A look inside our Shelter

There has been a lot in the local news about the Central Missouri Humane Society's situation. It has inspired a great outpouring of support from the community, from businesses, from individuals. Unfortunately, though, that won't be enough.

Conditions right now are rough. You can hear the annoying barking throughout the video. Seems like a crappy place for an interview, right? Consider those dogs can never get away from the racket. And because of the outdated layout, they're forced to be tantalizingly close to each other. For territory-geared animals that already feel abandoned or lost from their pack, it's a nightmare. And without funding, there's nothing the shelter can really do about it.

The part you really can't get is the smell. Because of the age of the building, the way it was built and all the cracked, porous concrete throughout, no amount of cleaning really ever gets rid of the grime. And they clean it religiously. They scrub morning and night. Add that they're nearly always at full capacity with animals. The smell never goes away. But it does turn off some otherwise good families or make it difficult to volunteer there.

Some people think that the Humane Society is tax-funded. This is a misconception. While the city does pay money to the shelter, that's only to share the building for Animal Control (who often turns the unclaimed animals to the shelter... not to mention other animal control units across the state and the Department of Agriculture). It does not share the cost of taking care of those animals afterwards, despite the obvious benefits to the health and safety of Columbia. Despite its vital role to the community, the Shelter isn't eligible for programs like United Way.

CMHS could probably be more active pursuing outside funding. For example, to my knowledge, they haven't hired a grant writer or anything like that to assist them (these writers are often only paid a percentage of money they bring in, so would cost the shelter nothing).

At the same time, the City of Columbia has been getting this service at basement bargain prices. Neither the city or the other animal assistance groups in Columbia can do what CMHS does. It's about time they paid something closer to retail. If they don't, the Shelter will truly collapse and the end cost will be gruelling... in dollars and lives (human and otherwise).

The Shelter is doing what they can with some really rough conditions and pretty much no budget. It's forced them to cut hours and it's made them consider diluting their values just to stay alive... just so they can continue cleaning the mess left by those unwilling to learn responsibility or treat animals with compassion...

Foster 10: Mikey

Here's our tenth! Don't have time to type now, but here's what we suggested for his profile page:

Meet Mikey! He may be the most affectionate dog in the world! He wants nothing more than to snuggle and to be as close to you as possible.

Mikey is very smart and picks up commands quickly. In fact, he already knows “sit” and “down.” He is also crate trained and is almost fully housebroken.

At his foster home, Mikey plays very well with other dogs – even big ones! He’s very tolerant and gets along great with cats too!

Mikey can be easily frightened and worries if you move toward him too quickly or make loud noises. Because of this, he may do best in a home without small children. He is naturally very trusting but needs a loving hand to help him gain confidence and learn to feel safe.

All he really wants is someone who will love him just as much as he loves them.

Mikey weighs approximately 30 lbs. and is done growing. He has been neutered and is patiently waiting for his forever family.

(Edit: Mikey was adopted by a great family, including his new best friend - a young lady of about 14 years)

Foster 9: Honey

Our foster dog Honey, numero nueve, was adopted yesterday. She's a clumsy, loving and smart Great Dane mix. Also, one of our most beautiful fosters to date.

Her nicknames included Lug, Honey Bee, Honey Mustard, and Mustard Head.

At approximately the same length as our couch, she's small for a Great Dane but still too big for all of the crates we had. We borrowed the world's biggest dog crate from the CMHS - I thought the first one they offered was too small, but in retrospect, it probably wasn't. This one took up about 1/5 of the available floor space in our office. It could have held a baby elephant.



She has a goofy side.


And here she looks stoned.


She likes nothing more than to torment Buddy, grabbing his flappy skin and holding on tight. She's a bit of a klutz, but also liked to see where the action was. This sometimes made our daily ritual of playing WiiFit difficult.

She's an awesome dog. We're thrilled she was adopted!

Toby makes a discovery

Why, yes, I do fit through the cat door!

Foster 8: Toby (aka Snoop)

Our 8th foster's prison name is "Snoop" but he seems to be a Toby to us. Here's his writeup:

My name is Toby, and I am a one year old Vizsla/Beagle mix.

I get along great with the other dogs in my foster home. We run and play around the house for hours. Sometimes I even forget that they are three times my size—I only weigh about 20 pounds.

Something else I love to do is snuggle! Every night I climb on to my foster mom’s lap to sleep while she watches television. Sometimes she even picks me up and carries me around. I think this is great!

There is one other thing I love to do, but my foster parents don’t like it so much. I don’t know what the big deal is—that furry white hairball meows at me all the time. He is just begging for me to chase him around the house.


Okay, so there might be one other thing I do that my foster parents don’t love. I howl when I am lonely. I am part beagle though—what do they expect from me? In my humble opinion, I am the perfect dog and these minor “issues” just add to my overall charm.


Toby is neutered, housebroken and is ready for his forever home. He has been waiting patiently since March, 2008.

