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Hello everyone longtime no see/read!

 It's been about 18 months since I posted last, It became really painful for me after the rescue shut down and we lost the house/rescue kennels to have much to do with people and places I associated with rescues. So, sorry But we have been doing really well, I got married! and all the animals were welcomed into the family and we now live in a house twice the size of my old one. I am in the process of opening my own buisness, which will be a training facility, retail store, indoor dog park and rescue facility all in one. I'm also back in school and fostering again! Its amazing how much time you have on your hands when you are no longer taking care of a couple hundred rescues.

Well, like I said, we started fostering again and we recently took in a very heavily pregnant black lab from our notorious animal control. She had her x-ray today and I gotta admit I am a little confused at what I am seeing. The vet estimated 14 puppies at 52-55 days. So I have been staring at this picture for the last couple hours and trying to count little skulls and spines and pelvis bones, and thinking "Gee, I wish there was a place I could post this and see if I could get a bunch of opinions" and a light bulb went off HEY how long has it been since I visited BPO??

So here I am

Anyone want to take a gander at this x-ray and guess how many babies there are? (and how far along she is)

Pic is here:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs468.ash1/25689_426223748764_516913764_5346392_656089_n.jpg

I don't know if anyone knows it, but I have been going through a really long divorce process. Its finally over, but with one last tragic blow- I am loosing my house, and the rescue kennels.

The rescue is closing- I have until January 1st to find homes for 46 (27 of which are puppies) animals and find some new place that will accept my and my small herd of pets (Who I will NOT be finding homes for.) And in the meantime, I am unable to take in any more for fear of not being able to find them homes fast enough. That means that I am unable to assist with the almost 400 animals removed from a home in Denver NC (About 20 minutes from the shelter) from a collector.

I feel very defeated, and angry by the outcome of this long battle. It will be a very long time before I am set up to do rescue again, and in the mean time, Gaston County looses one of its biggest rescue groups working to save their gas-chamber death row dogs. I've been up and running for 12 years, and it seems nearly impossible to realize that I now have less then 4 months to completely sever the organization.

If possible, I'd really like everyone if possible to send good wishes/thoughts for the rescue dogs here. If they aren't placed by Jan 1st, they are going to be split up and sent to other rescue groups in the area (Non kill groups who are volunteering to take them).

It's a very very sad day

I just thought I would once again sneak online and fill you guys in on the Good Fight.

We rescued a chow mother who had given birth at gaston county animal control to 5 tiny babies. The animal control offices were A) unaware that she was pregnant B) unaware that she had given birth. After 3 days of intensive vet work and therapy, we sadly lost all 5 newborns. Mother chow (Foxy Brown) is recovering, but is very sick. Shortly after, during our investigation, we learned that 4 of the 6 dogs in the kennel before the chow had been placed in there had died of some disease. (Of course they had recieved no vet care, so we have no idea WHAT disease) The kennel was not cleaned before chow mamma was placed in there and gave birth. we are assuming that is what killed the babies. Foxy curently has kennel cough, coccidia, giardia, and developed pyo as well.

We are up to 24 puppies at the shelter (IE my house) ranging between 5 weeks and 12 weeks. All were shelter pulls trying to get as many out before Dr. Frankenstein arrived (see below) All 24 puppies were in one of three runs that held a total of 43 puppies. We tested five random puppies from each run for parvo, and all five, from all three runs (meaning 15 puppies) tested positive for Parvo although none were symptomatic. That was about 10 days ago, and I have been dosing liberaly with Parvaid every 4 hours and giving antibiotics and immune support. So far 22 of my 24 have not broken out, but two have. Of the two one successfully recovered on homeopathic treatment and parvaid, and the other has been hospitalized. We faired much better then the rescue group that split the 43 puppies with us- of the 19 that they took, they have lost 6 to parvo and have another 8 in hospitalizatio n. If I did not believe in good supportive immune system care before, I sure as heck do now.

I spent what few hours I wasnt nursing sick and dying animals this week protesting outside animal control. Dr. Sam "Frankenstein" Houser is in town, and hosting a gassing clinic at Gaston County Animal Control, where I pull most of my dogs. If you are up north, it is hard to imagine how bad rural southern shelters are, but let me tell you, Gaston county is one of the worst. I have seen 20 dogs crammed in runs 4 X 10. They have food dumped in big litter boxes and tossed in with them to fight over. There is no vet on staff. No dogs recieve medical treatment or even a glance over from a vet. They do not seperate sick or dying animals. They do not treat animals as they die on the floor unless someone raises a stink, and then they remove the animal to die in the back. They do not have air conditioning or heating. The cats are in runs, just like the dogs. Sometimes 100 per run. I once saw a small dog get torn apart by a pack of large dogs in a run. They use a gas chamber and hundreds are gassed a week. Almost every animal that walks through the doors ends up dead of disease or the gas chamber. Very few make it to adoptables- about 1 in 50. There are 40 4 X 10 runs at AC, and only 1-4 are adoptables. The rest are awaiting their deaths, or a rescue group to save them.

