Archive for the ‘general info’ Category
A different sort of post
Many of you may have noticed a distinct lack of content here on CanineFostering.com of late. Thank goodness for the updates that some of the foster families have sent in!! We are still open for another mama dog and Michelle from H.E.L.P. assures me that a dog will turn up. In the meantime, I’ve been busy launching another site. Some of the readers of Canine Fostering may know that Mike and I have been kicking around the idea of adoption for awhile now. Well, we’ve finally decided to start the process and we’re recording the “journey” on a blog. I’d love for you to visit http://buildingourfamily.com if you’re so inclined. I will be trying hard to post daily so it will be more fun to check in on than Canine Fostering has been. (It is difficult to find things to write about dogs when there aren’t any fosters around…).
We have been busy though, babysitting some of our puppies while their families are on vacations. We’re loving offering this service to our fosters and it does give us the fun of having a “new” dog in the house. I’ll be sure to let you all know when we get a new family lined up.
Iams promotion placed over 1 million pets
For the past ten years, the Iams Home 4 The Holidays campaign has run an annual promotion to place adoptable pets with new families. We recevied word today that they have surpassed the one million adoption mark for this season! The graphic below illustrates an updated count of adoptions via IH4TH. Their goal is to place 1.5 million pets in homes this season so they still need help. If you cannot adopt, you can support through volunteering or donating – info found at the Iams Home 4 The Holidays website.
ADOPTION FACTS
- As many as 8 million animals are homeless in the U.S.
- Nearly 4 million orphaned dogs and cats will be euthanized this year due to shelter over-crowding and lack of awareness about the importance of pet adoption.
- More than 25 percent of all dogs in shelters are purebreds.
- IH4TH helped 1,202,751 pets find homes last year alone.
- In Oct. 2008 Hilary Swank adopted Rumi through IH4TH at a Los Angeles shelter.
Over the past decade more than 3 million pets –1,638,515 dogs, 1,505,690 cats and 134,062 “other” animals – have been adopted through IH4TH.
900 Greyhounds need homes
Dairyland Greyhound Racetrack in Kenosha, Wisconsin will be closing on December 31, 2009.
Dairyland Greyhound Racetrack in Kenosha, Wisconsin will be closing on December 31, 2009.
900 Greyhounds will need to be adopted otherwise they will be euthanized, now is a great time to consider adopting a Greyhound. They are very loving and laid back. They don’t need the space people think they need. They are great for an active family because they have been crated almost all their lives and they sleep about 18 out of the 24 hours a day. They are just looking for someone to love them and supply them with a warm bed!!!!They test the dogs to see if they are cat friendly and or small dog friendly. They also know if a dog should be a single dog or if they would be great in a 2, 3, or 4 dog house!!!
Please help me get the word out; we only have 6 weeks to get this task done!!
Margie Polk,
Production Coordinator
Medline Industries, Inc.
(847)775-6057
(847)775-6061 fax
Dog Summit – Chloe’s Family Reunion
Chloe & pups, May 2009
On Sunday, Nov. 8 we have a first for CanineFostering planned: A family reunion of all of Chloe’s puppies with Chloe in attendance as well. We are all so excited! It is amazing that this group has come together and stayed in contact. It makes so much sense though – new familes of puppies need support and benefit from a place to exchange training ideas. All it took was one of the group to extend the offer of setting up an email list and everyone jumped on board. Now we’ll be able to see how much everyone has grown and see if Chloe even remembers any of them! I am so happy to be anticipating this. Pictures and movies will follow.
Take Your Dog With You
If you want to teach your dogs to work with you and to trust you, bring them out into the world with you whenever you can. Avoid the mind set that makes you do all your errands alone while your dog sits at home. Bring her along and always maintain the leadership position in those outings. Do not let your dog haul you around by the leash, do what it takes to keep you both working as a team. At first this will usually require one of two things: 1) immense strength and patience or 2) a good training collar or harness. I’ve talked about harnesses I love in a previous post as well as the prong collar, both useful tools. But the ‘where of walking’ is what I want to cover here.
Take your dogs wherever you can think of taking them. Ask before entering a store you aren’t sure they allow dogs, and most people will say “ok” and let you in if you seem confident. If you aren’t that sort of person, call ahead first. Here in the Fox Valley, IL area we have a great opportunity for many on leash experiences in the Geneva Commons.
