Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson Rescue Another Shelter Dog

"I'm just sort of obsessed with rescuing the pooches," Kristen says. Bravo!

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are two young actors who love to go on talk shows and not talk about their relationship, and that leaves ... what? Often, seething anger and resentment toward the host. But at other times -- dogs! These are the times we're concerned about. These are the good times. 

The two often speak of their love for their adopted dog Bear, who Pattinson rescued from a high-kill Louisiana shelter "on his sixth of his seven days." Kristen considers the dog her child and usually spends all the time in interviews talking about him and not about Pattinson. Sometimes the hosts, with a wistful sigh, imagine that she is really talking about Pattinson when she is talking about Bear. 

Yesterday, Kristen dropped a bombshell on Live With Kelly and Michael. They got a new dog! Not only is Bernie another rescue, but he's an older dog, not a puppy, which adds more fuel to our theory that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are the best dog owners in A-list Hollywood. 

When Kristen talks about saving dogs from high-kill shelters, people listen. When she pulls her hair, stares at the floor, and says into her fist (she's a bit awkward during these things, no?) that she considers her dog her child, people take note. 

"I'm just sort of obsessed with rescuing the pooches," she said to Kelly. 

"They're really very different," she said, explaining the two dogs. "I feel like I've raised Bear, whereas Bernie, we got her when she was like four, five -- we're not positive -- but she feels like my roommate. She's just like living in my house."

Referring to the decision to adopt the dog, she said of Bernie, "She was very emotionally manipulative. She really milked it. Then I got her home and she was like 'I have arrived. I am fine.'"

Bernie took over the household right away, Kristen said: "You know, she was very comfortable instantly, like taking Bear's stuff. It was like 'You need to slow your roll, girl. You need to watch it.'"

Via Examiner.com 

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Will Lennox the Dog Be Just Another BSL Statistic?

Lennox as a puppy. Photograph courtesy of the Barnes family.

Lennox has lost his last chance to escape a death sentence -- just because he looks like a Pit Bull.

A valiant worldwide campaign to save this dog's life has apparently failed, thanks to a court decision this week in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

Because of breed-specific legislation, Pit Bulls are illegal in Northern Ireland. In May 2010, a 5-year-old American Bulldog-Labrador cross named Lennox was taken from his owners by the Belfast City Council and declared a "danger to the public" simply because he was a "Pit Bull-type dog." Lennox was then placed in a kennel, waiting to be euthanized.

His distraught owners mounted a campaign to save his life. Word spread around the world that Lennox had been microchipped, Safe Pet registered, and DNA registered, and that he was a protective companion to the family's disabled preteen daughter. Even though the DNA registry evinced no trace of Pit Bull in Lennox's ancestry, the death sentence was not removed.

Striving to save Lennox's life, owner Caroline Barnes said in court that the dog had never bitten anyone or misbehaved since being impounded, according to Irish Central.

"She says her dog was never given a chance."

On Tuesday, Barnes' legal team went before the Court of Appeal and three judges to make a final plea. But the judges remained firm, confirming yet again that Lennox will be put down.

Lennox. Photograph courtesy of the Barnes family.

"An expert dog handler, retained by the City Council, said Lennox had a severe personality defect, including having a problem with strangers. They added it would be impossible to tell what the dog might do under stress," Irish Central reports.

The court’s statement reads:

“The judge had heard evidence on the issues relating to this dog over a protracted two-day hearing, carefully considered the evidence and the issues, and he reached conclusions of fact which have not been vitiated by any error of law on his part.”

No date for Lennox's destruction has been released, nor will the Barnes family get a chance to see him again before his death, Irish Central reports. We at Dogster HQ think that's just plain cold considering all they have done to rally support around their dog over the past two years.

The following message was posted at the "Lennox Campaign" Facebook page:

"Lennox's family will release a statement in due course once they have had time to absorb today's ruling by Chief Justice Girvan. The family kindly ask all supporters to remain calm and dignified as always in their response to today's sad and very wrong decision by the Northern Ireland Chief Justice. Thank you."

Advocates for Lennox launched a petition on Tuesday. Titled "Boycott Belfast," the petition reads: 

"This page is to let Belfast know that animal lovers all over the world are angry and that we will not support them in any way -– EVER. We will never travel to their city –- some will even not come to the country, we will not endorse you in any way. Unless something is done to make this injustice right."

Editor's Note: When we first heard this story, we were hoping against hope for a happy ending for this dog who had done NOTHING wrong. He wasn't even the "breed" they were discriminating against! This is disappointing and disgusting, Northern Ireland, and we're crossing you off our places-to-see list.

