Dobermann Pinschers – Family Members
Here is a link to one article on pets being left behind due to the mortgage crisis.
Hidden victims of mortgage crisis: Pets abandoned by their owners after foreclosure
By EVELYN NIEVES
Associated Press Writer
STOCKTON, Calif. — The house was ravaged — its floors ripped, walls busted and lights smashed by owners who trashed their home before a bank foreclosed on it. Hidden in the wreckage was an abandoned member of the family: a starving pit bull…
As I was getting ready to leave for work this morning, I heard on the Martha Stewart channel 112 on Sirius radio that Tracie Hotchner will be speaking about a travesty in the mortgage crisis. Did you know that when people are losing their homes, many of them leave their dogs/cats behind in the abandonned structures? They end up starving or trying to eat the wood paneling and whatever else they can pull from the walls or floors of the houses they are trapped in. Tracie mentioned in her 15-minute segment on The Morning Show that this is prevalent in Chicago, but is happening all over the country in record numbers. You can listen to her show tonight at 8 pm for the entire story.
Bouchard was one of those left-behind and forgotten dogs. His people moved out and left him in the backyard of his home in 2003. He barked and barked and barked, which is how the Orange county Animal Services got involved and found him.
Bouchard had a baseball-sized bruise on his side, which I assume came from the dark side of human beings who were bothered by him. His whole body was abused in one form or the other. His bottom front teeth are nothing but nubs due to his trying to chew out of his containment. Was it a chain? Was it chainlink fence? I don’t know, but his teeth do.
He was horrified to have anyone even think of touching his paws. He’d hide them by tucking them underneath his body, and when it thundered, he’d curl up in a corner to hide.
My friend and co-rescuer who pulled Bouchard from the shelter and brought him down to meet me halfway from Orange to Broward county asked the shelter if they were sure THIS was the dog because he was so emaciated. The shelter actually neutered this boy in his condition.
This is what he looked like when I got him from the shelter in Orange county, Florida. He still had tape fragments from his ear crop sticking ot his ears. Thank God they got to him when they did. He wasn’t in any shape to last much longer.
He was so thin, this 18-inch collar fit him like a necklace.
Bouchard couldn’t hold water. As fast as he drank it, the water came right through. I kept him in an ex-pen with covers on the floor and everyday I came home from lunch, I’d change his covers.
We got to a point where he could hold it till we ran to the back door, but he couldn’t make it all the way, though he tried, the movement made him let loose.
Sooner or later, there came a day when he did hold it, and did make it out that back door. Also, finding the right antibiotic to put him on helped. His body was adjusting, but due to the fact that this happened during his growth stage, his back legs are formed sort of like a duck’s where they stick out to the sides and he waddles around the back yard. He’s a fast waddler, but it is a noticeably unique gait. At obedience practice, I always get asked, “What’s wrong with his legs?”
Well, Bouchard is a happy boy now. I had placed him twice, and he came back twice. He’s got some piss and vinegar in him, and he’s a little reactive due to his former circumstance, so he’s got issues that only his Dobermom can understand. How cruel it was to abandon this boy. Though, through all the neglect, he came out of it with a light in his heart.
I think of all the other dogs out there trapped in abandonned homes, and wonder if they will be so lucky. So please, keep your eyes and ears opened. Maybe you will be the one to save a pet trapped in an abandonned home in your neighborhood.
Helen
(click to e-mail)
Eegads! A beagle?
That beagle won. That’s nice, but Annie and I were routing for the Aussie. She looks like Annie a bit, and she just had puppies 5 months ago and she is also an agility dog. She does it all, and do they pick her? No. They pick a boy dog. A boy beagle. What does he do? Howls? Big woo. What a travesty of injustice. OK, he is cute. But gee whiz!
Well, OK. 😉 Congratulations, Beagle Boy. And thank you Martha Stewart for dedicating an hour radio time on Sirius to covering this event live.
The light went on in my kitchen this morning. Luckily that happened when I flipped the switch. But in the elevator on the way down to the ground floor at work, the UPS delivery man pressed floor 18. It would not light up. So I pressed it as we started moving towards it. It would not light up. We both pressed it, and we passed 18. Nothing doing.
Mercury is still retrograding. February 18 is its last day of doing this.
Tonight is the big night at Westminster. I am saying Aussie in 2008.
Well, the evidence has been dropped and frankly, the cup segments weren’t there. So I had to use self-hypnosis on-the-fly to re-visit the scene, and what was apparent that night was the two prime suspects were busy. Pippin was hunting the Papaya Tree Rat…
and Raven was busy running around and shoving toys at me…
They were both occupied. Actually, all were occupied outside with me except for the non-Raven in this picture.
That is part one of the evidence.
Part two was the plastic spoon that came along with the waffle cone. It had been splintered all over the pavers, and there was several pieces of spoon in the doo-dee in the place where Raven and Luigi deposit their daily or twice-daily gifts. I give Raven a lot of credit for mischief, but the credit for being the brains behind the Waffle Cone caper goes to Luigi.
Congrats, big guy, for being labeled. We all go through it.
Next, we find these two beautiful doves upon the utility lines. I innocently started taking pictures of them…this is one.
Then, with the snap of the next picture…we have a pre-Valentine day love fest.
X-rated stuff!
Mercury is still in retrograde. I just went into the kitchen and turned on the light. Nothing. No light. Oh, the light’s up there still on the ceiling. But it’s not going on. All four of those fluorescents are deadsville. <sigh> Maybe tomorrow? My dinner was not going to ring – rice cooker – so after an hour, I decided to eat whatever’s in there. An hour? You think rice would be cooked by then? Seems so to me.
Back to the weekend. Look at what was outside our window.
Dogs went crazy. Here kitty! Here!
Look who stopped by!
Hi!
These roses bloomed just for my friends’ visit! More Valentine’s Day activity, I say.
Ginger’s main lump is so very large. Think grapefruit-sized. This is a lovely picture of her…lump is unavailable.
I ran into a friend who has Golden Retrievers Sunday. She told me how many of hers died of cancer, I was appalled. The last one, she said, came up sick suddenly and they took him to the vet and found the dog was full of cancer. How amazing these dogs are that they hide their pain so well. If not for Ginger’s apparent symptoms, the lumps, I wouldn’t know she had cancer.
I wanted that cancer to go away. I can’t fool myself. The lump won’t let me. But I am still feeding her the herbs and vitamins and mushrooms. I think that is helping to keep her with me longer. She is a gem of a Dobergirl. She is slowing down some. Everyday is a blessing, though. When it comes down to it, we should all think that way because it is the case.
