New Fosters

Oh my word, where have I been? So much has happened, so little time to write it all down!. Let's just dive right in. We fostered this litter of kitties over Memorial Day weekend while their regular foster person was out of town.

They were 5 weeks old then, weaned from bottle feeding (thank goodness), and were quite fun to foster. All of them were extremely social and loved being held. Cleaning the litter box continually was probably the only tough thing about it. I'm sure they will be adopted the second they become available. How can anyone resist those faces?

Currently, we are fostering a lovely little dog named Mandy. She is a lab-mystery mix, and she was found in a barn with her 8 puppies. Our shelter's wonderful administrative director fostered them all at her house until all 8 puppies were adopted. Now, it's Mandy's turn!

Cabana is fine with Mandy, not necessarily thrilled, but probably much happier with another dog in the house, rather than the 4 kittens (Cabana was actually a little scared of the kitties!).

Mandy loves chasing balls, but other than that, Mandy is a newbie. Cabana has helped teach her about crate training, house training, walking nicely on leash, and sitting when asked.

Even though Mandy has been spayed, she must still have lots of yummy estrogen smells coming out of her because all the male dogs at the park get googly around her. She doesn't care about them, though. She just wants me to throw her ball.

Mandy is probably only about 1 year old, so she's just a puppy herself. Playing fetch is helping Mandy get back to her girlish figure. Even though she's had a hard life so far, it amazes me what a nice dog Mandy is. Like Cabana, she's just inherently polite. She rarely barks, doesn't get up on the furniture without being invited, doesn't counter surf, isn't destructive, and just wants to be in the same room with me. No one taught her those things. That's just who she is. And she deserves an awesome family and home.

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Our Shelter Pajama Party

A couple weeks ago, one of the directors at the animal shelter where I volunteer came up with the CRAZY idea of having a free adoption weekend with a pajama party theme. The shelter is not usually open on Sundays and never open before noon, so this would be a first on many counts.

I normally do all the graphic design for the shelter, so I was asked to make a poster to publicize the event. Because I was so busy at the time, I asked my daughter (a graphic design major) to do the honors. She ingeniously came up with this colorful, eye-catching poster seen here.

The day before the pajama party, I was at Joann Fabrics and happened to notice a pattern for dog pajamas sitting on a counter. I hadn't really even known there was such a thing! I bought it, along with a few remnants of polar fleece fabric that were super-duper cheap, around $2/yard.

That night, I went to work and made about 10 pairs of dog pajamas in different sizes. They were extremely easy to make--I got it down to 15 minutes per pajama. After all, how can you have a pajama party at an animal shelter and NOT have the dogs in pajamas?? Cats, well, it's understandable for them to not be in pajamas, because who wants to risk getting clawed up? What a blood bath. It's bad enough trying to dress up dogs!

Here's little catahoula mix puppy, Leah, rocking her teal pjs. Unfortunately, the pattern only came in 3 sizes, and not having the dogs nearby when I was sewing, I couldn't really customize them to the correct size. You can see Leah's pjs were a little tight so she busted a seam in the front. However, she was ADOPTED, and that's all that matters!

This Little Brown Pup also wore teal and was also ADOPTED!

Sweet Virginia in purple plaid. ADOPTED!

Here's the same purple plaid, but this time on Sasha (I wished I had bought a wider variety of fabrics!). Sasha also got adopted, but unfortunately, she was returned a couple days later. Apparently, one family member was not on board with having a new dog in the family (that family member had not accompanied the rest of them to the pj party, and no one had mentioned that there even was another family member). Oh well, it happens. Sasha is bound to get a new home soon--she's super sweet.

Little Boog in the grooviest pjs of all, but he has yet to get adopted. Go figure! Maybe it was his feminine pajamas that confused would-be adopters? Sorry, Boog, I'll take full responsibility for your gender confusion.

And here's our former temporary foster, 9.5-year old Sioux. I wasn't going to try to stick her poor arthritic limbs into pajamas, so I just made her a dignified suede-like coat with sherpa lining. And guess what, Sioux was also ADOPTED! WOO HOO!

