Surf's Up In South Dakota

I went to South Dakota for two weeks with Best Friends Emergency Response team to help out at a temporary animal shelter. The shelter was created to serve those people and pets who were displaced by the flooding Missouri River in Pierre. If you click on the above image to enlarge it, near the center of the photo, you will see a small building . . . it is not supposed to be in the water, however the surface of the river is only a few feet from the roof. The trees on the far side of the river are about where the water's edge should be.

We were primarily there to serve personal pets who needed a place to stay while their people worked on relocating or drying out their houses. A few animals were surrendered to us and a few strays were brought in as well, but the majority of the animals went back home with their people. I was in the third team to go out for a two week deployment and we ended up closing the shelter at the end of our time there. I will write more later about the day-to-day stuff and the animals later, but I wanted to share these photos and a little information about why we needed to be there tonight. The river was so high in Pierre that the Army Corps of Engineers had to open the "Tubes" to drain water from above the dam down river so that it wouldn't flood over the dam. Several times since the tubes were opened back in late May, whirlpool were created above the dam and the tubes had to be closed a bit so that less water was flowing through them. According to our tour guide, who also happened to be the Incident Commander and a South Dakota local, the tubes were transferring 160,000 cubic feet of water per second! To give you an idea of what that means, according to Kurt, that rate of water flow would fill the Invesco Field, where the Denver Broncos play football, in approximately 1.4 seconds!!

Each of the tubes was about 15 feet in diameter, I think. Kurt said after they were opened, they had to be closed back down again temporarily because they hadn't been used before and there was a lot of muck and debris (like whole trees!) that they needed to clear out so the water would flow better. The rumble and vibration was incredible. As you can imagine, water flowing at this rate has a lot of power. The river bank used to come straight out from the end of the walkway in this shot, the bank has eroded this much in five weeks! It was very humbling to see all the destruction one little river can cause. (All photos copyright Allison Martin.)

Guilty 'Til Proven Innocent

I try not to use my blog as a soap box too much, but it is my blog and I can do what I want, so I am dragging out the soap box today.
There is a documentary about breed discrimination and pit bull type dogs coming out this winter called "Guilty 'Til Proven Innocent". Breed discriminatory legislation makes my blood boil and the perception of pit bull type dogs that has been created by the media is completely inaccurate. The first trailer for the documentary has just been put up on Youtube and they have a Facebook page for the film as well. Their goal is to get a million views on Youtube and a million likes on Facebook. Since I don't have a Facebook account, I decided to do my part here. If you are so inclined to view and/or like, here are the links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFluwBz9ICo - The trailer is very graphic in the first 30 seconds but the remaining three minutes are very interesting.
http://www.facebook.com/GuiltyTilProvenInnocent - There are some rather stupid comments from some of the more rabid, militant type animal activists, don't hold them against the film.
Okay, I am done with the soap box, thank you for your patience.
Have a wonderful day!

Holy crap, a new post!!!!