And this is the shelter chosen by Dr. Frankenstein to come and do his death seminar on how to gas animals. All week they have been gassing random animals from the shelter, including adoptables, as "demonstrations". They had originally closed the doors to rescue groups and had not let us save anyone during this week. However after protesting outside and lots of news coverage, they let us in to take as many as we could. Hence why I have so many now!


Now, here are some happy pups that were saved from the gas chamber.
Enjoy!























So anyone looking for the next love of their life?!

Hi guys-

Long time no see Sorry, have been really busy the last couple of weeks!

Well after a lot of consideration, I have decided to put the goldens on dry food. Raw is just not much of an option any more for a lot of reasons. I've been reading for the last two or three weeks on different options and I have narrowed my choice down to three brands:

Innova Evo Red Meat
Wellness CORE
Taste of The Wild High Prarie (Yes, I know, Diamond product)

Honestly.. I would like to rotate all three to give the dogs some variety and expose them to a lot of protein sources while remaining grain free. I love EVO but I just can't afford the pricetag to feed it alone. Wellness CORE is too protein high for the puppies, and TOTW is too protein low for Whiskey, although I love the alternate sources. CORE doesnt have alot more protein then TOTW but every little bit helps and I'd like to mix smoe EVO in with the CORE.

Right now I have tentatively decided on TOTW for The puppies and CORE for Whiskey, with a little bit of the EVO mixed in every day. Whiskey of course has HGE and Cisco has a pretty sensitive stomach while Annie's tummy is like Iron.. so I am really nervous about this!

What do you guys think?

I'm supposed to be on break from taking in more rescues!!!!

I got a call from AC telling me that someone had turned in their seizure alert certified dog, they weren't having luck getting her out of there, and her time was up so they were gassing her. So of course I went to go and get her, and then instantly there were 9 groups willing to take her as soon as I had her in my posession (I dont know what it is about groups not wanting to take the same dog when they are on death row but the instant a rescue group has them they are all about them), so she is going to a training group where a little 8 year old girl has been on the waiting list for a dog forever.

So anyway, as I am walking out with this little spitz mix seizure dog, I spot a polar bear. Its a big pyr boy. He's a year old, and has horrible food allergy reactions around his eyes so his eyes are all crusty and pussy and look like he has goggles on. He was an owner surrendor and his time was up. They dont get much time.

Soooo I took him with me. Hes a very very gentle and sweet one year old pup. His name is Owen. We are looking to get him in a pyr group ASAP as I have no place for this monster! He was very good at the vets and did excellent for the skin scraping and testing- no scabies or demodex or fungas, so they are guessing food allergies. Hes on antibiotics and creme.

Everyone say hi to Owen- and if you volunteer with a pyr group near NC that has room (yea right!) let me know!

Well, 8 and 7 weeks old. They are very cute! Apple is the bigger guy and Cherry is the littler one.

I dont know whats wrong with Cisco. He and annie were doing great sleeping through the night, then all of a sudden in the last two weeks Cisco wakes up EVERY MORNING between 4:30 and 5am. He barks and barks and cries to go out, so I get up and take him out and he runs out, turns around and jumps back on the door. I leave him out and 10 minutes later he is barking his fool head off outside. I bring him in and he goes back into his crate voluntarily, I shut the door and go back to bed and five minutes later he is barking again. I have occasionally ignored it, and almost always I will then wake up to pee or poop in his crate, even though when I let him out he wont go to the bathroom. I have tried walking him, I have taken away his water in the crate, I have fed him earlier and made sure he pooped before he goes to bed, I have walked them RIGHT before I go to bed.

Its strange because its a new behavior, and I almost worry he has something medically wrong with him- he is peeing A LOT. He was doing pretty good on housebreaking until recently and now he is peeing around the house too. He's 7 months old and it just seems weird to go back three steps in his housebreaking.

Any ideas?

This is awesome.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080521/ap_on_fe_st/odd_japan_parrot_returns