Their website indicates which stores allow leashed dogs. If dogs are welcome you can bring yours! Then you have to make sure you take charge of the situation. Walk your dog outside a bit to burn off some energy and get them emptied out (how embarrassing to potty in Victoria’s Secret!!) Make sure you enter the establishment first, your dog following you. Have your dog “sit” and “wait” if they are trying to rush you into the store. If you enter in a controlled fashion you are communicating to your dog that you are in charge. Once inside, you decide what you look at and where you go. If someone wants to pet your dog, ask them to wait until your dog is under control and take as much time as you need to get your dog seated and calm. Then let them approach. Done correctly, these sorts of outings are a great way to put the basics of obedience training into a package of usable manners. And it’s a great way to get some holiday shopping done too!
Dog friendly cabins in Wisconsin
Juno’s mom, the one who took that great picture of Juno touching noses with the deer, is willing to share other photos she has taken! You can see them at her Picasa photo page.
Also, she wrote this about the place where she and Juno met the deer:
“If others would like to take their dogs up to the place with the deer, I’m more than happy to share that information. It is a property in Wisconsin, near Princeton, on lots of acres with groomed trails. Most importantly, it is a very dog-friendly place, and your dogs are welcome inside the cabins. They also have outside kennels attached to all three cabins to use when the weather is nicer. Our old dog loved it there, and so did Juno. The owners are Chicago transplants, and they bring along their weimeraner pup (same age as Willow’s litter) with them when they check on visitors. Check out the Copper Pond Lodge in central Wisconsin!
Isn’t that cool? I checked out the website and it looks great. We will likely make reservations for there for next summer. Thanks Sandra!
Lesson learned on treating for ticks
Well, I am happy to report that I am not too old to learn a new lesson now and then. This particular lesson involves ticks. I was feeling superior to ticks, having not seen one attached to any of my dogs for years now. Regular use of Frontline Plus completely removed this pest from my life. So I decided to stop the Frontline Plus earlier than usual this year. It had been a cold summer and even though I had been told by many sources that it was a heavy flea and tick year, I had trouble believing it…I hadn’t seen any. We’d had a slight frost so I figured, season’s over, save a month of treatment this year. WELL, bad idea.
Two days ago, I found a tick full of blood on Bella. I immediately treated my three dogs who roam outside on our 3 acres. But I didn’t treat Brandy….she is 15 and only goes out for walkies and to potty. Yesterday there was one on her. Mike pulled that one off and treated her. Then today I pulled 8 more ticks off of Bella, they had implanted themselves already, and two off Hermes. I’m afraid to check Lollie but I will. Yuck. The ones I got today seemed unwell, so the medicine is working. I’m sure we’ll be all clear again by next week but YUCK! I hate ticks.
Moral of this story: Don’t stop your flea and tick preventative until there is a HARD frost, and for myself, I’m waiting for two hard frosts – just to be sure!
Nail Trims and Grooming
How many of you out there regularly brush and bathe your dogs? How many out there trim your own dogs’ nails? How many of you out there brush your dogs’ teeth? My guess is that the numbers decreased with each question. Most of us understand that bathing and brushing come with owning a dog. And for many of us, these tasks are an enjoyable part of interacting with our dogs. Some of us, for many reasons, choose to have our dogs professionally groomed. But all of us expect that there is some “maintenance” required in owning a dog.
However, many of us forget about the rest of the animal. I have seen many dogs with extremely long toe nails, some so long that the foot is being deformed and the dog is clearly uncomfortable walking as a result! These dogs are usually loved and cared for but their owners, for whatever reason, have neglected this part of their anatomy. Nail trimming IS often difficult. Most dogs dislike having their feet handled and if a dog hasn’t been given regular nail trims from puppyhood, they can resist nail trims with a nearly violent reaction.
Lollie after a nail trim
My own dog, Lollie, hated nail trims. I tried to give them to her as a puppy but she struggled so much she often got out of our hold. Once she learned that she could escape by fierce struggling, she struggled all the harder with each attempt. Add to this my fear of her reaction and we had a horrible situation on our hands. It got to the point that at one attempt I was certain she was going to bite me. I stopped trimming her nails and took her to the vet. There she was muzzled and put on her side and struggled so much that the vet assistant, who was restraining her, ended up with multiple scratches and the vet’s glasses were flung across the room (her flailing foot caught the stem of them and off they went, into the air). I realized that we were in for a lifetime of panic and unnecessary drama unless something radically changed.
