Big Paws Only Dog Forums

Bella has had this nasty eye goober in her right eye for the last couple days every time I come home. Initially I chalked it up to a foreign "entity" that her eye was trying to flush out. After several attempts to located said entity, I haven't found anything there. So, now I'm wondering if it's either an infection (and if so, where does a dog pick up an eye infection?) or irritation from springtime allergies. Anyone have any experience with this?  I suppose if it were allergies I would see goobers coming out of both eyes, huh? And just as a little back story, she rarely if ever has any eye junk since she's been on good food and usually they're black. These are large, and can sometimes have some green in them.

This was posted on Craigslist in Denver. I thought I would share it.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Average Pet Owner:

Thank you for contacting us animal rescuers, shelter volunteers, and
foster-homes about your inability to keep your pet. We receive an
extremely high volume of enquiries and requests to accept surrendered animals (and none of us is getting paid, OK?). To help us expedite your problem as
quickly as possible, please observe the following guidelines:

1. Do not say that you are "CONSIDERING finding a good home" for your
pet, or that you, "feel you MIGHT be forced to," or that you "really THINK it would be better if" you unloaded the poor beast.

Ninety-five percent of you have already got your minds stone-cold made up that the animal WILL be out of your life by the weekend at the latest. Say so. If you don't, I'm going to waste a lot of time giving you common-sense, easy solutions for very fixable problems, and you're going to waste a lot of time coming up with fanciful reasons why the solution couldn't possibly work for you.

For instance, you say the cat claws the furniture, and I tell you about
nail-clipping and scratching posts and aversion training, and then you
go into a long harangue about how your husband won't let you put a
scratching post in the family room, and your ADHD daughter cries if you use a
squirt bottle on the cat, and your congenital thumb abnormalities prevent you
from using nail scissors and etc., etc. Just say you're getting rid of the cat.

2. Do not waste time trying to convince me how nice and humane you are.
Your co-worker recommended that you contact me because I am nice to
animals, not because I am nice to people, and I don't like people who
"get rid of" their animals. "Get rid of" is my least favorite phrase in any
language. I hope someone "gets rid of" YOU someday. I am an animal
advocate, not a people therapist. After all, for your ADHD daughter, you
can get counselors, special teachers, doctors, social workers, etc. Your
pet has only me, and people like me, to turn to in his or her need, and
we are unpaid, overworked, stressed-out, and demoralized. So don't tell me
this big long story about how, "We love this dog so much, and we even
bought him a special bed that cost $50, and it is just KILLING us to
part with him, but honestly, our maid is just awash in dog hair every time
she cleans, and his breath sometimes just reeks of liver, so you can see how
hard we've tried, and how dear he is to us, but we really just can't . .
."You are not nice, and it is not killing you. It is, in all probability,
literally killing your dog, but you're going to be just fine once the beast is out of your sight.
Don't waste my time trying to make me like you or feel sorry for you in
your plight.

3. Do not try to convince me that your pet is exceptional and deserves
special treatment. I don't care if you taught him to sit. I don't care
if she's a beautiful Persian. I have a waiting list of battered and/or
whacked-out animals who need help, and I have no room to foster-house
your pet. Do not send me long messages detailing how Fido just l-o-v-e-s
blankies and carries his favorite blankie everywhere, and oh, when he
gets all excited and happy, he spins around in circles, isn't that cute? He
really is darling, so it wouldn't be any trouble at all for us to find
him a good home. Listen, we can go down to the pound and count the darling,
spinning, blankie-loving beasts on death row by the dozens, any day of
the week. And, honey, Fido is a six-year-old Shepherd-Lab mix. I am not
lying when I tell you that big, older, mixed-breed, garden-variety dogs are
almost completely unadoptable, and I don't care if they can whistle
Dixie or send semaphore signals with their blankies. What you don't realize is
that, though you're trying to lie to me, you're actually telling the truth:
Your pet IS a special, wonderful, amazing creature. But this mean old
world does not care. More importantly, YOU do not care, and I can't fix that
problem.
All I can do is grieve for all the exceptional animals who live short,
brutal, loveless lives and die without anyone ever recognizing that they
were indeed very, very special.