Fetch!

Foster 7: Adelyn

UPDATE: After 2 months at the shelter, nearly being euthanized and 2 months with us, Addy was adopted yesterday (May 17)!


Our current foster dog, Adelyn (or Adrock, as she's known to her posse), is smart. She's scary smart. Like, I'm pretty sure that she has developed complex algorithms to determine when we will give her treats and uses elaborate engineering to determine how best to get into the trash can.

Smart dogs are awesome. You can see them figure things out, like how to sit or stay. They can also be really annoying, like when they figure out how to dismantle a baby gate.


Also, normally, you can wear out a hyper dog by just letting them play with Buddy for 30 minutes. It's loud. They run into the furniture a lot. But when it's over, they'll lay down for the rest of the night panting. Adrock is different. She's like a boxer who anticipates a long fight and conserves her blows. Jaw gaping, she floats like a butterfly and stings like an alligator. At first Buddy thinks he's winning, but after a few rounds the poor guy ends up laying on his back, exhausted, while Addy chews on his leg.

Addy was adopted after a couple weeks in our house, but the poor thing was returned. She actually sulked for two days after she was returned. We've kept her as our foster since, hoping she gets adopted without having to return to the shelter. (Of course, we always hope for that... it's much easier to hand a dog off to a new home than to return it to a small concrete cage.)


Also, ummm... she has an odd number of nipples; nine of them. And they don't line up neatly in rows. Instead they zig-zag across her belly. Is it weird that I find that endearing?

Foster 6

We've named our new foster Laney Boggs, but she's less of a dog and more of a small black bear. She's stout - part Rotteweiler. I like to think the other part is Bernese Mountain Dog. Every morning, when I let her out of her crate, she crawls into my lap... all 60 lbs. of her. She's got a little growing to do yet, I think.





Plus, Gracie Ann (finally) got adopted!

Foster 5.5?

Gracie Ann is back; apparently she's become the boss dog at the shelter, so she needs some time on the outside to get rehabilitated. Here's 30 seconds of her playing King of the Hill on the furniture with Buddy - you'll notice that she's winning.

Charlotte: Foster Five

Charlotte was our fifth foster - a blue tick coon hound stray that had just had a litter of puppies. She was emaciated; might have had worms; and her teats were chapped, full of milk, and obviously hurting her. Plus she smelled really bad. See her ribs in this photo?


While she was recuperating, she enjoyed sitting on the couch...


Sitting on the couch some more...


And wagging her really long tail. In fact, she wags her tail so much that she cut the end of her tail (what can I say, she was tragic), which then sprayed blood all over our walls and furniture at knee-height every time she wagged. I took a picture of this for the blog, but it was kinda morbid so I didn't post it. Sufficient to say, it looked like there was an elfin massacre in our living room.

This is called "happy tail" or "split tail," and is pretty common apparently for breeds like Great Danes. It's really tough to heal. Fortunately, Charlotte let us bandage her tail.


First we cleaned the cut with alcohol. Then we put on a neosporin-type antibiotic cream. Then we added a piece of gauze and wrapped it in athletic tape (the cloth type so that it breathes a little). This was changed daily.

Some dogs chew off their bandages. For them, people have developed crazy methods of tail-hiding, such as this one which requires a trip to the hardware store.

Her tail seemed to be healing but we don't know for sure because Charlotte was adopted; our first dog to get a new home while still in our care! She's got a great new family, a nice fenced back yard and a cat.

Heidi update

Columbia Second Chance was able to take in Heidi and get her taken care of. They think it isn't cancer, but a salivary gland infection. Apparently it's healing up quite well and she's now listed on their Web site as adoptable.

Hooray!

Gracie Ann

Hmmm, this is quickly becoming my foster dog log...

Here's Gracie Ann. Our third foster dog, she's been with us the longest because of a series of health problems beginning with kennel cough.

If you look at the full size version of the picture above, you'll also see that her one eye is a little red. It became very eventually. Now she has to wear an Elizabethan Collar, or e-collar (so named because, like Al Bundy, Elizabethan-era Brits were prone to scratching themselves and, thus, needed to wear these crazy collars).

Also, she keeps breaking it, so now it's pieced together with duct tape. It's pretty hilarious looking in a pitiful sort of way.

Like Fruit Rollups, it comes by the foot!

Meet Heidi, foster number 2:



Heidi likes to eat something a little different. It's white and comes in long rolls. She finds it spooled up in the bathroom and just starts nibbling.

A doberman/hound mix, Heidi came to us with a bad case of kennel cough as well as a nasty dog-like flu which the Shelter referred to as "snot nose." She was really sluggish and didn't like to move around too much. It was pitiful.

Now, however, she won't stop moving. She wants to wrestle with anyone 24 hours a day with maybe a short break to eat.

In the time she's been with us, she's also gotten to about 90% housebroken too. Most likely this is building on the work of some other loving foster families, but she has been progressing really quickly. She's really an adorable, happy, little bug-eyed cutie.