The pajama party was a tremendous success with 25 adoptions in all (split between cats and dogs) In fact, after all the adoptions on Saturday, there were so few dogs left that they had to get some more from a nearby shelter! All the staff and volunteers felt a bit silly in our pajamas all day, but hey, if that's what it takes to get animals into good homes, why not!

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Big News, and I Mean Really Big

24-pounds big. That's how much Velveeta weighs. She is an overweight cat that we started fostering this week. The shelter was in a quandary over what to do about Velveeta. When she was kept in the cat room with the other cats, she would sit on top of the food and not let the other cats eat it, obviously so she could eat it all herself. When they put her in a cage so they could control her portions, there was no room for her to get any exercise. For the past few weeks, the shelter kept asking for a foster family, but no one had stepped up.

My daughters have been missing our cat Angie, who passed away last February. When I mentioned the idea of fostering Velveeta, they didn't hesitate for a second. Tiny kittens may be adorable, but these girls are all about helping the underdog...or undercat, in this case.

Velveeta is no shrinking violet. It only took her about a day to come out from hiding under one of our beds. Since then, she has surprised us with her ability to get around. Despite her enormous size, she can squeeze into some tight spots. She can climb the stairs, and to my amazement, she even jumped on top of our piano!!

I don't think Velveeta was an outdoor cat before because when we first brought her outside, she ran right back in! But our backyard is enclosed with 6' high fences, and because we need to encourage her to exercise as much as possible, we will take her on "outings" when we are able to supervise her (she's already surprised me with her nimbleness, so who knows, she might be able to climb our fence).

Velveeta is a very pretty cat and super sweet. Even when I've had to perform unpleasant but necessary tasks on her, she never scratches me. She did hiss at Cabana once to tell her to keep her distance, and Cabana, ever respectful, has complied.

I don't know how long it will take for Velveeta to lose enough weight to be adopted. A healthy cat weighs between 8-10 pounds, so she is 2-3 times as big as she should be, and her stomach is just shy of dragging the ground. If you'd like to follow her progress, I've started a Facebook page for her. Hope you'll "like" it and root Velveeta on to a healthier life and a wonderful new home!

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Back at the Shelter

After a year of herculean effort, the friends that I used to volunteer with at the animal shelter were successful in their bid to turn the shelter into a non-profit organization. As of yesterday, they are now officially in charge! They have huge dreams for making the shelter a beautiful, streamlined organization, and I know they can do it. There's a lot of work to do, and I hope to be able to help in my small ways. My time is super limited these days, made evident by my lack of posting--but I love going there to work with the dogs. I have no say in the matter--the dogs just suck me in.

I walked into the volunteer room at the shelter this morning and was surprised by this...dog. I hesitate to call him a dog because he can fit in the palms of your hands. Is he a hairless chihuahua? I don't know--but I'm naming him Google because just look at those googly eyes. He's like a craft project gone awry!

I walked this terrier mix and fell in love with her. She looks like a granny with a mohawk, but she's the sweetest thing ever.

This beautiful German shepherd girl won't be at the shelter for long. She is gorgeous, loves getting wet in the baby pool (what?), and is calm for being in a shelter environment.

There were a number of pitbulls at the shelter, as is always the case. Cookie has been there much too long already, which is surprising because she's such a lovebug.

I may not have any self-control when it comes to volunteering at the shelter, but I've been very disciplined about not taking any of them home on a permanent basis. But in all honesty, that's because I have a husband with a strong voice of reason. And I am still much too much of a neatnick (sp?) to have more animals. Shallow though I may be, I'm just not ready to give up on having a clean(ish) house!

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Baby Steps for Francie

Fresh on the heels of getting a successful home for Seamus/Buster, in my "out to save the world, one dog at a time" zeal, I decided to hone in on my training efforts with Francie, the young white pitbull at the shelter. All we know about her is that she's very smart and loves to snuggle, but she also tends to freak out and grab her leash with her teeth (which my poor thigh still bears testimony to from nips several months ago). She is absolutely ball-obsessed and INTENSE in everything she does. For example, Francie doesn't just drink water--she DRINKS water, frenetically lapping up everything in the bowl, splashing and dripping, as though she hadn't had a drop of water in the past week.