Lennox, sweet boy, you won't be forgotten by many of us around the world soon. 

View the original article here

Yogurt, lasagne, meatloaf: If it’s not one thing, it’s another

(Cross-posted from my personal blog at GoodFaithRanch.com)

A few weeks ago my 14-year-old Sheltie, Drew, started to increase his drinking and decrease his eating. Shortly after, my veterinarians confirmed my sad suspicion: My dog’s kidneys were shutting down.

As deaths go, kidney failure isn’t a bad one. A couple years ago my father faced the choice of dying of kidney failure or liver cancer, and after being completely informed about them both, he chose the former and refused dialysis. He passed peacefully at home a few days later, and I’m still in awe of his brave decision to choose the time, place and manner of his demise.

Of course, that’s what many of us do with our companion animals, and I’ve seen enough people bungle the decision to know how difficult it is. Over the years I’ve made the decision for all of my own animals and a few belonging to friends and family. I’ve come to believe that I won’t personally make a Hail Mary pass for myself or anyone else, animals included, and that I would rather help an animal to the other side a week early than a minute too late.

That said, I truly believe in hospice. For people and for pets.

I recently wrote for Vetstreet about the hospice movement in veterinary medicine, focusing on Nancy Hurley, a woman who had cared for her own 14-year-old Sheltie for months after a diagnosis of cancer in the dog. She and her husband had to have Savannah euthanized on the day Drew entered a state of hospice, a situation which I found incredibly powerful, as if Savannah’s fight had moved across the country to my own dog.

Hospice is often about managing pain, and I’m glad that I’m not having to do that with Drew. I went through it with my retriever Heather a couple years ago, and it wasn’t easy for either of us. Like Savannah, Heather had cancer, and like Savannah, I had to let Heather go when we couldn’t control the pain any more.

For Drew, hospice is considerably less stressful. Every morning he gets 500 ml of IV fluids, delivered from a bag hung from my dining-room chandelier through a needle to a spot under the skin and over his shoulder blades (top picture, but you have to squint a little to see the clear IV bag). Drew usually falls asleep on a towel on the table while getting his fluids, a process which, thanks to a nifty product called a pressure infuser, takes just a few minutes. A couple weeks after starting with daily fluids, Drew’s kidney values are normal. It won’t last, I’m told, but it was very good news indeed to get last week.

While Drewbie doesn’t mind the fluids at all, we are having one hospice difficulty: Getting him to eat. Pets (and people, for that matter) with end-stage kidney disease typically don’t have an appetite, and not eating can hasten their deaths — rather quickly, I’m told.

Drew is on a prescription appetite stimulant, but it doesn’t seem to help much. He is also getting a little medicinal marijuana (legal here in California), which appears to help with nausea but not with appetite, at least for Drew.

Typically, he’ll eat a little of something really yummy for a couple of days, then stop. Rare roast beef, deli turkey, yogurt with peach slices, beef lasagne, pasta with beef balls, cheese, baby food, apple slices with peanut butter … I’ve been rotating through them all. I’m afraid the other dogs and I will put on some weight snarfing down the leftovers when Drew walks away from something he ate happily the day before.

Friday night, my housemate (Ed Murrieta, who’s a writer and a trained chef) made him a special meatloaf, after Drew showed enthusiasm for store-bought meatloaf from the Whole Foods takeaway counter. That’s a picture of it. It’s made from ground turkey, Honest Kitchen‘s Embark dehydrated raw food and Nuzzles treats, eggs, and my friend Jill Gibbs’ JillCookies, chopped fresh tomatoes, grated apple, and cheese.

Today, Ed’s experimenting with some sort of baked liver puree.

So far, so good …

View the original article here

Another Case for Making Sure a Dog Is Really Dead

No worries: This dog is just sleeping. (Albeit not necessarily so comfortably.) If the dog did not rouse and did not appear to be breathing, would he be assumed dead? There's a fine line, and it's imperative to know where it's drawn. (Photo from the Flickr photostream of Flickmor)

A couple of weeks ago we brought you the story of a puppy who was hit by a car and appeared to be dead, but when the distraught owner went to bury him the next day, he was very much alive. It brought up an interesting conversation in the comments and Dogster Facebook page about when dead is actually dead.

It seems even the pros can mistake an unconscious dog for a dead dog. Yesterday, firefighters in Utica, NY, found a dog who appeared to have died in a home blaze. They brought the poor dog’s body outside — but the dog did not stay “dead” for long. Once in fresh air, the dog sat up and surprised the heck out of everyone who assumed he had perished, according to WKTV.

