Category Archives: Rescue Happenings

A Tired Dog Is a Good Dog 

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, Thoughts On Life, ,

This is the face of Baxter. He is tired after a day with frisbeeing and a long hike. What a precious face it is. He is a high energy dog. But he is all tuckered out and peaceful. 

This is Cassius the greyhound. He is also tired out and peaceful after sharing all that activity with Baxter. Cassius is also a very high energy dog which is not typical for a greyhound. 

This is Shelby. Turns out I don’t have any pictures of Shelby sleeping because she rarely does sleep during the day. She is too busy running our home. But she does it in a calm and well behaved, if controlling, manner. 

Our dogs are generally well behaved and pleasant. At least that’s what people tell me and I tend to agree. Just like all “kids” though, you can tell when they’ve been cooped up inside with insufficient exercise. They get barkier (more than normal) and they tend to get underfoot and become pesky. 

Then we must play what we call “the indoor games”. This involves one particular toy that stands on end and daddy kicks it down the center hall of the house. Here they are waiting for the kick. Whoever gets the toy first wins. They shake it for a while and then return it to daddy for the next round. There is never any fighting and everyone knows the rules. Mostly Shelby wants to bark at the other two to tell them how to behave. Once in a while she wins too by getting the toy first. And this game involves LOTS of barking by all dogs involved and those not involved bark too. Foster girl Kammie likes to hide beside the couch and bark at the players. Things become so loud with the barking and yipping that we now wear ear plugs during the game.

The point here is that a tired dog is a good and happy dog. If our dogs were not tired, I have no doubt that they would find other ways to expend that energy. They would likely resort to chewing, snapping, endless pacing and other sorts of troublesome behavior. 

We have high energy dogs. Those are the kind we prefer. But along with choosing that type of dog, comes the responsibility of filling that need of expending the energy.  If not, you are headed for trouble. I fully believe that in the wrong home, our dogs would not be well behaved. They would be trouble. 

That is the case with most of the foster dogs we have had. We tend to specialize in fostering the troublesome ones. They turn out to be wonderful dogs once they have some structure, behavioral boundaries and lots of exercise. 

So remember, a good dog is a tired dog! 

Kammie Update 

Just wanted to give you an update on our forever foster girl, Kammie. She is doing well! 

She waits for me to give her meds twice each day. She is so polite about it, waiting for me to load the pill shooter. It is usually meal time right afterwards so that helps. 

Kammie continues to enjoy her days. You can read her intake story into Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue in one of the November posts on this blog. She loves to spend time outside with the other dogs. She lines up to go out with all the others and barks her fool head off. It’s a great thing to witness. We are glad that she has the spunk to do it. (Kammie has tumors in her bladder but you would not guess.)

She joins the conga line of beggars in the kitchen when we chop vegetables. All of our dogs, with the exception of Baxter, love vegetables so we must always toss each of them a bite. Kammie is an excellent catcher! She lines up for the evening licking of the ice cream bowls, unless it is chocolate, in which all the dogs want to know why we are so cruel. In short, Kammie is enjoying life and we are enjoying her!

Lacey of The Silvery Paws 

This is Lacey of The Silvery Paws. She was dubbed with this name by one of my daughter’s friends from high school . The name fit her well. Lacey was given to me, at my request, by my sister-in-law and friend. I have had Lacey for about 16 years now.

We always thought that Lacey wasn’t  the world’s smartest cat, although maybe we were wrong. She did have a way of always getting what she wanted . She was the one who let us know if the food bowl or the water bowl were empty. And kept letting us know until they were full.

It didn’t matter if she wasn’t the world’s smartest cat because she was the world’s nicest cat. She loved everyone. Dogs, other cats, people . Above is a photo of her when she was only a couple of years old. She was hanging out with our greyhound Merlin, who joined our clan when he ran by our house one day as a stray.

Dogs were admittedly her favorite. Here she snoozes with our dog Baxter, who was dumped in our yard as a pup. See a pattern here?

