We got an email from the Animal Friends of the Valley shelter that said:
“Hello,
We have a dog-friendly, people-friendly cocker spaniel in our care. Nine-year-old Trisha (#257456) was turned in via our night drop with no information about her back on 6/10. Trisha is 42 pounds, and we have been treating her for ear and eye infections. Trisha also has severe tartar on her back molars. If you are interested in pulling this sweet girl, please let me know right away. Thank you!”
After we decided we just had to pull this sweet girl from the OC shelter we sent her to Carolyn’s right away for evaluation and a vet check. Here was Carolyn’s report: “This girl is a wreck….does appear to be blind, ears are nasty and her coat is so matted and disgusting that there is no chance a human has even touched this girl for month. She has got a layer of grease on her. Can’t pick her up because she is tender in the tummy area and didn’t want to hurt her back …underneath all that nasty coat is a gorgeous, champagne colored girl 🙂
She was very tender with right front paw which may have been because her dew claw had grown around and was embedded back into the pad….freaking oowie for her.
She was very good for her haircut….now the vet can see what is going on with her. You couldn’t see anything with that huge matted greasy coat. She walks fine, no limping or anything ….but she really doesn’t want to be picked up at all, so need to address that. Surprisingly she is not bone skinny either….but still so hard to imagine this sweet blind girl wandering the streets.”
The vet report: Valentine has glaucoma and cataracts and is completely blind. She has a massive bruise on her stomach and several mammary tumors that must be removed. Diagnostics showed nothing wrong with her stomach and back so her tender areas must have been from a soft tissue injury.
As soon as she has healed up from her surgeries, we have a sanctuary home waiting for her with Brittany in Fresno where she will get a lot of well deserved TLC.
A puppy mill was raided and Devore shelter took in 190 dogs yesterday.. There are 7 cockers! There are three sweet senior girls who have been breed to death and four adorable 8-12 month old babies. We are going to go in and pull all 7 cockers the day they become available. We will need $200 per dog for boarding until we can get them into foster and the three senior girls are going to need some work. Their availablity date is currently 2/16 but is dependent on their court case with the breeder they were confiscated from. We hope it does not push out too much. These kids need to get into foster homes asap! Please help us make sure none get left behind.
This week we rescued not one but three senior boys. First was Alvin, a sweet 10 year old boy living with a family in Modesto. He needed medical care but they couldn’t afford his vet bills so they called us. We were delighted to be able to say we could help. After a few tests it turned out that Alvin probably has Cushing’s Disease and he will be tested for that on Monday. With the proper meds he will live a normal, happy life.
Then we heard about Vayle a 13 year old boy in the Animal Friends of the Valley shelter. He had been turned in several weeks before by his family. The shelter contacted us to rescue him but before we could respond a family had adopted him. We were delighted, that is until they changed their minds and brought him back. This time we made sure we got him. He is adorable. His teeth were a mess and after a dental they had to remove 17 teeth!
Last, but certainly not least Carolyn found 10 year old Corwin at the the California City shelter. She fell in love with that cute face. Who wouldn’t?
All three of these sweet seniors need foster homes while they wait for us to find them permanent homes. They are also eligible for our Sanctuary Program where we pay for their medical bills for the rest of their lives. Can you help?
Mr Wayne was sitting in the San Diego Humane Society and he was a bit of a train wreck. Bad skin, one bad eye, missing the other and bad ears they realized he didn’t have much of a chance to get adopted so they called us. Well, train wrecks are our specialty, besides who could resist that coloring. Wow, what an unusual boy. We couldn’t wait to meet him and he was as sweet and odd looking as his first picture. We shaved him down, renamed him Batman and got him off to the vet to start on meds. It will take a week or two of Carolyn’s TLC but he will be ready for his new home soon.
Lucy Mae came in kind of a mess. Her left eye had glaucoma and had been left untreated for way too long and her eye was huge. The biggest we had ever seen. She had two large masses that needed to be removed, ear infections, eye infections and all the usual neglected cocker stuff we see. Once we got her cleaned up and had that eye taken care of and those masses removed she looked a little like Frankenstein with stitches all over. But it wasn’t too long before the stitches were out and the hair growing back when she turned into a pretty cute little girl. And that personality? Well, we have to tell you, Lucy Mae is a sweetie patootie! They don’t come any better than this. Lucy Mae is now ready to be adopted and is anxiously awaiting a new family.