Because of Francie's intensity and unpredictability, I can't bring Francie home to foster. Until I know more about her, I don't want to risk my family, Cabana, our cat, or our home. Still, I felt I could do more for her than just taking her for a short walk and playing 20 minutes of Chuck-It with her until she was too pooped to go after the ball anymore, whereupon she would lay down in the dirt and gnash the ball into shreds.

So yesterday, I asked for permission to take Francie offsite, to give her a change of scenery, see how she behaves in the car, and eventually, in weeks to come, maybe I could even take her to my house for an hour or two. After all, how a dog acts in a house is what potential adopters want to know--is she house trained, does she get on furniture, does she chew shoes, can she be left on her own, etc. We don't have any answers to those questions right now, so how many people are going to be willing to adopt her? Although I guess it only takes one.

Francie was okay in the car, definitely not as stressed as Seamus had been. I put her in Cabana's usual spot in the back of the car. Looking in my rear view mirror, I could see the top of Francie's back convulsing and convulsing. I thought she must be vomiting, the way her back was undulating like crazy--is she car sick? No--she was just humping the dog bed. Humping and humping and humping. What's with that?!

I made Francie a purple front-clip harness, to keep her from yanking the dickens out of my arm. At the shelter, Francie tends to pant and pace. If she's within 100 yards of the Chuck-It area, she pulls like a draft horse to get over to it. She doesn't sniff, rarely wags her tail, and can't seem to relax.

The road in front of the shelter is super ugly, not many good smells, and lots of trucks. I took Francie to a nearby lake with a pretty path encircling it, where we ran and walked for 2 miles and then did a bit of training (sit, down, come) with a retractable leash. Francie heeled very nicely in the harness and seemed generally happy and calm to be away from the shelter. Good things!

That was yesterday. Today, I decided to change things up a bit with Francie. Again, I ran/walked with her for 2-3 miles, then we stopped at the park where I always take Cabana. It was raining, which was ideal because it meant the fields were totally empty. Since there's still a lot I don't know about Francie, I didn't want other dogs around to create potential problems.

I thought Francie would look at the big green field, full of soft grass, and think, "Wow, this is awesome!" But instead, she was tentative. She stuck close to me, even though I had put a 10-foot drag line on her so we could do some recall work (with me still holding the drag line, just in case something made her bolt).

After about 10 minutes of walking on the field and practicing "come", I let Francie have the frisbee that I had been holding. I didn't want to bring a ball since Francie is already so ball-obsessed, but I thought a frisbee might be a nice alternative for her. Holy guacamole, was I wrong!

Francie took the frisbee in her mouth, and it was like a switch went off. She became frenetic, growling and thrashing. She wasn't being aggressive toward me, yet I couldn't tell if this was her way of playing or exactly what she was doing. But it was undesirable behavior, to say the least. I got the frisbee away from her and hoped we could go back to just walking calmly...toward the car! But Francie started biting and pulling at the drag line, which suddenly became exceedingly long and cumbersome and impossible to pull away from her.

The one thing that has always made Francie stop this kind of behavior is a squirt bottle. A couple squirts of water in her face, and she stops whatever she was doing--so I ALWAYS have a squirt bottle with me when working with Francie. And I had a squirt bottle with me now--but maybe because it was raining, the squirt bottle tactic didn't work! After all, she'd been "squirted" by rain all morning.

Suddenly, I was vexed that no one else was at the park, since no one would hear me calling pitifully for help. Finally, I had to unclip the drag line, drop it and everything else I was holding, grab Francie by the collar and drag her to the car.

(Sorry this post is so long. Thanks for hanging in there with me!)

In retrospect, I don't know if it was the frisbee that triggered something. But what I do realize is that Francie is a dog who has done nothing new in the past 60-120 days (however long she's been at the shelter, I don't know how long she's been there). She's been looking at the same four walls for 23+ hours a day! I was being overly ambitious in exposing her to new things. A car ride and a 45-minute walk would probably be more than sufficient, and I should have been much more gradual in doing more. She's just so muscular and athletic, I thought she could handle and would be craving more physical activity--but I forgot to consider her mental capacity. Some dogs may have been fine with what I did, but since I don't have any idea what Francie's past was, I should have been taking baby steps, not leaping vaults.

