Animal Rescue

As we prepared to take our dogs for a walk this evening, we found this guy in our yard. He has a collar, but no tags. We’ve put his photo up on Pets911.com, and he’ll spend the night here and get a pound pickup tomorrow. UPDATE (February 7, 2009): This black lab (mix?) isn’t happy-go-lucky like our first stray of the year–he was quite fearful, but did relax a bit when we got him on leash. He was interested in our dog Fred, which we used to catch him. Once on leash and after receiving some attention, he warmed up, and he would then come back after being let off leash. He was terrified to come in the house, and didn’t seem to want to walk on the wood floor of the kitchen, but we did eventually get him into the spare bedroom, where I stayed with him overnight. He ended up sleeping peacefully at the foot of the bed. This morning, I had the same challenge getting him out of the bedroom that I had getting in–so I ended up letting him straight out to the side patio, and he’s now back out in the front yard. UPDATE: The same animal control officer who picked up our first stray just picked up this dog, and gave us some good news–the first stray we turned in was successfully adopted, and is now named Truman! UPDATE: We got our first call today about our Pets911.com listing for the above dog, which includes a photo and a description. The call went like this: ME: Hello? CALLER: Uh. Did you find a lost dog? ME: Yes, we did. CALLER: What did it look like? ME: It’s a black lab mix, young … CALLER: Oh, that can’t be our dog. Our dog is white.Every phone call save one that we’ve received as a result of our found dog notices online has been from someone whose dog could not possibly have been confused with the dog in the description. (The one exception was one where the dog was returned to his rightful owner.) By contrast, when we’ve put up posters there’s been no similar mistake. I suspect the Internet information is being passed on to the callers by friends or family, but apparently people who look at lost dog information on the Internet do not know how to communicate basic information about color or breed. Or perhaps this caller has a computer infected by a virus that replaces all images with photographic negatives? ...

We found this dog at Circle K Park while walking our dogs. He is a friendly pit bull mixed with something big and shaggy (perhaps Bernese Mountain Dog), with a partly brindle coat. He was easy to capture on leash–he came right up to Kat. We brought him home and he eagerly drank a full bowl of water and some food. He raced around our front yard and chased a ball and brought it back. He’s just a puppy with perfect teeth and bad habits of jumping up and being overly excited. We put his picture on Pets911 and took him by the house of a neighbor who said he lost a brindle-coated pit bull a few months ago that had been seen in the vicinity of the park. We had trouble coaxing him into the car, but eventually he crawled in on his own accord. Unfortunately, the man’s wife said this wasn’t their dog He seemed to have some kind of allergy, as he had red around his eyes and his gums were bright red, so we gave him a Benadryl. I spent the night with him in our spare bedroom, and he couldn’t seem to sit still or stop breathing hard (or stop wanting attention) until the Benadryl kicked in, and he had a couple of decently long periods of sleep and rest. When he got up this morning, his eyes and gums looked much better, and he again enjoyed racing around the front yard and playing fetch. Animal Care and Control picked him up just a few minutes ago, and he was shaking in the kennel on the truck. I don’t think he’s one who is going to do well in a kennel situation. We got his case number, in case someone calls us as a result of the Pets911 ad, but unfortunately, that rarely happens. UPDATE (February 7, 2009): When the animal control officer picked up our second stray of 2009, he let us know that this good boy was quickly adopted, and is now known as Truman. Congratulations, Truman! ...

This Sunday, January 25th is the first annual Petwalk. Fred and I are participating and need your help in the form of a donation. Sure the economy looks bad right now, but if you can spare just $5 for a great cause, I’d really appreciate it. To learn more, please visit my donation page.

I am once again asking for donations. I will be walking January 25, 2009 in the 1st annual PetSmart PetWalk to help raise funds for R.E.S.C.U.E. Please visit my donations page and help out if you can, as always, donations are tax deductible.

