New digs for dogs
And lots more in the weekly report, October 5, 2007
From Kerry Clair, Best Friends manager at Pets AliveDogsIt’s time to start getting ready for winter at Pets Alive. And that can be cold. The animals had had a really miserable winter when Best Friends came to Pets Alive in March this year, so we’re working to make sure this winter will be much better for them.
First, we’ll be sending over a dozen of the special needs dogs across the country to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, where they can get the extra care they need from the larger and more experienced staff. We are mostly talking about dogs that have some serious aggression issues, or are very feral and have made little progress coming of their tightly closed shells.
For the rest of the dogs, we have examined many options and finally decided to revamp the old kennel. Those of you who know the kennel here may be surprised, and I was against this plan myself originally. The thought of putting our dogs back in that horrible place made me ill. But then we began to see that the kennel itself was not really the problem. So we’ve done a major refurbishing: The ceiling has been fixed and painted a bright white, the kennels have all been cleaned and painted a sky blue, the lighting is being redone and it is shining off the new paint, creating a very well lit area. New doors are being hung separating the kennel sections and heaters are being installed in each section. Every kennel is being blown out to be three times the size they were, and the dogs will be paired just like they are outside and not living alone. We will leave our outside runs up and on nice days the dogs will be brought back outside to these runs or to the exercise yards. We will be relying on our volunteers now more than ever to help us get the dogs out for a nice long walk each day though so I hope that we can expand our volunteer group for the winter! Please contact us and come down to help exercise our dogs this winter!
I want to also add (although he won’t be happy that I did) that the cost of redoing the kennel, the ENTIRE cost, has been underwritten by our own Matt D. Matt and his wife, Ingrid, are covering the materials and the labor costs for this project. We can’t thank them enough for this. Matt is here almost every day working to make the changes possible down here, and this added contribution will enable our dogs to stay here, safe and warm this winter. How’s that for a donation of love!
CatsCat adoptions continue to do very well! We are really excited about the fact that we have found homes for cats every week for the past three weeks now.
We did have a scare with our little BARNey cat (the cat found in our Barn). He has been migrated to one of the cat rooms and was there at feeding in the morning but by early afternoon he was GONE! Staff was all called to order and a search party was set out…we could not imagine how he might have escaped. Well, he didn’t. We are just NOT used to kittens around here, and BARNey was found 10 minutes later curled up under a toy (fast asleep) that we didn’t think could fit him. Sheesh. Those youngsters sure do keep ya jumping. I would like to say kudos to our cat staff for noticing one cat missing among the 83 we have here!
HorsesOur horses are coming along so well, I can’t tell you enough how great they are all doing.
This week Rose T. also donated a HUGE batch of Legend to us (she donated the money for us to buy it). Legend is a medication that has worked wonders for the senior horses and dogs with hip problems. Not only are the horse now sporting shiny coats, bright eyes and are of good weight, they are also moving around better and much more comfortably. Our shyest horses are also doing really well. Marcos has once again stepped up to the plate and he has started hand feeding our most skittish horses here. They now come willing to you when they see you at the fence and are happily interacting with both staff and volunteers. What a long, long way they have come.
That said, they are now paying the price for that friendliness because this week the rest of the horses got their feet trimmed by the farrier and their teeth floated by the vet. This week we also found out that Heather, our little mini horse has Cushings disease (like Molly and Murphy). This means no grass and no sweet treats. Poor Heather. She misses her friend Shelley who used to take her for a walk every day and now she can’t even get treats. Awww. Is there another Shelley-ish person out there that might be willing to come down and take Heather for some walks to get some weight off her?
Possum
Does anyone remember our “Possum Burrito”? This was a tiny baby possum who was found on the side of the road, after her mother had been killed by a car. The possum had a leg that was gone and Janet (our vet liaison) found her, scooped her up and treated her at our clinic. We named her Kelly O’Possum (she was an Irish opossum, you see) and we called the wildlife rehabbers to come and take her. Well, not only did she survive, she thrived! She is now part of their education program and this is what they had to say about her recently when they sent us an update pic:
“Kelly O’Possum has completely healed and is currently employed as an animal ambassador for Everything Animals Resource Center, Inc., a humane education/animal welfare organization). Although she only has three legs, Kelly gets along fine and wins the admiration of all who meet her.”
BirdsThere has been a change of plans as far as the birds. We originally started out with 7 birds here. Oliver, our macaw found a forever home, and Linda B our avian specialist took to her sanctuary, Ross (an amazon) and Handsome (a cockatoo). That has left us with four birds here and now Linda will take Turk and Elliot (amazons) to her sanctuary as well. This leaves us with Gumby and Olivia who have become our “office birds”. The birds love being in the office and interacting with us every day and they love the excitement and all the activity. I also confess that I have grown deeply attached to these birds and love to watch them and converse with them. I knew little about birds (still do, but I am reading all I can!) when I first came here, but now I find them just endlessly fascinating.
EVENTS:Don’t forget our DogWalk and Fair in Grahamsville, NY, on October 13th. We still need volunteers to staff some of the booths. If you can help, please contact us from the petsalive website:
http://petsalive.com/dogwalk.htm We only have SIX tickets left for our Harvest of Hope dinner on October 20th. If you plan to come to the event, please be sure to buy your tickets now! You can do so on the Pets alive website:
http://petsalive.com/harvest.htm