I learned a lot today, and thankfully, I don't have any new teeth marks on me. And I've made it through to try to save the world again tomorrow...or not.

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His Name is Seamus

First of all, a huge thank you for all the treat pouch feedback I've received so far. It has been immensely helpful, and I'm going to try to incorporate a lot of the suggestions I received. I just got back from a fabric shopping spree of new colors--bright red, hot pink, purple, black, turquoise, and olive green. I'll put up a photo after I've made them. If you haven't commented yet, there's still time to enter for the giveaway!

Last week, I shared a bit about this German shepherd mix at the animal shelter. I said he probably wouldn't even get a name since he would be adopted so quickly. Well, after being at the shelter for about 3 weeks, now he has a name--Seamus. My husband met Seamus when he came to volunteer at the shelter with me and really liked him as I figured he would, so he agreed that we could try a mini-foster with Seamus. Yay! The shelter is closed on Sundays and Mondays, so a mini-foster is when people take the dog home on Saturday, then return the dog to the shelter on Tuesday. This gives the dog a break from the kennel environment, allows us to see what their home skills are like, and hopefully makes the dog more adoptable in the long run.

So yesterday, I took Cabana to the shelter to meet Seamus. I wanted to make sure they were going to be compatible before bringing him home this weekend, and I thought that meeting away from Cabana's territory would also be a smoother transition. Of course, they got along famously, so no surprises there. Saucy Cabana has a definite "thing" for big male German shepherds.

But while I was there, the training director told me that a man was very interested in adopting Seamus! She asked me to meet him and tell him what I knew about Seamus since I had worked with him the most (which sadly, is only about 4-5 times). So we all met in the get-acquainted room, and I told the man what I knew--that Seamus is a very sweet dog who doesn't seem to have any training or know any commands. I had been there when Seamus and his German shepherd buddy were dropped off at the shelter. They were brought in by a Hispanic man who spoke no English but was able to convey that he had "found" these dogs and was just dropping them off. My suspicion is that they were really HIS dogs, but he didn't want to pay the surrender fee. If the Hispanic man really was Seamus' owner, then it could be that Seamus just doesn't understand English!

In the get-acquainted room, it was apparent that Seamus really had bonded with me. He kept coming over to me, leaning against me for affection (he loves to be massaged), and ignoring the potential adopter completely! I didn't want to get in the way of any bonding they might be experiencing, so I thought it best for me to leave the room. But hopefully, the man was encouraged that Seamus is such an affectionate dog and capable of bonding with someone so easily in such a short amount of time.

Before I left, the potential adopter, who is a big burly outdoorsy man, said his previous dog died recently but that he owned a 1,000-acre ranch where the dog could run freely. He said the dog would sleep with him on his bed and go to work with him everyday. SCORE! What more could anyone want for Seamus!

I'll find out on tomorrow if the man ended up taking Seamus. If he did, hooray! If he didn't, then we'll get a chance to foster him after all. I think I'll be both happy AND sad with either scenario.

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Male Bonding

Today, my wonderful and supportive husband went with me to volunteer at the shelter. Saturday isn't one of my normal volunteer days, but I was worried that with Easter tomorrow, a lot of the regular volunteers might not be able to make it. The training director and other volunteers were enthralled that I had brought my husband. There are woefully few male volunteers there for some reason. Perhaps it's the same reason why there are disproportionately few male puppy raisers? I figure it has to do with the nurturing instinct.

This is Salem. I've been told that when he first came to the shelter, no one could get near him. But after tons of rehabilitative efforts, he is a gentle giant. Sweet as can be and look at that happy grin!

Here he is in the Chuck-It run. See what I mean about how narrow it is? A few more tennis balls bit the dust over the fence today.

My husband had a German shepherd when he was growing up, so when I saw this shepherd mix come into the shelter, I hoped my husband would have a chance to meet him. I suspect this shepherd had a little to do with his decision to volunteer today...in addition to wanting to spend time with me, of course.

This dog and another male German shepherd were picked up together as strays two weeks ago. I was shocked that the owners hadn't come to claim them. A few days ago, the other shepherd got a new home.