She keeps playing despite 3 worrisome growths we've discovered on her neck. The vet is not sure what they are, could be anything from an odd infection to cancer. The shelter is not set up to do a biopsy, which is what she really needs. They're contacting other animal rescues to see if anyone else would be able to help out.

Keep your fingers crossed. With so many dogs needing homes and so few resources to help, it is really hard to point to one dog and say "that one deserves some extra attention." But when she's lived in your home for a week - a crazy, hectic week at that - it's so hard to hear that she may be too sick to place.

Wish her luck!

A home for Pepper Blossom

Pepper has already been adopted! We'll get another foster dog later today - some sort of Doberman mix.

Foster Dog!

This dog needs a permanent home!

A few weeks ago we sent in an application to become dog foster parents for the Central Missouri Humane Society. A short training session later, and our first foster dog arrived yesterday, Pepper Blossom.

CMHS is smart. They start you off with the easy dogs.

Pepper (or Peps, or Peppy, or Pepsid AC, or The Peppinator) is just getting over a case of kennel cough. She is incredibly sweet and likes to stretch out across your lap on the couch or in the bed.

Even more importantly, all of the dogs and Hank have been receptive of Pepper. We were a little worried they wouldn't be happy with intruders, but they've been excellent.

Pepper is active, happy and thoroughly enjoys wrestling with Buddy (which is a godsend for Bailey who, frankly, is getting sick of babysitting the little punk). And she is currently trying to eat a cardboard box...

...ok... I've stopped her.

Congratulations, Pepper! You've rightfully earned a place on Stuff My Dog Ate.

Behold the cardboard box:

"Help! My dog ate __________ " or "How to make Snuggles hurl chunks"

Okay, so I'm a big nerd. I look at Web statistics nearly every day to see where both of my visitors came from the day before. I do this even if I'm too lazy to post something.

Nerdery aside, it seems lots of you find the blog searching Google for variations on a single theme: "dog ate __________." ("Dog ate sock" is the most popular, despite none of my dogs actually consuming a sock... though they do like to haul them out of the dirty laundry and carry them around.) So I thought maybe you would like some actual useful information.

First, a disclaimer: If your dog swallowed something you think may be dangerous, call the vet or the ASPCA's Animal Poison Control Center - 1-888-426-4435. (There may be a fee.) I am not an expert, just a guy with dogs that eat a lot of crap they shouldn't.

There are basically three kinds of harmful things a dog can swallow:

1) Stabby things - like paperclips and chicken bones
2) Poo stoppers - like socks, pantyhose and bears
3) Poisons - like chocolate and antifreeze

The most important step is prevention. Just don't keep stabby things and poisons (including chocolate, nuts and leftover hotwings) laying where your dogs can reach them.

Okay... so obviously sometimes dogs get into things they shouldn't despite our best efforts, as demonstrated by the time Bailey reached into the kitchen sink and ate an entire pound of ground beef. And, as demonstrated by this blog, poo stoppers are everywhere. Even toys intended for dog usage can quickly turn into stomach fodder.

What then?

In most cases, you should induce vomiting. However, don't do this if:
1) They swallowed something sharp
2) They swallowed something caustic such as Drano or cleaning products
3) They are having seizures or convulsions
4) They swallowed a petroleum product
5) It's been more than two hours since they swallowed it

In the above cases, contact your vet immediately!

How do I induce vomiting?

Find a bottle of hydrogen peroxide - that stuff you put on cuts that gets all bubbly - and a teaspoon. Hold the dog's mouth open and dump two teaspoons in. The dog will probably gag or otherwise try to spew it on you, but make sure most of it goes down.

Now, wait ten minutes. If they haven't barfed yet, you might need more (Buddy has been known to need several tablespoons-worth before). You can give them one to three teaspoons more every ten minutes. Repeat up to three times.

If that doesn't do the trick, call your vet.

Some things your dog shouldn't eat that you might not know about:
Chocolate
Grapes/raisins
Pennies (The zinc coating is toxic)
Macademia nuts
Beer/Hops (doesn't hurt all dogs, but small amounts can be toxic to others, especially Greyhounds)
Onions (also garlic, though onions are worse)

Of Bears and Barf

Decapitation (from Latin, caput, capitis, meaning head), or beheading, is the removal of a stuffed bear's head. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, guillotine or terrier.

In some instances, technically speaking the body is actually removed, merely leaving the head as in this example.




In the event of a bear-decapitation-by-terrier, first, look for other bear remains. If the limbs and torso are missing, the recommended course of action is to induce vomiting to prevent a bear-bowel-blockage.

Force feed the terrier several teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide and wait up to 20 minutes.



Mmmm... yummy. As a result, Buddy's not feeling particularly lively this evening.

Mailbox Pleasantries

Happiness!



(Regarding Pet Photography.)