Thursday, June 11, 2015

BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog radio show covering the events of Thursday, June 11, 2015. Bill and Juana here on Thursday evening and we are going to do today’s report. Juana, what happened today at Straydog?

JUANA: It was really hot and sunny. It was really bad. Lately, we’ve been saying that it’s hot, hot, hot. On Wednesday, we had a five-minute rain. It cooled off for a little bit and then it was more humid afterwards. And, because of that, it’s very sad to say that I think we have the “R” word again.

BILL: Oh no! Ringworm? Who?

JUANA: I think Charlie started it this year. We will talk about that in our Wednesday report.

The first thing we did on Thursday morning, after we finished our regular chores, was bleach every single kennel again. We are doing this every other day. I hope that we’re wrong, but Charlie has two very round spots on his tummy. Melanie was the walker of the day today and she was trying to check the dogs before she took them to the park. So Stephanie and Ronnie started checking the dogs before Melanie took them to the park. We found Charlie’s spots late in the day yesterday. We started bleaching the kennels and checking all of the dogs for ringworm. It can really flare up from one day to the next. One day they will all be clear and then the next day one ringworm spot will appear. The second day another two or three spots will appear and then on and on. That’s what has happened in the past. Charlie had spots yesterday and today we have a maybe on Skylar and a maybe on Polly. Polly’s spot looks like ringworm. Skylar looks like she has a hot spot. I am going to take them to the vet first thing in the morning. In the meantime, we are taking precautions and treating these dogs as if they have ringworm. This is horrible.

Stephanie bleaching one of our many kennels.

Wayne is getting ready to start bleaching his section.

Ronnie makes sure he gets every where sprayed.

Melanie checks Spice to make sure she does not have any ringworm spots.

Besides dealing with the possibility of ringworm, the flies have been so bad. Everyone asks the same thing that we have asked for years. Why do flies like some dogs and not others? We’ve never googled it. They never bother some dogs, but then they bother others. For instance, Toby and Blondie have been here for over 10 years and they have been kennelmates for years. Toby has the worst time with fly bites and Blondie never does. The flies don’t bother Blondie at all. Travis has the same problem. They beat up on Travis’ ears and never touch his kennelmate Maria’s. They bite Wolfie’s ears and never bother his kennelmate Jenie at all. In other cases, like Cesar and Marie, they both have a problem with flies biting their ears. David and Wayne live between Cesar and Wolfie and they never have any problems with the flies.

BILL: That would be interesting. They should be able to make a repellant to find out what is in the blood of the dogs, who don’t have this problem.

JUANA: I have been mixing Seven Dust with Vaseline and putting it on the dogs’ ears. This is the best thing that we have for this problem. We want to thank Dr. Cornelius for this recipe. I mix Seven Dust and Vaseline with a little spoon.

BILL: Is it half and half?

JUANA: The Vaseline is white and the Seven Dust is grey and I mix it until the mixture is dark grey. It is less than half and half. There’s more Vaseline. It is the only thing that I have known that works on our dogs. It seems to help a little more than other remedies. I just don’t understand why some dogs have a problem and others don’t.

BILL: We will have to google it and ask around. Maybe someone will write in.

David Ford prepares the fresh veggies for Noble's food.

We also had a volunteer visitor with us. It was baby Emma. She’s not a baby anymore, even though we will probably call her that forever. She was helping us water and walk our dogs. It was so hot and I wanted to get our chores done. I didn’t even want to take pictures. The heat was unbearable. After Shelby, Lucy and I finished watering all of the outside kennels, I came back to H1. Emma had been with us and was watering outside, when she got too hot and she decided to go inside. She went into H1 to change her clothes. Then she started helping David Ford, our overnight crewmember. David was cutting up vegetables for Noble. Emma was helping David and giving Noble some broccoli. She didn’t have any shoes on, because her shoes had gotten all wet and she looked so cute. Diabetic Noble knows that he only gets vegetables as treats. He was sitting there waiting for Emma to drop a piece, so I asked her to give him some vegetables.

Emma is giving David a helping hand.

She slips a piece of broccoli to Noble.

And here's Lucy doing her section.

There’s Shelby and Lucy watering the kennels. Our crew had already left, because it was almost 6:00 in the evening. I have been thinking about changing our feeding schedule. Some dogs aren’t eating in the afternoons. We have about ten dogs, who haven’t been eating their afternoon meals, because it’s just too hot. No one wants to eat at 2:00 in the afternoon. The only thing that anyone would want at that time is water. We are going to do what we can to start changing the feeding schedule.

Lots of watering goes on in the hot afternoon. Her's Shelby doing a section.

We also have a bleach situation everywhere. There is bleach and buckets everywhere. There’s Skylar with a bleach bucket.

Skylar says it's just a hot spot that I have.

Poor Charlie doesn’t understand what is going on. [He is our dog, who is suffering with Muscular Dystrophy.] I am doctoring him for ringworm and I will be taking him to the vet in the morning to check his sores out. We are still taking our dogs to the park, but we are checking them before they go to the park. We only have a few dogs, who might have ringworm at the moment. If it gets really bad and if we have 20 dogs with ringworm, we will have to close the park.

Charlie is not too sure about what's going on.

Storm is doing very well after recovering from TPLO surgery. She is back outside with her brother Thunder and Vicki. They are doing very well. Vicki is very nice, but she loves Thunder more than she loves Storm. Storm likes Vicky, but Vicky tries to stay near Thunder and she stays away from Stormy. Vicky is not jealous. I think she just wants Thunder’s protection, but Stormy has been very nice to Vicky.

Vicki stays closer to Thunder.

Storm says that's ok, I like Vicki and we are good.

Two of our newer rescues are Copper and Lizzy. Lizzy is up for adoption again. This is Copper and we called him Canelo at first. Our crew didn’t understand that name, so we changed his name to Copper. We also have a Cooper. There is a lot of confusion between Cooper and Copper. I have to look at Copper and remind myself of the hound in the Disney movie, “The Fox and The Hound.”  Cooper is a Boxer mix and Copper is a hound. Copper is super-friendly and very young. He gets along with everybody and he just wants to play. Lizzy is available for adoption again. 

Copper and Lizzy say hi.

Mark and his wife decided to adopt Gig’Em and not Lizzy. Lucy and I will be taking Gig’Em on his home visit on Sunday. Gig’Em is our baby. [We bottle-fed Gig’Em, C-Stat and Cadet, when we first rescued them.] Ms. Lizzy is such a beautiful girl and I know she will get adopted. They decided to adopt Gig’Em because he loves the water. That stole Mark’s heart. He wanted a dog that would swim.

BILL: We will be back tomorrow with another show.