And this one is probably going to get adopted lickity split. Here he gets a cuddle on my husband's lap. The shepherd looks like he's about 2-years old, was super mellow once we got him out of the kennel, and walked calmly on leash for my husband. Yes, we'd kind of like to keep him for ourselves, but we know he doesn't need us. He'll be adopted so quickly that the shelter isn't even bothering to give him a name.

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Helter Shelter

I am thoroughly enjoying my volunteer time at the animal shelter. I've been going 2-3 times a week, although I often wish I could go more often, while at the same time always feeling like there are other things I SHOULD be doing with my time than playing with dogs. Like, working and making money, for example. But the animal shelter is SO gratifying that many of the other volunteers go there everyday--huge kudos to them.

I have to admit that I have fallen in love with Francie, a young white pit bull who could NOT be more different from Cabana. Francie is all lean muscle, with a thick powerful neck, and a mouth that spans the entire width of her head. She has also bitten me three times--I know, yikes. But they were ALL accidental! Twice, it was because she was trying to bite the leash in my hand (she has a horrible habit of playing tug with the leash) and grabbed the side of my thigh along with the leash. And the third bite was because she was gnashing a tennis ball while leaning against my leg, and she caught a piece of my jeans and my skin with her teeth (like I said, her mouth is really wide).

Francie is absolutely ball obsessed. There is a long narrow run behind some service buildings near the shelter, so narrow that I have thrown countless balls onto the roof of the service building or over the fence on the other side. You have to aim the ball dead center, or it's gone. If I try to take Francie for a walk before taking her to the Chuck-It run, she objects vigorously, which involves playing tug with the leash (hence, the two aforementioned bites). The only thing that seems to stop her from these antics is a squirt bottle, and it works like a charm. I don't even have to squirt her now; just pointing it at her is enough to stop her. Too bad it took me a couple injuries to figure that out (they weren't terrible bites; my skin was broken and rather bruised, but I didn't need a band-aid or anything, probably thanks to the sturdy denim of my jeans).

To be clear, we won't be adopting Francie (but I do have hopes of fostering her if my family would agree, which is doubtful at best). She and Cabana haven't been introduced, although I do think they'd get along. But I think Francie is just too much dog for us--I see it in everything she does. She carelessly runs into stumps and rocks, nicking up her legs without a care (Cabana would be carefully picking her way around obstacles). She DEVOURS tennis balls in her huge jaws--it's kind of scary to watch her ferociously rip one apart. But Francie is also SO sweet and smart. She has totally wormed her way into my heart, and I think about her all the time--I'm crazy, I admit it.

Actually, it's addictive to see the positive changes in all the dogs I've worked with (three of them, all pit bulls), even in a few short weeks. The first couple times, of course, I had no relationship with the dogs, and they wouldn't even take treats from me. The shelter is a stressful environment, so much change, uncertainty, noise, chaos. But after working with the same dogs every time, they are responding more and more, walking a bit nicer on leash every time, enjoying a grooming session or a belly rub, leaning up against me for a cuddle. A little love and stability goes such a long way. Makes me wish I was going there again tomorrow.

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Tell Your Hero Dog Story

Becky's post this morning is about heroes in her life. This made me remember a video that Jen shared on her blog a couple weeks ago. When I saw that the video was almost 5 minutes long, I thought, no way I'm going to watch that whole thing! But the photos in it are SO vibrant, and the quotes are heart filling and compelling. If you're like me, you'll watch it multiple times, and you'll want to watch it in full screen mode (click on the 4 outward pointing arrows at the bottom right of the video panel). The best thing about the video is that it supports animal shelters across the USA. Go to www.ymhdog.com to share your dog story, because all our dogs are heroes!

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Pits on Parade

I've really been enjoying my volunteer time at the animal shelter and have gone there three times in less than a week. In fact, I hope Cabana's blog doesn't get too overrun by photos from my visits there. So I will post these and then, it will be back to the regularly scheduled labby programming!!