I know it has been a while . . . sorry about that. Things all sort of blur from one day to the next and it doesn't seem like there is much interesting stuff to talk about. I kept meaning to post stuff, but it all seemed like more of the same stories over and over again and I just didn't feel like finding new ways of writing the same thing again. To cover the last six-plus months in a nutshell, I am still at the Garden. I have a new coworker named Deb and Jake is still there too. A lot of dogs have been adopted, some have been returned. The fall and winter have been very hard on DogTown, we have lost quite a few dogs and one dearly loved coworker. There are a lot of new faces in DogTown and several of the people I thought would be here forever have moved on to other things. It is weird to look around the staff room at meetings and realize how many people have come and gone in almost two and a half years. Day-to-day it seems like nothing ever changes around here but when I step back and look around, it seems like almost nothing is still the same.
So here is the promise I will make to whoever might still be checking this blog, I am not going to make any more promises to post blogs more regularly. I feel bad when I don't meet those promises, so, what I will do is tell you that when the mood strikes me or I have something interesting (for me) to write about, I will post. I have a few pretty exciting things coming up in the next few months, so hopefully - but no promises - I will have some inspiration to write.
It is in this spirit that I find myself writing today. As you might remember, last May a dog named Akila bloated and I was able to stay late and observe her surgery (it was only two posts ago). Not long after that evening, I asked about the possibility of spending a day observing in surgery. Immersion days are a perk of working at BF. If your managers will approve it, you may request to do an immersion day in pretty much any department at the sanctuary that interests you. It is a paid working day but instead of doing your regular job, you get to go see what it is like to do somebody else's job. It is especially nice for the people with office jobs that might not get to spend a lot of time with the animals. In DogTown, our managers encourage us to try and take immersion days occasionally. When they started talking about it, I immediately asked if I could spend a day in surgery. Construction on a clinic expansion was just beginning, so they weren't able to schedule it until this week. When they told me I was finally going to be able to do it, I had almost forgotten about it.
On Wednesday, I spent the entire day in the clinic observing surgeries and helping to prep and recover surgery patients. In the morning, they did two spays and five neuters on dogs and then after lunch they amputated a feral cat's front right leg.
The spays and neuters were very interesting. One of the dogs had some kind of infection in her uterus, so after it was removed we took some samples from it to make sure it wasn't anything serious. I won't get too graphic here, but let me just say it was very cool and very gross all at the same time! Two of the neuters were "crypt orchids" meaning that one or two of their testicles had not descended. One was a double crypt orchid, his testicles were basically where they were supposed to be except they hadn't ever dropped. The other one had one testicle that had descended and one that had actually migrated up into his abdominal cavity so the vet student doing his surgery had to look around for it a little bit. She had a lot of guidance from the vet, so she was able to find the testicle very quickly and the surgery went quite well.
The feral cat had injured his leg and it couldn't be saved (we do know what happened but it is rather graphic, so I will spare you the mental image). The amputation wasn't really that bad to watch, it was pretty cool actually. They did what is called a scapulectomy, meaning that they removed the entire leg including the scapula. This means they weren't doing any drilling or sawing of bones; they basically disarticulated the shoulder by cutting all the soft tissue that holds it in place. To be honest, the worst part for me was seeing the injury before they started the amputation, it had been a day or two since he was injured so the wound looked pretty nasty.
All in all, it was a very interesting day. The people with whom I worked were great and they really let me feel like I was part of the team for the day. I learned a lot and I would love to go back and do it again sometime.

Some Good Kids

Life continues marching onward at the Garden. There has been a lot of staff shuffling in DogTown over the last month or so and we lost Lupie to another area, so for the time being, it is just Jake and I at the Garden. We have some candidates coming out starting Monday to do their two week evaluations for several open caregiver positions, so hopefully we will have a third person in the next month or two. Before Lupie left us, I hijacked her camera for a night and downloaded some of the photos she has taken during her time at the Garden (and some that I took with her camera). Since I feel like everything is pretty redundant a lot of the time, I don't often get inspired to write much on the blog, hence the increasingly long spans between posts. So, today, I decided to do some photo posting!

This is Finn (and I). Finn will always hold a special place for me because I found him. One day around Easter as I was getting ready to leave for work his little head popped around the back bumper of my car and looked to me for some help. He had no collar and didn't look familiar but he was very friendly so I looped a leash around his neck and called animal control. (Side note: Just because I work at BF doesn't mean I can bring any dog or other animal I find up to the sanctuary. We have to call animal control and they do a five day hold and if they don't find the owner or the owner surrenders the animal, then often times they come up to BF, but we always have to follow that protocol.) While we waited for the animal control officer to come pick him up we sat in the driveway. After about 5 minutes of him sitting at the end of the leash he looked over at me and I patted my leg and before I knew it he was sitting in my lap licking my face. Animal control was able to find his family, but they didn't want him anymore, so a few days after finding him, I ran into him in Old Admissions when I was dropping off a "pull dog" for the night. After he was neutered, he came to live at the Garden and we became instant buddies. He was a little crazy in the run, he would try to herd the dogs in the neighboring runs, so I started taking him to lunch in the staff room.

This is Finn after a half hour of fencing in the rain and snow. . . wouldn't you love to have that come running in your door! Another caregiver, Andy, has an Australian Shepherd and he immediately took a liking to Finn. He kept saying that he wanted to adopt him but he wasn't sure if he should or not. Finn had three different applications come in on him but for various reasons they all fell through. When I found out that the third application was a no-go, I told Andy to put in the papers and figure out the details later. The next day he put in his application and within a week, he took Finn home. I still get to see Finn occasionally when Andy brings him to work and he is doing great.

