Daxitude

Daxitude: dachshund + attitude, normal for the breed

My Heidi has Daxitude in spades

Happy 6th Birthday Valentin

I cannot believe that my baby boy is 6 years old today. He was only 18 months old when he came to me, where has the time flown.

I booked him into the groomers today for a bath and blow dry. They are so nice, it was their present to him for his birthday; no charge. Thank You to Ajax Pet Care. They said that he really enjoyed the attention and brushing; preening as they groomed him.

See, I am all clean and spruced up

[Note from Mom: Valentin was such a good boy today. While we were out, I stopped at Heidi's vet office just to weigh Valentin. (Valentin goes to a different vet than Heidi, an all female vet practice). I was amazed that Valentin let Dr. Makawal pet him. No growling, no barking at all. (by the way, Valentin weighed 13.8 pounds, the diet starts in earnest tomorrow)]

Mama gave me a GIANT Bobo for my birthday. It is bigger than me.

This rope toy is supposed to clean my teeth too

I let Heidi play with my Bobo too

We all got rope toys. Here is Pogo with his.

Canadian Pet Military Fostering group

I just found out there is a small group to help military pets.

There is a facebook group called Canadian Military Pets Fostering Network. One of the founders just joined our small breed rescue group.

I am so happy to see that someone has stepped up to try to address this very real need.

I hope that by posting this information here, it may inform potential foster families as well as deploying pet parents. This group takes in all pets, fur, feather, scale, you name it, they foster it.

TV appearance

Heidi was not with me this time (she was on in June of last year), but one of my fellow rescue directors and I were on a cable animal show this week.

We were there to talk about my experience at the mill seizure in December. UAN very graciously provided me with photographs that had not been released to other media. It is very rare for the UAN to allow a volunteer to speak to the media.

I think it went fairly well (besides the usual vanity stuff - looking pale and fat on camera). There is never enough time on Animal House Calls to pack in all the info, but we hit the important highlights. One important fact, that the cute puppy in the pet store window comes from such filth and misery. Another important point that, although you may want to "rescue" that puppy in front of you, doing so only perpetuates the cycle. It will be replaced tomorrow by another puppy from the same filth and misery. The consumer has the power to stop the cycle. It is the simple balance of supply and demand. Cut the demand and you reduce the supply. Sadly, yes, some pups will die if they are not bought, but thousands more will suffer to continue the supply, if the demand does NOT stop.

It was good for Helping Homeless Pets and for EARS to have this moment in the public eye. We were no more off the set when some of the TV station staff were giving us donations for our special fund towards the veterinarian care of the mill survivors being fostered by our member rescues. We took a lovely little Pomeranian mill survivor with us for the show. Already, we have interest from potential adopters for her and the others.

Our sincere thanks to Ann Rohmer and Animal House Calls for their time and support.

(For those who are newer to my blog, if you go back to "Multi-task blogging" in December 08, you will find the links to my deployment with EARS to the mill seizure in Quebec.)

The Canadian SPCA estimates there are 2,200 puppy mills in the province of Quebec alone. Well, now there are 2,197 and counting down.

Ouch !!

"It is a good thing I am out there helping the neighbours with my snowblower"

Why, oh why did I say that????

Sunday morning before church, I went out to clear the 3-4 inches of snow that had fallen overnight. Unfortunately, when I pulled the starter cord on the snowblower, I pulled something in my shoulder . It actually hurt badly enough that I went to a walk-in clinic that afternoon. Some good drugs and 2 days off work . It is doing better, but after a day's work, it is aching again, so no blogging for a few days.

The are most unsympathetic. No snuggles and kisses for mom, rather more chances to get into mischief when mom can't move as fast.