Animal Fostering for Military Personnel

Posted on: August 14, 2019 by: DougB

^{Originally published Dec. 12, 2016}
Our military members have a tough enough job to do in keeping this nation safe from enemy threats without having added burdens of having to give up their companion animals each time they are temporarily deployed. For you see, not all military personnel are constantly on the move; many are stationed at a base and only rarely sent away on TDY (Temporary DutY), so these people get to enjoy much the same life civilians do, including having pets. When duty does call them away, and if they are single, they must either find a reliable caretaker for their furkid – or give them up permanently.

Providing foster care for a military member’s beloved pet can relieve a great strain on them and offer support while they are off serving our nation.

Tails of Woe

Posted on: August 12, 2019 by: DougB

^{Originally published: April 6th, 2017}

I’ve been working at the Humane Society in a neighboring county for about a month and a half. It’s hard work in a couple of ways. A large part of what I do is cleaning up after the animals. There is a lot of work to do and it has to be done before they open to the public, so it is fast paced work as well. It’s physically demanding and I come home tired.

It is also psychologically hard. I like working with the animals. I know I should not get attached because most of them will not be there long: they’ll be adopted or sent out on rescue. Keeping them around a long time is actually bad because this is (of necessity) a kill shelter, although they work hard to keep euthanasia to a bare minimum.

When I started working there, there was a little pit bull named “Freddie”. He was bright, and friendly, and even as a new employee he never objected to my coming into his pen to clean or work with him. He was obviously a favorite with all the staff. Everyone loved Freddie. He looked a bit like Gator, one of my foster dogs at the time.

We put Freddie down last week.

The Nose Knows Fear and Stress

Posted on: August 7, 2019 by: DougB

^{Originally published Feb 8, 2017}

Below is an excerpt from an article by Jaymi Heimbuch on Mother Nature Network. In it Ms. Heimbuch discusses how the sensitivity of canine noses is being used to screen human patients for a variety of medical problems including cancer, hypoglycemia, narcolepsy, seizure, and others. Today we want to focus on the part that discusses how service dogs are used in preventing P.T.S.D. attacks by sensing building fear and stress levels.

Play Yard Fence Project

Posted on: August 6, 2019 by: DougB

^{Originally Published Sept. 27th, 2014}

Piney Mountain Foster Care is a fancy name that Marie and I have adopted for the efforts we make to help save dogs. All of our funding has come from our own pockets. The shelter or rescue the dog comes from provides needed medications, we buy the pens, dog houses, crates, bedding, dishes, treats, and toys. We also erected fencing to provide a contained space for training and play.

The Current Play Yard

Our current foster play yard is the space that also serves as the driveway to my workshop loading dock and lumber yard. It serves the purpose of giving the foster dogs some space to run and play. A place to work at training that cannot be done in their 10 x 10 pens. We installed Critter Fence along The Ridge to keep them in this space and that serves the purpose – as long as they’re not too determined in finding a way out. It can be thwarted! I amended the original wooden fence and gate across the driveway to give it enough height to keep the leaper/climbers in.

There is some grass, but it’s mostly gravel and slope. They don’t seem to mind: they’re just happy to get out of their pens and run a bit. A 10×10 covered pen with a dog house is better than they’re used to, but even that gets confining if you have to stay there.

It does get mucky out here when it rains, so I built a boardwalk to keep all of us out of the muddiest part.

Currently we have two pens. As I sell off the lumber piles, we’d like to add more pens, but that would eat into the play space. So we have a plan…

The How and Why of Pet Microchips and Registration

Posted on: August 5, 2019 by: DougB

I’ve been talking to someone about the microchip in her cat. It came up that she’s never registered the chip. I explained that if she doesn’t register it, then if her cat ever gets out and makes its way to a veterinarian or shelter that scans and finds the chip, just having the chip in there will not help them get her beloved cat back to her. Each pet microchip contains a unique registration number that needs to be listed in the pet microchip distributor’s registry. But the pet owner is the one responsible for registering their pet.

Top 5 reasons to microchip your pet

Microchipping is the only permanent method of pet identification
Microchipping lasts for the lifetime of your pet (around 25 years)
Microchipping is a quick and almost painless procedure, like a vaccination
Microchipping is the best chance of your pet returning to you if stolen
Microchipping is recommended by the AAHA, ASPCA, AVMA, SAWA, and the Humane Society

What is a microchip?

Speak! Do Dogs Talk? Understanding Dog-speak

Posted on: August 3, 2019 by: DougB

_{Originally published Feb. 14, 2017}

When us dogs talk, most of what we say is not said vocally. Some of what we say comes through body language: the position of our head and body, how we hold our ears, the shape of our eyes, things like that. But some of us are quite expressive vocally as well, even when it comes to communicating with peoples. Many peoples don’t understand the unvocalized parts of our communications, so we have to use what they do understand to convey our desires and affections.

Buster is a funny little guy. While he was here, he didn’t bark much, but if he was lonely he’d do whale song to get our attention. When he was joyful, he’d get happy feet. He is just full of personality.

Others were not so conversational, but had their own distinctive style of verbal expression. King among these had to be Malachi. He had a unique bark that led HairyFace to poke fun at him with this video:

Sneaky Ways to Medicate Your Dog

Posted on: August 2, 2019 by: DougB

_{Originally published March 23, 2018}

If you provide care to a canine, you know there are times when you must medicate your dog . Some medications: like their heartworm prevention tabs, are flavored so most dogs will gulp them down like a treat. But when you have to get them to take a pill, that can be harder. Fortunately, most of us are smarter (or sneakier) than most of them.

Small Pills

Small pills like Diphenhydramine and Prednisone can be hidden pretty easily in a glob of peanut butter, cheese, or pumpkin puree. I can put a pill or two in a half-teaspoon of peanut butter and drop it on top of their kibbles and the dog will usually scarf it down without ever knowing.

If the dog is the suspicious type and will “search” the glob of peanut butter for alien objects, roll the glob in their kibbles. The kibbles sticking to the glob make it harder to detect your deception.

Worming Large Dogs At Low Cost

Posted on: August 1, 2019 by: DougB Comments: 2 Comments

_{Originally published Dec. 12, 2017}

One of my Fosters, Ricky, has been producing bloody diarrhea since Thursday. I took him to the vet today. It was complicated, but the simple version is he has Hookworms. He’s now on an antidiarrheal, antibiotics, and a wormer. And because hookworms are quite contagious, I’ll be worming ALL seven of the dogs for the next three days just to be safe. There are two standard medications for this: Panacur and Safe-guard.

Panacur comes as a liquid (suspension) or pills. A liter of Panacur liquid costs around $130.00 and is available only through vet supply outlets. I have also used Panacur paste for equines, but this is difficult to get the proper dose measured out for dogs. The dispenser is graduated in increments of 250 pounds up to 1000 pounds. Setting up the dispenser for an 80 pound dog is educated-guesswork. A 30 pound dog is hopeless.

The pills in boxes of three and in sizes for 10 pounds, 20 pounds, and 40 pounds. If your dog is bigger than 40 pounds, you combine boxes to get close to the right weight. Most places that sell pet medications have the pills and they run $7.00 to $15.00 per box. I figured I’d need 16 boxes to give seven dogs of various sizes three doses each.