This is Jimmy. He is an amazing dog that I had been taking to lunch with me last fall because he would compulsively run a large circle in the outside part of his run. There was a very distinct track worn in the sand because he did it so much. While I was home for Christmas, he was adopted and went to his forever home. I had no idea there was even an application on him, so I got a phone call on Christmas day saying that Jimmy was leaving to go home and I about fell over. He is doing great in his home and has actually developed the ability to alert his mom when her blood sugar is getting too low. Shortly after he arrived, her husband was out of town and Jimmy's mom let her glucose level get too low and lost consciousness, Jimmy stayed with her pawing at her hands and face and licking her to get her to wake up. If he hadn't been there, she may have been unconscious for hours. On a few occasions since, Jimmy has started exhibiting behaviors that are abnormal for him, licking her hands and whining, and she will check her sugar and sure enough, each time he starts doing these specific things, her sugar has been low. We all knew he was an amazing dog when he was at BF and now he has a great life with people that love him dearly and he is taking good care of them, too.

I came in one morning to find this mess in run 5. About two minutes before this photo was taken, Buster Blue was just sitting at the gate looking all innocent, seemingly trying to say "I really have no idea how this possibly could have happened and I certainly had absolutely nothing to do with it!" But he couldn't contain himself for long and by the time we got back with the camera he was back to further dispersing the contents of what used to be a bed. Everyone has to have a little fun sometimes!

This is Pilot. He is a very cool and incredibly handsome Plott Hound that lived at the Garden for almost a year. He arrived at the Garden shortly after I did and he was repeatedly looked over for adoption because he could be quite strong, stubborn, and rambunctious. But he is also very sweet and loves to have his back end scratched.

He, too, got adopted while I was on vacation, this time in April. There were adopters coming out to meet Buster Blue and when they did the dog intros with their dogs, Buster was a little overwhelmed by their ten-month old puppy that had a boundless supply of energy. They got along fine, but after a while, Buster was jumping up on things to get away from Stains because he was still trying to play with Buster. The people were a little hesitant about Buster because they were worried that, since he had three legs, he might not be able to keep up with Stains energy level and they were really looking for a dog that could help burn off some of that puppy craziness on a daily basis. They saw Pilot while they were at the Garden meeting Buster before the intro and asked if it might be possible to do an intro with Pilot, just to see if he got along better with Stains. The intro was a 45-minute, no holds barred playfest and wrestling match. They didn't stop playing the entire time and everyone knew Pilot was the right dog for them. Lupie took this photo the day he left, since I wasn't there to say good bye in person. They renamed him Steak, apparently they have a thing for "S" names, they also have two ferrets name Split and Splat. He is doing great and he and Stains are always together and up to something. And don't worry about Buster, he got adopted about a month ago to a very nice couple that was looking for a dog that might be able to be a therapy dog. They are hoping that he might be a good candidate for therapy work in VA hospitals and with people that have had to have limbs amputated because he gets along just fine with only three legs.

Not Just Another Day . . .

Thanks for the good thoughts, Clair. They travel faster than your average mail, so they got here pretty quickly!
It was an interesting week this week. On Wednesday evening I was working until 6 pm and as I was just finishing things up around the Garden I heard a couple of the other caregivers on the 6 pm shift chattering on the radio. They were the two caregivers on either side of the Lodges and I was surprised to hear them because I was running a bit late and figured I was probably the last one around. One asked the other to please come to lodge 7 to look at a dog. A couple minutes later there was a call to see if anyone from the clinic was still around. Unfortunately the clinic staff usually goes home around 5 unless there is an emergency, so there was no answer. Then they asked if there was anyone left in DogTown. I answered that if they needed me to, I could try and reach the on-call vet, since there aren't phones in the individual lodges. They asked me to please call and then asked if I might be able to come look at the dog, Akila; they thought she might be bloating, but neither of them had seen a bloat before, and they wanted another set of hands and eyes. I drove up there and it seemed pretty clear to me, and them, that something wasn't right and based on how hard her stomach was, I agreed that it was probably a bloat.
The on-call vet said she would be right up and to meet her at the clinic. I drove Akila down to the clinic while her caregiver finished up the meds for the rest of the dogs. Once the vet and one of the techs got there, they confirmed that she was bloating and needed emergency surgery. However, they were having trouble reaching any of the other vet techs to assist with the surgery. So, Akila's caregiver and I were drafted into service to help with the little stuff during the surgery. While the tech prepared the surgery room for the procedure, we helped hold Akila so that the vet could place the catheters. Then, once she was sedated, we helped move her into surgery and while the tech was getting probes and nodes attached and the vet was scrubbing, they handed me the clippers and I shaved her abdomen for the procedure. By the time they were ready to start the procedure, another vet tech had arrived, so I just stood back and watched the surgery and fetched various tools and things when necessary.
Just before she stared cutting, the vet warned us to get out if we started feeling light headed, even a little bit, because a lot of people get a little woozy and think they can muscle through it and two seconds later they are on the floor and she didn't have time to be worrying about the people in the room, she had to focus on the dog. At that point it was about 6:45 and I hadn't eaten since noon and I was getting quite hungry so I was a little nervous that I might be the dork that passes out in surgery, but I didn't get woozy or nauseous once! Not when she pulled out chunks of fat and cut them out so that she could get to the abdominal cavity, not when the large intestines started pop out a little bit, or when she pulled the small intestine out to inspect it, not even when she pulled the entire spleen out of the body cavity to check for a pulse and inspect it - I did not pass out! I didn't even get nauseous when they were draining the contents of the stomach . . . I am pretty proud of myself here.
It was actually really interesting. I have been wanting to see a bloat surgery since I got here, but it isn't really something you can schedule, so when the opportunity presented itself, I ignored my hungry stomach and stayed to watch. As far as I know, Akila is doing well. She came through the surgery fine and did not have to have her spleen removed. When the vet initially pulled it out, it was the color of an eggplant (it should look about like a tongue) but by the time she was ready to close her up it was more of an Easter purple kind of color, heading back in the direction of pink. It was a good catch on Akila's caregiver's part, her only hint that something was wrong was that Akila wouldn't come to the fence for a meatball at the end of the day. It was a very cool learning experience and I am happy that Akila is okay. I am also very thankful to the vet for letting me observe the procedure, it was so interesting.