Last night Otto was barking at something while inside the house. This isn’t unusual, but what was unusual was that he didn’t run out into the backyard to bark. I was trying to get to sleep early in order to deal with 4 a.m. irrigation, and he came upstairs and continued to bark. Kat went outside to see if there was an animal outside (such as a cat that spends a lot of time in our front yard), and heard a dog barking nearby that was too close to be one of the neighbor dogs. She got a flashlight and went out to find a dog trapped in the Highline Canal, struggling to get out, but the sides were too steep. The dog’s front paws were bloody from the effort. She managed to get a leash around its neck to try to pull him out, but he resisted. She called the Arizona Humane Society to get someone to come take him (and help get him out if we were unable to manage it)–since he’s an injured dog, this was a case they are permitted to deal with. (If a stray dog is over 6 months old and uninjured, Maricopa County Animal Care & Control is the only entity legally permitted to take them.) I went and got a ladder and put it into the water to see if he could use it to pull himself up, but he just used it to hold himself in place. When the Arizona Humane Society arrived, they had a dog snare which, combined with the leash, we were able to use to pull the dog to safety. He was dried off and willingly jumped into the kennel on the truck. The dog had a collar, but no tags. Kat will be putting his photo up on Pets911 this morning. Thanks to Otto’s barking, this dog avoided the fate of another whose skeleton was pulled out of the canal by our house, in the same location, earlier this year. ...

Yesterday we participated in the 6th Annual PACC911 Bowl-a-Rama on Arizona RESCUE’s dog team. I bowled in the cat team’s lane and brought down their average score, helping the dog team to another win–apparently Nintendo Wii bowling doesn’t help train for the real thing. The event had a morning and afternoon session; RESCUE was in the morning session from 10-12:30. RESCUE came in second place for “loudest cheer,” which added another $50 There were about 60 groups participating in the morning session which raised a total of about $122,000–of which RESCUE alone raised $42,000! Thanks to everyone who supported our efforts and to Lisa and Einzige for coming out to the event to cheer us on! ...

There’s a saying in the non-profit world that people don’t donate to organizations, they donate to the individuals that represent them. Let me introduce you to two wonderful representatives of RESCUE: Otto was saved from the euthanasia list in December 2001. Fred was saved in August 2002. ...

Fox 10 News in Phoenix did a story last night on how the mortgage crisis is resulting in more animals being turned in to the pound, and more animals being euthanized. The story featured Lisa Thomas from RESCUE, the organization we volunteer with, as well as the Corgi mix named Rascal (pictured) who we’ve taken out on weekends a few times. Check it out, and please consider donating to RESCUE’s Bowl-a-Rama event. (Put Kat’s or my name in for the bowler to encourage, and The Lippard Blog as the referrer.)

RESCUE’s Bowl-a-Rama fundraising event is here again, and Kat and I will both be bowling for the “Leader of the Pack” team of volunteers who work with dogs. There’s a competing “Rockin Bowlin Felines” team of volunteers who work with cats. Our goal is to raise $3,000 between us for RESCUE, of which we’ve so far raised $220. RESCUE is a group we’ve volunteered with since January 2002, which rescues dogs and cats from the euthanasia lists at the Maricopa County pound. It operates its own cat shelter, while dogs are kept in foster homes and boarded at Dog Days in Tempe, a boarding and doggie day care facility that has been a valued partner of RESCUE. Two of our three dogs, Fred and Otto, were rescued from euthanasia by RESCUE. Every donation helps save dogs and cats from unnecessary euthanasia–if you can give even $5, it will be greatly appreciated. You can make donations through RESCUE’s website, here. Specify “Leader of the Pack” as the team, and put Kat’s or my name under “Encourage Your Bowler” or “Referrer." The actual bowling will occur on August 2, 2008 at AMF Shea Village Lanes. In past years there have been more than 60 organizations participating, so the bowling gets divided into morning and evening shifts and the place gets packed.

At RESCUE’s 8th annual “Beauty to the RESCUE” fundraiser at the Mane Attraction on March 9, local artist Susan Barken spotted our dog Otto (a rescue dog himself) and thought he’d make a good subject for one of her paintings. Here are a couple of the photos she took of him on March 16. Susan donated a dog painting for RESCUE’s silent auction at the fundraiser. (UPDATE: here’s the painting.)