On Saturday, six volunteers (all happened to be women) took six pitbulls for a pack walk. I don't know if you can really call it a pack walk, because we had to walk them all kind of far apart to keep them from getting overly excited. Most of the dogs are actually very friendly with other dogs, but there's no fenced area (a huge deficit for the shelter) to let them off leash. (Only five are pictured because I'm out in front, taking the photo.)

I was walking Paco, whose big ol' head you can see in the foreground of this photo. In front of Paco is a sweet dog who recently had a litter of puppies. The people kept the puppies, presumably to sell, and dumped the mama. Nice.

Today, I spent a couple hours with this adorable white pitbull, Francie. When I first walked into her kennel, she grabbed the leash I was holding in her mouth and tried to play tug with me. So I dropped the leash to let her know I didn't want to engage her in that game. She then dropped her end of the leash and starting jumping wildly all over me instead.

I thought, hmmm, do I really want to pick this dog to take for a walk? But I ended up falling in love with her. After getting her out of the noisy kennels (where all the dogs are barking like crazy), she calmed down and was the sweetest thing ever.

We walked for about 30 minutes, and whenever Francie would pull, I'd just stop walking. She'd circle back to stand closer to me, and then she'd walk with a beautifully loose j-shaped leash! That's certainly not something I can take credit for--someone else had obviously worked with her a lot (Francie was a stray). But one thing I noticed is that she kept veering into my walking lane. I was walking her on my left side because that's how I always walk Cabana. Finally, duh, I tried walking her on my right side, and voila--no more veering! I guess Francie had been taught to walk on the right! It's amazing how you can tell what a dog knows and doesn't know. Hopefully, next time, I'll be a bit quicker on picking up those subtle (and not so subtle) cues.

Update: Kelti, the yellow lab from my previous post, was adopted on Saturday. Hooray!

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Our Own Dogtown

After watching every episode of every season of the show Dogtown on Netflix, I have been itching to help shelter dogs get adopted. Martha has been inspirational to me with her stories of volunteering at her local humane society. This past week, my husband came across a plea online for volunteer dog trainers at our local animal shelter, so I gladly signed up. Today was my first session with the shelter training director, who strongly believes that every dog in the shelter should have the opportunity to get basic obedience training (sit, down, wait, stay, leash walking). It will help them be more adoptable and help them transition more successfully to their new homes. She proudly told me that this shelter's annual euthanasia rate is 1.3%, which I thought was awesome.

The story of this chocolate lab was in our local papers, brought into the shelter because he had been found roaming the streets in a severely emaciated state. He weighed less than 40 pounds, about half what he should weigh, and his hind-end fur had been lost to urine burns.

Here's what he looks like today, on a walk with a volunteer. He has gained over 20 pounds and is doing great. The former owner was arrested and faces a felony dog cruelty charge.

Kelti is a sweet 3-year old yellow lab who has lived her whole life in a backyard without attention or direction.

I got to walk Kelti for a little while today, but she was just all over the place on the leash. She doesn't respond to her name (which, granted, may not have been her name for very long), so we're starting at ground zero. It's sad to think that no one took the time to teach her something as basic as "sit" for the past three years.

Like all shelters, our shelter is inundated with pit bulls. It seemed like almost half the dogs there were pits. This one is extremely sweet and totally adoptable to someone who can handle a high energy dog.


I'll get assigned to two dogs and spend 2-4 hours a week working with them. Hopefully, I'll get to see them progress and improve and go to great families and homes. Maybe they'll even get dog blogs of their own someday!

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Doxie-Huahua Puppies

My younger daughter has been asking for a guinea pig or ferret or tiny dog. Some small cuddly creature that could sleep in her room and would presumably teach her 16-year-old self to be more responsible.

I don't think this scenario (rodent or dog) will be happening anytime in the near future. But when a dog park friend told us about a litter of chihuahua-dachshund puppies at the shelter, we went to take a little look.

I believe it was originally a litter of 7, but there were 4 left when we went to see them. The 4 pups are somewhere in this puppy pile.

Here's my daughter holding one of them.

And my daughter's friend has another one. They took turns holding all of them, but whichever two were left in the pen would cry to be held, too. We just didn't have enough arms to go around!

I felt it was fairly safe to visit them, since they had already been spoken for (phew).

Wishing you happy homes, puppies!

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