Feel-Good Friday

 

Today's Feel-Good Friday is short and sweet. First, I want to remind everyone to get their Halloween pictures to me. 

 

Second, I want to share this great story about the Kansas City Pet Project. Remember Rosco?  Of course you do.  Well, he and new baby brother Owen have been getting along swimmingly, in case you were wondering.

 Anyway, Rosco and Owen's dad Matt shared this story with me, and it was definitely worth passing along.

 

 Last weekend this organization, which is a combination of a few city shelters in Kansas City, broke all its adoption records and were able to adopt out every single dog during their Mega Match-a-thon. 228 dogs were placed! 

  

  That is remarkable!  Especially for a city shelter. Click here to read more about this progressive shelter organization and all their hard work.

Thanks to Matt for sharing, and to Katie for taking so many adorable pictures of Owen and Rosco!

Ok readers. Spend your weekend dressing up your pets and taking pictures. See if your pictures are as cute as the ones I shared yesterday! Email me at pabibliophile@gmail.com.

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Feel-Good Friday: Fast Friends

We know the companionship our dogs bring into our lives. We know they comfort us, protect us, and some days they are the only other beings with which we feel like socializing. Turns out cheetahs feel the same way!  This story has been floating around online this week, but special thanks to Isis's mom Suzy for sharing it with me.

Cheetahs are endangered.  Their population has dwindled from 100,000 to 12,000 over the past 100 years. They are famously difficult to breed in captivity. In fact even in the wild they are not social animals, and the female does not go into heat on her own.  It takes a male cheetah to, uh, make the magic happen, and they don't hang around each other often enough because they tend to prefer to be on their own. 

Well, that's obviously a problem. Unfortunately there's another big obstacle. They are afraid of everything!  Their survival depends on their fear because their only defense mechanism is sprinting.

 So, take an unsocial scaredy cat who is in danger of going extinct.  Naturally the solution is to give it a dog. Wait. What? 

It turns out that cheetahs take exceptionally well to having a companion dog. Believe it or not, the cheetahs like the reassurance and protection having a dog offers them.  Make no mistake about it, though, the dogs are the dominant partner in the relationship. They play with the cheetahs, but they don't eat with them. "The dogs are the bosses in these relationships," Rose-Hinostroza said. "If they ate together there would be one really fat dog and a really skinny cheetah." (source)

The dogs protect the cheetah.  The cheetahs knows the dog will protect them. They also play and bond and make the cheetahs much more relaxed and happy. Happy and calm cheetahs live longer and breed better. 

There's even better news. . .most of the dogs are rescues. Oh come on! Just when you thought Feel-Good Friday couldn't make you feel any better, it does!

Please remember to get your pictures in of spoiled pets. I am going to run that story next week.  As always, we need your rescue stories too!  If you want to read more about the cheetah bond or check out more pictures, there are links to all the articles from which I took the information and images below.

http://www.examiner.com/slideshow/today-s-strange-news-cheetahs-and-dogs-make-the-perfect-pair#slide=58799331

http://thegazette.com/2013/02/12/dogs-cross-species-barrier-help-cheetahs-survive/

http://www.philly.com/philly/travel/Dogs_cross_species_barrier_help_cheetahs_survive.html

http://www.treehugger.com/endangered-species/friendship-between-cheetah-and-dog.html

Calamity Jane

This story got a lot of publicity a few years ago, so some of you may have heard it before. If so, too bad! Read it again. It's worth it.

 Calamity Jane was abandoned, shot and left for dead in Texas. A veterinarian had to amputate her leg to save her, and then the news got worse. . .she was expecting a litter of puppies.  Poor Jane just couldn't catch a break.  However, Shar Pauley saw this beautiful three-legged Golden Retriever one day when she had taken her other rescue dogs to the same veterinarian. She felt a soft spot right away for Calamity Jane and decided to foster her as well.

A few weeks after the leg amputation and delivery of the puppies, Shar took her dogs out at the end of the evening to do what dogs do in the yard. Calamity Jane, who up until this point had been a very docile and low-key dog, began barking aggressively and ran off the Pauley property over to the neighbors' house.  Shar had no idea what was going on and was actually mortified at the sudden show of aggression from Jane.  She went over to drag her back when she heard a car door slam.

Soon after, the neighbors came to Shar's house to ask for her assistance in calling the police. They had just been held at gunpoint by two men while they were robbed!  When the criminals heard the dog barking they got freaked out and ran off, although they were later caught.

What alerted Calamity Jane to their plight?  It could have been many things, including pheromones, a strange vehicle, or just a heightened sensitivity towards violence, having no doubt suffered some herself.  Shar Pauley said, "From all of my adoption and fostering experiences, I have learned that it is infinitely better to adopt a rescued dog. It has never failed that these grateful souls know it and give their new family endless gifts in return for ending their suffering.”

Wow. I can't say it any better than that, and I won't even try.  


I hope you enjoyed the heroics of Calamity Jane, and I also hope you're ready for BOWL weekend. The Puppy Bowl airs this weekend and Wiley and I have been getting ready all week. I can't wait to share some pictures with you on Sunday.  In the meantime, inspired by our response to Animals Behaving Badly, we want to do another photo request: SPOILED PETS. We want a picture or pictures of your pet being pampered or spoiled. Please share!  And don't forget we are waiting to hear your rescue stories.