A Life Well Lived

Well, I have been putting this post off for a while now . . . for 40 days to be exact. On Saturday, April 10, 2010 at about 4:45 pm I said my final good-bye to Brenda. She was surrounded by people that love her and I miss her everyday. She lasted longer than any of our other dogs that had been diagnosed with lymphoma and it was a testament to her spirit that she held on, happily, for as long as she did. She was her same sweet and feisty self right up until the very end. I am grateful that we didn't have to watch her take a slow and painful decline until she was no longer the dog we knew and loved. We had lunch together on her last day and many others came from all over the sanctuary to see her smiling face one last time. It was the only time during her long fight that she really seemed like she was getting uncomfortable. When I took her out on Thursday, she was still spunky and curious; there had been more and more signs over the preceding weeks that we were probably getting close to the end, but it was all physical. There was never a change in her personality, she never stopped being happy to see her family of people and she definitely never stopped looking for a cookie! But, in spite of her great personality and drive to squeeze everything out of every moment, her body was no longer in the fight. She was a wonderful dog, sweet and funny with a personality that filled the room and a tongue always ready for a good, sloppy kiss. She seemed happy and, I suppose, that is all we can really hope for. (All photos copyright Allison Martin.)

Girl's Night

First of all, I suck at this. I am going to stop making passing promises of more posts later when I have more time and motivation. They will happen when they happen and we are all going to have to accept that.

Now to the post, back in January I took Brenda on a sleepover and while there were some hiccups in the experience, she had a great time. As it worked out, I ended up doing the sleepover during the worst winter storm of the season. I was staying in one of the BF Cottages because Brenda is not allowed to leave the property due to her bite history (she can go on car rides, but she isn't allowed out of the car off property). She appeared to have a magnificent time, she loved the couch and the beds and despite her weakening back end, she had quite a time launching herself on and off the furniture. There was a power outage, the TV didn't work, and there was no wireless or cell service, so I did a lot of reading. There was a land line but it had a cordless phone, so when the power went out in the middle of a conversation with my Mom, I decided I might as well head to bed . . . at 8:15. Brenda really enjoyed all the cuddle time and I am so glad she got to have a nice night out, I wish I could have enjoyed it a little more myself, but we had a nice time together. She slept next to me on the bed all night and wasn't very excited when I made her get out of the warm bed in the middle of the night to go potty - twice. Every time we would head back to bed, she would have to take a few minutes to rearrange the bedding exactly to her specifications. I had a great time with her, I wish she could be in a home for whatever time she has left. (All photos copyright Allison Martin.)

Birds

I have a few photos I wanted to share tonight. I will try and write up another post soon about my recent sleepover with Brenda and post some of the (many) photos I have taken when I am hanging out with her.


When I left my house the other day to go up and get Brenda for an outing, this little roadrunner was hanging out in the front yard. I went back inside because I forgot my camera and when I came back out he was wandering down the driveway.

Then it ran across the road (go figure) behind my car and into the yard across the street . . .

. . . where it proceeded to climb a tree, not very gracefully.