4. Finally, just, for pity' s sake, for the animal's sake, tell the truth,
and the whole truth. Do you think that if you just mumble that your cat
is "high-strung," I will say, "Okey-doke! No problemo!" and take it into
foster care? No, I will start asking questions and uncover the truth,
which is that your cat has not used a litter box in the last six months.
Do not tell me that you "can't" crate your dog. I will ask what happens
when you try to crate him, and you will either be forced to tell me the
symptoms of full-blown, severe separation anxiety, or else you will resort to
lying some more, wasting more of our time.
And, if you succeed in placing your pet in a shelter or foster care, do
not tell yourself the biggest lie of all: "Those nice people will take
him and find him a good home, and everything will be fine." Those nice
people will indeed give the animal every possible chance, but if we discover
serious health or behavior problems, if we find that your misguided
attempts to train or discipline him have driven him over the edge, we
will do what you are too immoral and cowardly to do: We will hold the animal
in our arms, telling him truthfully that he is a good dog or cat,
telling him truthfully that we are sorry and we love him, while the vet ends his
life.
How can we be so heartless as to kill your pet, you ask? Do not ever
dare to judge us. At least we tried. At least we stuck with him to the end.
At least we never abandoned him to strangers, as you certainly did, didn't
you? In short, this little old rescuer/foster momma has reached the
point where she would prefer you pet owners to tell her stories like this:
"We went to a car boot sale and picked up a free pet in the parking lot a
couple of years ago. Now we don't want it anymore. We're lazier than we
thought. We've got no patience either. We're starting to suspect the animal is
really smarter than we are, which is giving us self-esteem issues.
Clearly, we can't possibly keep it. Plus, it might be getting sick; it's acting
kind of funny.
"We would like you to take it in eagerly, enthusiastical ly, and
immediately.
"We hope you'll realize what a deal you're getting and not ask us for a
donation to help defray your costs. After all, this is an (almost)

pure-bred animal, and we'll send the leftover food along with it. We get
the food at Tesco’s too, and boy, it's a really good deal, price-wise".
"We are very irritated that you haven't shown pity on us in our great
need and picked the animal up already. We thought you people were supposed to be humane! Come and get it today. No, we couldn't possibly bring it to you; the final episode of "Survivor II" is on tonight."
Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Pet Owner, for your cooperation.
Author Unknown, but could be any shelter worker or rescuer.
   
   

So, my friend at work is getting a puppy. She's been looking and looking and had been looking at all different kinds of dogs. She loves Bella, so she had been looking at Saint pups too, but was trying to keep her options open. WELL... there is a farmer down in the corner of CO who has two Saint that had a litter of pups.  He's selling them for really cheap ($300)... that was originally a warning sign for me, but I've seen pics of the parents and pups and they look perfect to me. Anyway, my friend picked a little smooth coat girl and there are all these little fluffy boys available! I've been looking and "drooling" over little boy puppies a lot lately, and I know I want to get a buddy for Bella, but this is sooooooo not the best time for me!  I'm so tortured resisting the impulse to take one of the little boys.  I figured I would spill my guts here because if there is anyone who can relate to this kind of torture it's BPOers!

OK, so I finally got my freakin' computer working again! I have been reading everyday when I can at work, but not posting much. Hopefully I'll be around more now.

Bella turned 8 months last week, and somewhere in the last two weeks or so she broke 100. Yikes! I was not expecting her to hit 100 so soon... although that was probably silly for me to think.

I'm glad to have BPO back at home.

Just thought I would say hi! I don't have a computer at home right now. I'm hoping it'll be back up soon. My BPO time is limited to super early in the morning when I'm at work and no one else is here!

I gave Bella  a bath outside yesterday becuase it was finally nice enough. I came home and realized the WHOLE house smelled like yucky-stinky-dog. It was time. So, after the bath, we had our first "Beetoven" experience (by this I mean, all the awful messy stuff that happens in the movie). She got away from me right after I finished rinsing her off, so she wasn't even close to towel dried yet. She goes in teh house and proceeds to tear around as fast as she can, knocking over furniture as she rolls around on the carpet... she goes up and OVER the couch, back through the dining room through the kitchen- you get the idea. So what was I left with? A SOAKING wet floor (carpet mind you), GIANT brown paw prints on my cream colored couch, 3 of 4 dining room chairs on the floor, and mud in the kitchen. All this is going on while my kids are ducking for cover and hollering "Dumb Dog"!  It was hilarious! I couldn't stop myself from laughing. I just stood and watched the chaos because it seemed futile to intervene. I was going to take a picture but I never got around to it. I think my carpet has finally dried out, but the perfect paw prints on my couch still have to be cleaned. Ahhhh, this is the life.

I miss everyone! I hope all is well.

Love,
Angeleen and Bella

So, Bella turned 7 months yesterday. I thought I would take some pics while we were at the park. I wish I had one of the boys in the pic so you could see her growth, but alas, they are just her. I also threw in a couple pics of my other two kitties, since last time I had to introduce one, it was becuase she was crossing the bridge. What a sad way to introduce a pet!  The Grey cat is Piston... he's old and grumpy and tolerates no one but me (so naturally I love him) . The little tortoise sheel is Jupiter, and she's always elusive! It took me a while to get a pic of her.

Enjoy! I hope everyone has a wonderful day!
**Modified because I found a pic of Bella with Brayden in the car

Today I have to leave work early to put my sweet little Abby to sleep.  She is the sweetest cat you can ever imagine.  I have hours of video of my first son laying on her, hugging her, playing toys with her, and even Abby dragging him down the hall because he had big 'ol clumps of her fur in his fists (he was just a baby).  She's 13 years old, and has suffered renal failure.  I wish I could express how perfect of a pet she is.  I will miss her, and my son is sooooooooooooo oooooo heart broken.  Just wanted to share her story and pic since she's never been introduced here before. The pic was taken yesterday at the vet.