t let me put a leash on him yet. He will let us give him cookies, while we are in his kennel. He’s doing better, but he won’t go to the park. We will let Fred stay in his kennel until he’s brave enough to be put on a leash long enough to take him to the park.

Ethel watches Fred get a treat from Juana and patiently waits her turn.

I was talking about a new park and a new building. This is Hospital Two or H2. We have about 20 dogs in there recovering from surgeries and some senior doggies. James is working on this big park, which will be great when it’s finished. This area is a small park, where we take the H2 dogs for walks.  

This park two is another big area behind that. It’s almost complete. We didn’t spend a lot of money on this. All of the panels were donated and, luckily, James knows how to weld. He’s welding all of the pieces together.

We call this building H2. Ms. Pam and Gary Bollinger donated this building in memory of Ms. Pat Arnold. We had a plaque made commemorating this and we put it right in front of the door.

Jessie was one of Ms. Pat’s doggies. He was a wild baby, like Fred. He’s now a senior. We can now pet him and hug him. Unfortunately, it’s taken him 15 years to get to be this social and now he has lung cancer. He lives in H1. He gets subcutaneous fluids twice a day. He lives with his partner Teddy Bear and, without Teddy Bear, Jessie is lost. He was rescued with his mother Laura. When Laura passed away, we were so worried about Jessie. He was so wild and he didn’t like other dogs. At that time, we had Cindy, who was Duke’s kennelmate and Duke died. We lost Duke and Laura about the same time. I had two babies and I didn’t know who to pair them with. Cindy was very, very sweet. She kenneled with Jessie until she passed away. He now lives with little Teddy Bear. It’s just a matter of time for Jessie and the only thing we can do is keep him comfortable. As long as he is eating and running and doing his normal thing, he will be here. He is coughing and we can’t really do anything for him.

Jessie looks up at you on the H2 back ramp.

And this is Teddy, Jessie's kennel mate. Without Teddy Jessie would be lost.

Another two of Ms. Pat’s doggies are Nikki and Rex. They are in the H2 building. They go to the park and sniff around. They are pretty old. Rex is Rudy’s brother, who is one of the first doggies I showed you. Nikki has pemphigus. She can’t go out in the sun. She’s inside, but she’s missing hair here and there. We have tried all kinds of medicine but, as long as she’s not in the sun, she’ll be okay. She’s over 15 years old. There’s Rex.

Rex and Nikki are sniffing around the park.

Nikki looking good.

Rex looks around and says he's not ready to come in yet.

This is part of my job, which is dispensing medicine. We have cards with the names of the doggies, who need medicine. I usually do this or I have someone, who is trained to give out this medicine. That’s what we do every day.

Giving out meds every day is quite a chore.

Juana has this so organized.

There’s Mr. Cesar. He’s blind, but he can hear. He loves to play ball. He wouldn’t lose that ball for anything. He knows the park area. He is an amazing dog. Ms. Cathy loves him and always asks for him. I brought this picture of him to show her. That’s our video for today.

Sherri takes Cesar to the park, he really loves park time.

He knows that ball it close.

Yep, real close.

BILL: Thank you very much. We’ll be back again tomorrow with another report from Straydog.