But her very favorite were the foster dogs. She seemed to sense that they needed the extra comfort and affection. And here she is sleeping under the Christmas tree with our foster dog Maizie a few years ago. Lacey dearly loved Maizie. Even more than all the others. Lacey could be found sleeping by Maizie ‘ s side no matter where she was. She would snuggle right up next to her. 

Maizie died a couple years ago. She was in renal failure when she was pulled from the shelter. So she lived her last 18 months here with us. I’m sure Lacey was grateful for this.

Lacey died this morning. She gave the good fight but after battling cancer and infection for a year and a half, her time had come. I buried her earlier today with Maizie ‘ s ashes. It seems fitting that they are together again.

 

Cassius-Three Months In

Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

Dog, Greyhound, Cassius

We have had Cassius for almost three months now. He’s come a long way since he’s come off the racetrack. For the most part he’s a good dog. He certainly does try.  It’s just that he finds our ways to be confusing sometimes.

For instance, what’s with this waiting for food thing? We feed twice a day. Around 9:00 am and again at 6:00 pm. For about two hours before each feeding he is an excellent herder. When we get in the vicinity of the food can (a 32 gallon plastic garbage can with lid, our house was built in 1830, read-keeps mice out!) he tries his best to herd us in the direction of the can. And he herds us better than any of our shelties do. Of course the shelties are not into herding their pack leaders. Much. Cassius is a large dog, around 70 lbs., so he is pretty effective. You have to push him out of the way to walk any where else. We won’t give in to him because we are afraid that he will want fed earlier and earlier and who knows maybe even more often.

Most of his mishaps do seem to center around food. At first his food drive was so intense that it was scary. I discovered that he had a tape worm and after I treated that his food driven lessened to a more bearable level. Woe to anyone who leaves any form of food substances within reach though. This includes the kitchen counter. One week we were on our third loaf of bread because Cassius took up counter surfing. We discovered on the second loaf that he would even reach all the way to the very back of the counter. Another week we lost a three pound bag of apples from the kitchen counter. He took the apples, still in the bag, removed them from the bag, and rather than eating one, took a bite out of each apple. This reminds me of a story of my daughter when she was a wee tot. Dogs and kids can have a lot in common.

But we can’t complain too much about Cassius. He is a dog with an excellent and very tolerant temperament. He never snaps or growls at the other dogs. Even when they are chasing after toys or running over him. He is very accommodating with the cats as well. One time our old, senile cat Lacey fell off the arm of the couch and landed on Cassius while he was sleeping. He did wake up with a growl, but once he recognized Lacey, he put his head back down and went to sleep. We think he is great, and we are never biased!

Now, rest assured that when no humans are home, Cassius does stay in a crate. This is as much to keep him out of trouble with food and safe from other harm, as it is to make sure there is never an incident with the cats. Cassius may one day earn his freedom while we are away, but not any time soon.

Friendship 

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, Thoughts On Life

This is how happy I am after hanging out with friends at our Sheltie Rescue meeting today. They are some of the kindest, most big hearted people I know.

Over the years we have learned that we have many things in common, even outside of the dog world, which is what brought us together in the first place. We share many similar interests; hiking, cooking, gardening, crafts, and a minutiae of trivia that keeps our minds busy.

We even care about each other’s families. One of my dear “sheltie friends” asked to put my mother-in-law on her church prayer list. 

And of course this love and caring extends to each other’s pets. How could it not? This was the nucleus of what brought us together. At the illness or passing of a dear family member of the furry persuasion, the condolences start pouring in, be it kind words, cards, notes, emails, the support is there. When someone has a loss, we all grieve.

But mostly the times are happy and we share love and interests of life.  What a blessing to have friends like these ! 

Kammie Comes Home

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

This is our foster girl Kammie the sheltie. She came to us in April. She ended up at a local shelter because her owner had died. A volunteer there took pity on her and took her home for a couple weeks because she was so sad and sickly, not adjusting to kennel life well. After a couple weeks on antibiotics for possible kennel cough, she was transferred to us at Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue. A wonderful volunteer transported her to me since she was coming from a fair distance away.

