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Featured BLOG:
Animal Hoarding
Have you missed me? I know, I know, you’ve all been busy and probably didn’t even realize I wasn’t filling up your inbox with silly stories. I know that summer is an especially busy time for all of us. Kids are out of school, vacations are calling, friends and relatives are visiting. Good times!
Sometimes, though, things happen that aren’t quite so much fun.
I was on a deployment with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) earlier this year on a cat hoarding case. Animal Planet was there filming it for their 6-part series that begins airing tomorrow, July 21, 2010. Check here for times in your area. The cat case I worked on will be part of episode 3 (the woman’s name is Lolette).
I just returned from yet another deployment with HSUS. This one was a case of a woman who started out as a Chihuahua rescue, with all good intentions, and things just got out of hand. The animals were well fed, and most were spayed or neutered, but they were not getting the personal attention they needed. With over 200 animals (there were also some cats, rabbits, chickens, rats and mice!), she realized it was time to ask for help! Check out the HSUS story and video here.
The animals were taken from her property to the Kern County Fairgrounds.
Bless them for allowing us to set up our temporary shelter in the blissfully air-conditioned Fine Arts building!
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cool working conditions for volunteers
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happy chickens busy laying eggs
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we had a sea of Chihuahuas
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with some big dogs thrown in for good measure
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and several with mange, like this sweetie
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I never got an in-focus photo of these two jumpers
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Every animal was seen by one of our two wonderful vets:
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Dr. Love from Bakersfield
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Dr. Carter from San Diego
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Many of these animals had never been handled very much, and here we were doing scary things to them! Each one was scanned for a microchip (some had one!) and given one if none was found. They got a complete exam and if they were healthy enough, they got all of their vaccinations. The also got Frontline and their nails clipped.
This little guy came back for his Frontline dose after he got a bath.
A little “hospital ward” was started for those with bad eyes, hearts, backs, etc. Dr. Love is a mobile veterinarian and we used her mobile x-ray machine (along with the help of another Bakersfield veterinarian, Dr. Ansolabehere).
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one of the hospital patients
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another hospital patient with an old break (hind leg)
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Lots and lots of the dogs had dirty ears and infected ears. One big dog came into the medical area carrying her head to one side and clearly suffering from an ear infection. She could not tolerate having it worked on without sedation. Once she was knocked out, Dr. Love worked on her ear for more than an hour and was amazed at what she saw. She said she’d never seen such a bad ear. The ear drum had basically disintegrated and the infection went all the way to the brain. While the dog was out and being worked on, she also got a body clip and her feet cleaned of all their foxtails.
Then we turned her over to some of the United Animal Nations (UAN) volunteers to continue cleaning, brushing and keeping her warm while she woke up.
During all of this handling, occasionally we’d run across a little one who would decide it was going to have none of this.
That was when we’d whip out the smallest muzzle in Doctor Love’s arsenal and even then it would sometimes be too big. But it would do the job well enough. We managed to get through all of those vet checks with no one getting bitten!
While some of us where slaving away with the vets, there was a whole group of tireless volunteers taking care of the dogs in the “general population” room. All of those cages had to be cleaned twice a day and the bigger dogs were taken outside for some exercise. The vast majority had never been on a leash. For that reason, 2 people at a time would work with one dog. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of trying to leash and remove a big, scared dog from a cage, and then get it to walk, all while in a huge room full of barking dogs, but it’s a challenge, to put it mildly.
Once this dog got outside, she just needed a little love.
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but lots of love and patience are coming her way
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the dogs quickly figured out that walks were a good thing!
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The poor things had spent so long in their cages that they didn’t know how to act when they got out of them.
This guy knew whose lap he wanted to be in!
For the most part, the little dogs wanted no part of walking on a leash. They wanted to be held. The 2-person cage cleaning teams would take turns; one person would hold dogs while one person cleaned for a while, then switch.
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MJ is a two-fisted Chihuahua holder!
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I think I'm getting the stink-eye!
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One morning after we had shipped all the dogs that were leaving that day (for a shelter in Northern California), Dr. Love asked me to accompany her to the local homeless shelter, where she has been volunteering her time for several years. She goes there on the first Monday of the month to treat whatever animals show up with their owners. This time we took 8 bags of dog food from the HSUS supply.
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entrance to homeless shelter
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Dr. Love greets Deacon Richard
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Deacon Richard & Dr. Love
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Of course the first dog I spied had to be a Chihuahua!
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Here’s the perfect person to benefit from the dog food we brought.
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Dr. Love leads the two new patients to her truck that is parked around the corner.
Little dogs do NOT like getting a microchip!
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now the dogs can eat their own food, not people food
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Deacon Richard had a few of his volunteers bring a grocery cart to haul the dog food away. They’ll bag it up in small quantities to hand it out to the folks who need it.
Dr. Love enters all the information about Lucky Lucy, the sweet pitbull, into her computer.
Deacon Richard blessed us over and over. He whispered to me that Dr. Love is a saint. I whispered back that I had already figured that out.
A few more days passed and we were left only with “The Big Dogs” – 10 Great Pyrenees or Pyrenees mixes. Arrangements had been made for them to go to a rescue group in Southern California, but they couldn’t come for them for two more days. We were down to a skeleton crew of HSUS and UAN volunteers. Our goal was to get all of “The Big Dogs” shaved before they shipped. Their hair was so matted there was no way to comb it out.
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"Molly" enjoys her grooming
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One dog was very social and took to this grooming business like a champ. She even got a bath before it was all over.
The others, who had probably never or rarely been handled, were terrified of the shaving process. Who can blame them? They were such gentle, intelligent creatures, though, and tried to figure out what we wanted of them. Some we lightly sedated.
There were 4 that appeared to be Pyrenees mixed with Border collie, or perhaps Australian shepherd.
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They felt so much better without that matted fur!
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Three were almost all white, with just a few black spots.
The pile of hair we got off each dog was bigger than the dog we had left!
It was finally down to me and Julie. Time to ship “The Big Dogs”. The end of a deployment always brings a mix of emotions. We’d become very attached to these dogs. They’d come so far in the week we’d spent with them. They’d gone from crouching in fear in the backs of their cages to greeting us with smiles and wagging tails. Not that they weren’t still fearful, and not that still don’t have a loooong way to go, but they’d made huge strides.
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"The Big Dogs" ready to go
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We walked each big dog and put it an airline crate, ready for its journey to its new home.
The next step was to begin processing the paperwork.
As Julie well knows, it’s all about the paperwork! Never-ending paperwork!
We bid the dogs farewell and started cleaning and breaking down cages. Fortunately a huge cleanup had been done by the main group of volunteers before they left, after all the little dogs were shipped out. That left us with mostly the things associated with “The Big Dogs” and a few other miscellaneous issues. We were both exhausted and were therefore delighted when the fairgrounds brought some of their crew over to help us for the last hour or two. It made all the difference in the world! If they hadn’t shown up, Julie and I would still be there, scrubbing the floor!
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And it was like we were never here ...
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Instead, in record time, they helped us make it look like this!
Thanks to HSUS, UAN, the vets, Kern County, and scads of volunteers, there are 200+ more animals in much better conditions.
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