So once again we’re faced with the question: How can you tell if your dog is really dead before burying him or sending him off for cremation? I’m finding nothing worthwhile on this online, so I’ll ask any veterinarians, vet techs, or other experts out there to please leave comments about how we can tell for sure that a dog is dead and not just unconscious — perhaps with diminished functions that make it hard to see breathing or hear a heartbeat. Are there ways, besides going to a vet to check?

Update! Minutes after posting this, I asked Dr. Eric Barchas, Dogster’s own veterinary expert, for his input on the topic and he immediately wrote back with a very helpful, insightful answer:

There are three basic tactics I use to determine whether an individual is alive. The first is to listen to the heart. This is generally the most reliable, but it cannot realistically be done by a nonprofessional (or by anyone who hasn’t listened to thousands of hearts), since it’s too easy to listen in the wrong place or to misunderstand the noises one hears. 

The second is to assess whether the animal is breathing.  This can be done by anyone, but it is important to watch carefully and be aware that very shallow breathing can be hard to see (and that agonal breathing, which occurs sometimes after death, may be mistaken for normal breathing). 

The third is to assess for rigor mortis (stiffness that occurs after death). The timing of its onset varies widely — from a few minutes after death in severely ill animals with poor circulation to many hours after death. However, once it occurs, it is a reliable sign that an individual is deceased.

The whole process is actually much more difficult than many people imagine. Remember that the tradition of holding wakes originated because it is so hard to tell whether an individual is decisively dead. Burials were postponed several days to prevent accidentally burying someone alive.

Finally, be aware that the definition of death itself is controversial. Some folks advocate for using electroencephalography or functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess brain activity as the true measure of whether an individual is alive or dead. The definition of death is not as much of a moral minefield as the definition of the start of life, but it still causes sparks to flare on occasion.

View the original article here

Yogurt, lasagne, meatloaf: If it’s not one thing, it’s another

(Cross-posted from my personal blog at GoodFaithRanch.com)

A few weeks ago my 14-year-old Sheltie, Drew, started to increase his drinking and decrease his eating. Shortly after, my veterinarians confirmed my sad suspicion: My dog’s kidneys were shutting down.

As deaths go, kidney failure isn’t a bad one. A couple years ago my father faced the choice of dying of kidney failure or liver cancer, and after being completely informed about them both, he chose the former and refused dialysis. He passed peacefully at home a few days later, and I’m still in awe of his brave decision to choose the time, place and manner of his demise.

Of course, that’s what many of us do with our companion animals, and I’ve seen enough people bungle the decision to know how difficult it is. Over the years I’ve made the decision for all of my own animals and a few belonging to friends and family. I’ve come to believe that I won’t personally make a Hail Mary pass for myself or anyone else, animals included, and that I would rather help an animal to the other side a week early than a minute too late.

That said, I truly believe in hospice. For people and for pets.

I recently wrote for Vetstreet about the hospice movement in veterinary medicine, focusing on Nancy Hurley, a woman who had cared for her own 14-year-old Sheltie for months after a diagnosis of cancer in the dog. She and her husband had to have Savannah euthanized on the day Drew entered a state of hospice, a situation which I found incredibly powerful, as if Savannah’s fight had moved across the country to my own dog.

Hospice is often about managing pain, and I’m glad that I’m not having to do that with Drew. I went through it with my retriever Heather a couple years ago, and it wasn’t easy for either of us. Like Savannah, Heather had cancer, and like Savannah, I had to let Heather go when we couldn’t control the pain any more.

For Drew, hospice is considerably less stressful. Every morning he gets 500 ml of IV fluids, delivered from a bag hung from my dining-room chandelier through a needle to a spot under the skin and over his shoulder blades (top picture, but you have to squint a little to see the clear IV bag). Drew usually falls asleep on a towel on the table while getting his fluids, a process which, thanks to a nifty product called a pressure infuser, takes just a few minutes. A couple weeks after starting with daily fluids, Drew’s kidney values are normal. It won’t last, I’m told, but it was very good news indeed to get last week.

While Drewbie doesn’t mind the fluids at all, we are having one hospice difficulty: Getting him to eat. Pets (and people, for that matter) with end-stage kidney disease typically don’t have an appetite, and not eating can hasten their deaths — rather quickly, I’m told.

Drew is on a prescription appetite stimulant, but it doesn’t seem to help much. He is also getting a little medicinal marijuana (legal here in California), which appears to help with nausea but not with appetite, at least for Drew.