This story was culled from many sources including:
Land of Pure Gold Foundation.
"10 Pet Heroes to the Rescue." US News: Science. 12 Dec. 2011. web.  29 Jan. 2012

Leroy!

 What are your feelings? Pure-bred or mixed?  Pedigree or mutt? Today's post is not meant to be controversial or scientific. It is purely anecdotal. I think my answer is mutt, but on the other hand, I'm in love with certain behaviors of specific breeds. I know, I know, that's a cop-out. I'm comfortable with that. haha

Today's case: Leroy. Leroy is a full-bred Chinese Shar-Pei from a reputable breeder in New Jersey. In fact, if you like Shar-Peis you can check out Leroy's sister, Baby Jane, on Animal Planet's series Too Cute: Shar-Peis.  Baby Jane is somewhere in the mix below too.

Leroy's dad, Luke, received Leroy as a gift, so the initial sticker price is off-the-record. Leroy was a lovable pile of wrinkles from day one.

He was very trainable as a pet, and was fully house-broken and well-mannered in a reasonable amount of time.  

However, Leroy's expenses had only just begun. The first issue was the basic maintenance. Shar-Peis have to have their wrinkles cleaned pretty much daily.  They have very strong oils in their coats (to which many people are allergic) and thus require frequent baths. They shed tremendously and typically have sensitive skin.  They also require very specific eye care. Despite Luke's regimented and thorough approach to caring for Leroy, eventually he required a double eye-lift. Yes, you read that correctly. A double eye-lift.  It costs thousands of dollars and can often be necessary for Shar-Peis because the folds of skin can get too heavy and cause irritation or prevent them from opening their eyes.

Once Leroy recovered from the eye surgery another issue arose, separation anxiety. Despite the fact that Luke was only gone about 8 hours daily for work, Leroy did not handle his alone-time well.  He got walked for at least an hour a day, he started taking holistic medicine to calm him, and he responded by eating a window sill. And a door frame. And some dry wall. And the kitchen counter. And more dry wall.  The end result is Leroy now spends a lot of quality time with his grandfather Randy while Luke is at work.   

This was Leroy's submission to Dog-Shaming.

All of the above describes the down-side to having a high maintenance breed. However, at the end of the day Leroy is still incredibly lovable. He is playful and polite and so loyal. He is spitefully cute and everyone who meets him can't help but like him.

<---- full disclosure: Leroy is sharing a stolen moment with me, under the table

Below, Leroy fell asleep on Mr. Hedgie.

So, we go back to the original question. Pure-bred or mixed?  You can get pure-bred rescues, so it doesn't have to come down to that. Is having a mixed breed any guarantee of perfect mental and physical health?  Obviously not.  Is getting a high-maintenance type of breed just asking for trouble?  What are your thoughts? Share them in the comments, and if you have a full-bred rescue we'd love to hear from you!

No banned breeds!

 So I finally got to meet Isis, the one-eyed Pit Bull puppy we featured a few weeks ago. Even though she is truly a sweetheart, we decided to keep Wiley out of the equation for the time being, because he is very afraid of other dogs. 

Isis's most distinctive feature is not her missing eye or even her smile (and I swear it does often look like she's smiling). Her standout body part is her tail, because it never. . . stops. . . wagging. I could hear her coming from several rooms away. As she would trot through the rooms her tail wagged so hard it would thump off the walls and furniture on her way. 

In the above picture, she is playing with her sister Olivia. And by playing I mean Isis is holding onto Liv's hand so she can continue to get her chin scratched, while smiling all the while. Unfortunately you cannot see nor hear the thumping tail in this picture, but trust me it was there.

Isis was very interested in being wherever her sisters were. While Olivia, Sadie, and I were posing for above picture, Isis just had to insinuate herself into the situation; the whole time that tail was thumping against my leg.

Here, I cannot believe she stopped licking my face long enough to look at the camera. 

And this picture was not intended to be a picture. We weren't posing. We were just cuddling, when Isis's mom grabbed her phone and started snapping. I love everything about the picture and the unequivocal joy represented here. The best part is. . . YOU CAN SEE HER TAIL WAGGING! She just cannot stop herself.

Please, if you have a good story to share about so-called "dangerous" breeds, help us change the stereotype.  Share your rescue with us!

 

 

Meet Petey!

Look at this guy! Petey is a 5 year old beagle/Jack Russell mix. If you've ever owned either of those breeds you know what that means. . . .he's a barker!  He is ever-vigilant in protecting his people too.

Here he is on guard both inside and out. It seems like he's always on the job.

 But sometimes things get just a little too scary!

That's when he needs the protection of his mom, Kim.

Other times he finds comfort in his toy, "Greenie," which doesn't leave his sight.

 Kim found Petey via Castaway Critters in Harrisburg, PA.  She knew she would be taking him home when she saw that tail wag "120 wags per minute" just for her.  This is a picture of the happy day when they first met!

Lucky Petey, and lucky Kim! Look at the happiness hidden away in discarded animals. How did you and your rescue meet?   Share your story!