Monday we had one rescue planned. A sweet older girl named Camille was at the Camarillo shelter. She wasn’t in very good shape and she was a senior so the shelter called us for help and. of course. we said yes. Then we get an emergency call from another rescuer about a second senior boy named Dexter, blind, old and glaucoma in both eyes. Bring him on we said. Finally that afternoon we get a text from a net-worker about a young healthy boy at the Orange County shelter that was rescue only for suspected behavior problems. The word was he was on the PTS list and his time limited. We figured since we are already picking up the senior boy and girl let’s just have our transporters stop in Orange County on their way home. We went to bed that night feeling pretty good about saving three lives. This was a really good day in rescue.
Dexter from East Valley shelter
Then we woke up the next morning to a Facebook storm with us right in the middle of it. What the heck? Turns out a group of networkers were ranting and raving about, Chance, the young boy we pulled from Orange County. They were demanding that we pull a terrier mix that was housed with him. From here the facts got a bit fuzzy but opinions flowed like rain, he was this, he was that, we did this, we did that. We did a little fact finding mission and confirmed that the cocker was found as a stray. The terrier had a different release date meaning they did not come in together and they were kenneled together with a Yorkie . There was no indication that they were bonded or they even came from the same home. The Yorkie had already been pulled by another group earlier and being a Cocker rescue we took the cocker. Chance was happy and content with no signs of being ripped apart from a busom buddy. Now we had a group of Facebook net-workers with no facts but tons of opinions demanding that we do exactly as they thought we should and condemning us because we hadn’t already. At 7:00 am in the morning? Seriously?
Chance from Orange County Shelter
Later that afternoon we got a call from a previous adopter who was having trouble with her one year old cocker that she had adopted from us. The cocker was starting to misbehave and they couldn’t figure out why. After discussing it and getting some of the background details we decided that it was likely the type of training that they were using on her. They had always used the traditional training where you discipline the dog when it misbehaves. Nothing severe, in fact not much more than a disapproving voice and shaking a finger at her but she was a very sensitive girl and we believed that even that was to much for her so we suggested switching to positive reinforcement training where you reward the good behavior and ignore or manage the bad behavior. It works like a dream on cockers.
After we got off the phone we had to laugh. Those net-workers on Facebook could learn a lot about working with cocker rescuers from positive reinforcement dog trainers. Try asking, try being polite but don’t shake your finger at us and tell us we are bad dogs. In fact we will take a page from our trainer and thank all those networkers for caring.
One of our favorite foster moms is Twilight Saga star, Marlane Barnes. Recently she was the focus of an article on her rescue work where she mentions our own sweet Mr Magoo. Marlane also posted an article entitled “How to Get a Rescue Dog Adopted: Mr. Magoo’s Online Profile” at ProjectNoses.org. her website chronicling the star’s time with the companion dogs she has fostered and showcasing, you guessed it, Mr Magoo!
Mr Magoo is a sweet little man with lots of energy who loves belly rubs and back scratches. Being blind and mostly deaf doesn’t slow him down at all! He can hear just enough to make a chew toy squeak and he loves it! If he picks up a new scent on the ground he is determined to find out what it is! He would probably do well with kids because he doesn’t mind getting scooted around or shooed from your snack. He is independent during the day but would love to sleep near you at night. Because of his blindness/determination to track scents, cats are not the best companions, but he seems to like other dogs. He’s not crazy about being crated, but he does well on his own in a room where he can still explore.
Mr Magoo is 10 years old and is eligible for our sanctuary program where we pay for all his medical expenses.
We have senior dogs coming out our ears! We have so many fabulous babies waiting for foster homes and Sanctuary homes we just had to let you know. It is our fault for saying yes every time someone called with a sad story but who could say no to these sweet faces? These babies desperately need foster homes. Can you help? Contact us at 805 687 4674 or fill out an application and we will call you right away. In order we have Bim and Coal, Jasper, Jr, Spencer and Katie, Maxi, Prince, Amber….they are all so sweet and deserve to spend the rest of their days in a loving home. For some of these babies it will be the only time they be loved and properly taken care of. Please, don’t make them wait any longer!
“Hello,