When I got up to the sanctuary, I took Brenda for a little drive down to Angel's Landing and we wandered around for a while and then just sat in the car and enjoyed the view and she got some good belly rubbin's. While we were in the car, this flock of turkeys made their way down from the canyon walls and started grazing on the horses' leftover hay. I don't know how many there were exactly, but I can count at least 16 in this photo. When I got out of the car, they all started nervously meandering back to the canyon wall. I am sure five minutes after we were gone they were right back to the buffet.

(Photos copyright Allison Martin.)

Moving

Well, a lot has changed since I last posted. I moved back in with my friend Carissa - in a different house where I have my own room. I have mixed feelings about it, I spent the last year living alone for the first time in my life and I really liked the freedom to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted without the concern of disturbing a roommate. However, with all the pet sitting I have been doing, at times if felt like I was paying $500 a month for an oversized storage unit and I almost felt guilty for taking up such a nice little house that somebody else could really use - especially in Kanab, land of overpriced, craphole rentals. So, I have bid farewell to the solo living thing for a while and am actually enjoying the company of a roommate, and her dogs. Since I last wrote (I know, bad blogger!), there have been a lot of adoptions from the Garden. While I was on vacation over Christmas, three dogs, including two of my favorites, were adopted. Bo Bo went home on Christmas Eve to a family here in Kanab, he was one of the Spindletop dogs that came to the Lodges last February (Sweet Freedom post) and then moved over to the Garden a few months ago, where he quickly became a favorite of visitors and myself. Jimmy went to his forever home on Christmas Day, he was a very special little guy to me; he had developed a tendency to run in a large circle at the back of his run, probably to deal with the stress of the shelter life. If made me so sad to watch him constantly circling in his run, so I decided to start taking him to the staff room with me for lunch every day. It was a good way for him to get out of his run for a while and be around people, which is all he ever wanted, I am so happy he is home, but since he left on Christmas Day, I didn't get to say good-bye. We also had a little three-legged cattle dog mix, Penny, that got adopted between Christmas and New Year's Day. And on top of all that, a dog that arrived at the Garden while I was gone, Yadon, was adopted the day I got back to work. I have been taking a new girl with me to lunch since I got back. Cassie is a very high energy dog and we are having a difficult time getting weight on her because she spends so much of her day running along a fence line. We have a new program at the sanctuary training dogs to be Search and Rescue dogs, there are a lot of guidelines that the dogs have to meet in order to be considered for the program and I think Cassie would be a great candidate, as do many of the other people that know her. She has an incredible toy drive and very high energy (evidenced by all the running), she is young and, other than being skinny, she is healthy. At this point, the only variable that we don't know about is her hips, which will need to be x-rayed before she can be admitted into the program. Originally, she wasn't going to be able to be in the program at this time because there were already two dogs in the program, but one of them isn't doing so well, so I got a call yesterday that the trainer running the program was going to come by the Garden today to assess Cassie as a potential candidate today. So I have my fingers crossed for her that her assessment went well today and her x-rays come out clear. She needs a job so badly and it makes me so sad to watch her running all day long.

I know this has been a weird, rambling kind of post, I will try to do better next time. I have Internet access at my house now, so I should be able to get more regular about posting in the future.

(All photo's copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)

Thirteen Months

Yes, as Clair so astutely observed, my hair is getting quite long these days compared to what most of you remember of me. I have been at Best Friends for 13 months now and I am starting to see more and more familiar faces, especially the folks that use their annual vacation to come volunteer at the sanctuary. In January, I wrote a post about a volunteer named Nicole that came to volunteer for three weeks and spent most of her time volunteering at the Lodges (Changing Plans and Visiting Angels). She arrived at Best Friends only three days after her last radiation treatment for breast cancer and on her second to last day she went on a shopping spree and brought back a car load of goodies for the dogs of the Lodges. Well, Nicole is back to volunteer some more at the Lodges and I saw her in the lobby yesterday. This time, instead of a fuzzy, pink hat to keep her chemo-balded head warm while she walks dogs, she is sporting a full head of curly black hair and is looking great. We had a good laugh in the lobby because she didn't recognize me with my long hair and I probably wouldn't have know her had Megan not tipped me off that she was back in town. It is wonderful to have her back at the sanctuary, even though I don't get to work with her anymore, now that I am at the Garden. She is a wonderful woman and I am so happy that she is doing well. It is always great to see the faces of the volunteers that we know and love.