Kammie is an easy dog to have around. She is 8 years old and quiet most of the time. She spends the majority of her time indoors curled up in a corner sleeping. She loves to spend time outside with our other dogs. She takes delight in barking at the others and playing referee during games of frisbee.

You may wonder why this beautiful girl is still here. First she needed more antibiotics for a respiratory problem, a possible relapse of the kennel cough. At the time Kammie arrived at the shelter, she weighed 59 lbs. She should probably weigh about 35 lbs. By the time we got her, she was down to 54 lbs. Now  she weighs in at 42 lbs! Yay Kammie! She was diagnosed with low thyroid. She receives pills for this twice a day, hence her new svelte shape . 

It was then discovered that Kammie had a bladder infection. She received antibiotics for this, to no avail. We tried a different antibiotic. Still no luck. At this point a culture was grown to see what antibiotic would work. There was only one oral kind that would work. After all of this, the poor girl still had blood in her urine. At this point the vet requested an ultrasound to look for another cause of these urinary troubles. It turns out that  Kammie has 3 tumors in her bladder. Two look to be malignant and the other is likely benign. So poor Kammie has terminal bladder cancer. She was not eating as well anymore and not as active.

She now takes a medicine made for humans that is an analgesic and has the side effect of slowing tumor growth. She was not eating as well and was more lethargic.  She has definitely perked up since she has been on this medication. She eats all her food again and is back to rowdy playing . 

The vet diagnosed her with a probable 3 to 6 more months. Kammie will live out the rest of her life with us and as a ward of NEOSSR. Even if we found someone who was willing to adopt her, we don’t think it would be fair for her to have to transition to another home at this late stage of her life. So this is Kammie’s last stop. She is home.

Good News for Nikki 

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

It turned out to be a good day for Nikki one day a couple of weeks ago .  I should say it turned out to be a good day for me. 

I thought Nikki was 11 years old now . She  is a failed foster. She  was  a foster dog but we decided to adopt her. I was going through my dog health records file and found Nikki ‘ s intake information from when she came into rescue. It turns out that she is only 9 years old! We get so many dogs into our rescue ,  at last count we have fostered over 45 just at our house,  I must have gotten her age confused with one of the other dogs .  She is one of the few dogs that we did get records with so we do know her age.

Just like Christmas ! We will get more years with Nikki than we thought ! 

Cassius, Day 24

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

Dog, Greyhound, Cassius

Twenty four days in and I can’t imagine how we ever lived without this boy. He has added a tremendous amount of life back into our home.

He continues to learn our ways quickly.  He has progressed from “you have food, I will eat it”, to “maybe I can take this while they aren’t looking”.

It didn’t take long for him to discover the comforts of couches and chairs. Now we are working on “move over”.

Cassius is the goofiest dog we have ever had by far. If that big dopey grin doesn’t put a smile on your face, there’s no hope for you.

We are in love!

Greyhound, Dog, Cassius

Fun Times

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

Day 7 of our life with Cassius. 

This is the face of a dog that just tried to pick up the TV remote. 

This is particularly funny because our last greyhound ate two TV remotes in her early days. This resulted in dog piles with numbers sticking out of them. 

We have been fortunate that our dogs always seem to have the constitution of goats. Putting remotes up now.

“I Try to Be Good! “

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

Day 3. “I try to be good.”

Cassius was fascinated by the cat running through the living room this morning. He never touched the cat and I was there in seconds. He seemed surprised. “Oh, you want to chase the cat too? What? Oh, I’m not supposed to chase the cat? You guys are weird.”

So on went the muzzle until he was suitably calm. We had one more time where he got up from his bed to look at a cat. I told him no and said “no cats”. He looked at me in puzzlement and laid back down. There were several more instances where he looked at the cats as they went through the room. I calmly told him no cats and as he continued laying on the bed told him “good no cats”. He still thinks I’m weird but I could see the process of working things out in his head. I’m glad I the day off from work so we can start dealing with these things now.

Never fear. Cassius will not be unsupervised with cats anytime soon. If we must step outside or go in the basement he will wear a muzzle if no one else is home. And he will definitely be crated when we go away for the forsee able future.