It has been a bit of a week for blast-from-the-past stuff. I got an email from Tasha's mom saying that Tash is doing great and went to a place called Ewetopia to start learning how to herd sheep. This is a newer concept in the dog world, not sheep herding, but the facilities that let people bring their dogs to learn and practice herding sheep. It is a really good way to exercise a dog's brain and body and let them use some of the instincts that most dogs never get to use, except on neighborhood squirrels. Tasha did a really good job and was so exhausted by the experience that she fell asleep sitting up during the car ride home! Here are some photos from her day at the farm! (They are kind of blurry, but still cool!)

Thursdays with Brenda

Every Thursday (my Saturday), I go up to the sanctuary for a few hours to hang out with Brenda. She is a red collar pit bull from the Lodges that has lymphoma; when she was diagnosed a few months ago, I asked about fostering her, but because she has two recorded bites in the county, the managers of Dogtown said no. Recently, there have been a few dust ups with the local animal control officer over allowing red collars with bite histories (red collar doesn't automatically mean they have a bite history) to come into town with staff. In the last couple of years, Brenda has sent at least two people to the emergency room for stitches from her bites, so she is not allowed to leave property. I was told I can drive her off property, but she is not allowed out of the car, so usually I load her in the car and take her away from Dogtown to one of the numerous hiking and walking areas around the sanctuary. Sometimes we go to Angel's Landing, a natural amphitheater on property, where there is grass and lots of shade; when we are there, she like to graze on the plants like a cow. I recently bought myself a new point and shoot digital camera, so last week, when I took Brenda out, I brought along my new camera for some experimenting. We had a very nice time and I got some really great shots of Miss B and the canyon.

Brenda is taking a break from grazing to smile for the camera . . .

. . . and enjoy the view.

After some more grazing by the pond we headed up the path to the amphitheater . . .

. . . where there is lots of grass for lounging . . .

. . . and rolling . . .

. . . and sniffing!

Just another one of Dogtown's vicious, red-collar pit bulls waiting to attack and lick your face off! Have a great week! (All photos copyright Allison Martin. Finally.)

Ronnie and Corey

It is that time of year again, the seasons are changing and we are once again saying good-bye to a lot of dogs that have decided it is their time to cross the Rainbow Bridge. I attended two services yesterday, one for a dog that I knew well and one for a dog I had never met.

Ronnie was one of my guys up at the Lodges.He got very sick about a month ago and required emergency surgery to remove his spleen. A tumor on his spleen had ruptured and was bleeding into his abdominal cavity, the vets were confident that they had gotten all the visible tumor but because of the rupture, cancer cells had been leaked into his abdominal cavity and it was only a matter of time before they invaded another organ. Last Thursday he was out on a walk with Megan and a volunteer had his run mate Tina Louise, it became quickly apparent that there was something seriously wrong, so Megan scooped him up (all 60+ lbs of him) and carried him to the clinic. They euthanized him shortly after he arrived at the clinic, but he was calm and peaceful for the process. He will be dearly missed but I am happy that he is finally at peace. There is a possibility that his run mate, Tina Louise, is going to be fostered and everyone has been very concerned about how Ronnie will handle the loss. Perhaps he knew what was coming and decided to take his leave with the full moon before winter set in, saying good-bye to Tina on one last walk.

We also buried a little boy name Corey this week, I couldn't find a photo of him. He was only about eight months old and his death was entirely unexpected and remains a bit of a mystery. Based on the exterior signs, the vets would have guessed that he had sustained some kind of trauma - an impact or an electrocution - but he was in a run all night and there wasn't any exposed electrical wiring that he could have gotten into. The admissions staff left Wednesday night and he was fine, when they arrived in the morning, he was dead. They did x-rays, but didn't really find anything that would indicate a cause of death; they opted not to do a necropsy. From everything I have heard, he was a very sweet boy and it is a very sad loss. Most people believe that we have his sister over at the Garden, a happy, silly pup named Malibu. They didn't come in together but they both probably came out of the same area, looked almost exactly alike, sounded just like one another, and looked to be about the same age.

In the last couple of weeks we have put down several more dogs that I did not know. This is how it usually goes, as winter prepares on the horizon, dogs decide to take their leave before they have to survive another cold winter. And for those that decided to hang on a little longer, once spring rolls around and they feel the warmth again, they take pleasure in the sun and head for the Bridge. According to Lenny, one of our officiants for the placement ceremonies, the combination of the coming winter, the full moon, and the strong energies associated with October, it is not surprising that so many dogs have decided it is time to move on.

They are all wonderful in their own ways and they will each be missed for their unique characters.

(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)