Typically, he’ll eat a little of something really yummy for a couple of days, then stop. Rare roast beef, deli turkey, yogurt with peach slices, beef lasagne, pasta with beef balls, cheese, baby food, apple slices with peanut butter … I’ve been rotating through them all. I’m afraid the other dogs and I will put on some weight snarfing down the leftovers when Drew walks away from something he ate happily the day before.

Friday night, my housemate (Ed Murrieta, who’s a writer and a trained chef) made him a special meatloaf, after Drew showed enthusiasm for store-bought meatloaf from the Whole Foods takeaway counter. That’s a picture of it. It’s made from ground turkey, Honest Kitchen‘s Embark dehydrated raw food and Nuzzles treats, eggs, and my friend Jill Gibbs’ JillCookies, chopped fresh tomatoes, grated apple, and cheese.

Today, Ed’s experimenting with some sort of baked liver puree.

So far, so good …

View the original article here

Another weapon in the war on puppy mills: Your veterinarian

Max started life as an effervescent bubbly Boston Terrier. By nine months of age, however, he had become listless — fatigued  merely by the exertion of breathing.

Max was shipped to California at 10 weeks of age from a breeder in Missouri. His loving owner, Ed, had been looking for a Boston Terrier and fell in love with Max the moment he saw his photo online. He did not feel the need to visit the kennel where Max was born because he was so reassured by the emails and telephone conversations he and the breeder had exchanged. She seemed to provide all the right answers to Ed’s questions. Max’s health was guaranteed. Any problems and Max could be returned, no questions asked.

Other than the extra noise associated with Max’s breathing (not uncommon in smoosh-faced breeds), Ed thought he had a normal puppy on his hands. It was only as Max’s body grew in relation to his narrowed windpipe that he developed labored breathing, and he eventually needed to utilize almost every ounce of energy struggling simply to breathe.

When I examined Max, I found out that he had a severely narrowed windpipe, a condition known as a “hypoplastic trachea”– imagine yourself trying to breathe through a straw. Ed was devastated by the news that we had no way to fix this problem. With his own heart breaking, he held his sweet little Max tightly as I injected the euthanasia solution.

Chloe, an eleven-month-old Cocker Spaniel, was born with defective kidneys. Joe and Cindy first laid eyes on Chloe when they happened to pass through a shopping center pet store on their way to the movie theatre. They never made it to the movies that afternoon. They bought a puppy instead. They simply could not resist the charms of the little blonde puppy with the big brown eyes.

Joe and Cindy noticed that Chloe drank lots of water, and she could never be fully house trained. A few months later, when she began vomiting and refusing her food, kidney failure was diagnosed. Ultrasound revealed that Chloe had a birth defect called renal dysplasia; both kidneys were small and malformed.

The once vigorous playful puppy gradually became profoundly weak and lethargic. Unfortunately, we had no reasonable way of creating long-term improvement for Chloe. Heartbroken, Joe and Cindy gently stroked and loved their little girl as I ended her life.

In telling these two heart-wrenching stories involving my patients and clients, my intent is not to put a damper on your day. Rather, my hope is that these stories will provide concrete examples — a wake up call, if you will — of the heartache that can result from purchasing a damaged pup from an unsavory breeder — damage that can be physical, as was the case with Max and Chloe, or behavioral.

Whether you are adopting from a shelter, rescue organization, or breeder, please make sure that a veterinarian has evaluated your prospective pup before you meet him. Learn what the veterinarian actually reported (best to see the medical record with your own two eyes). Don’t be seduced by the classified ad that says, “vet-checked.” This says nothing about the vet’s actual findings. If it’s not possible to have the dog vetted in advance of adoption, schedule an exam as soon as possible, preferably on your way home from picking up your new pup and before you’ve fallen hopelessly in love.

And to learn how to find a reputable breeder for your new four-legged family member, please read “A veterinarian’s guide to finding a great breeder and avoiding puppy-milling scum.”

View the original article here

Another Pet Connection loss, and a day of silence

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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Just another walk with the dogs and a moose

Things got a little wild at Almost Heaven Ranch this morning.

My life as an Idaho farm boy has left me pretty tough. I’m out in all kinds of weather, and it takes more than falling mercury or a little blizzard to keep me from going out with the dogs or to check on the horses and barn cats.

Quora feels differently; she does her businsess and then races back inside. It was five degrees this morning, so that’s just what she did. But Quixote (in his sweater!), Gracie, Shakira and I stuck it out.

As we started our walk, I noticed Quixote was barking fiercely while looking toward the barn. Because we’ve seen coyotes and wolves very near our house we’re always super-vigilant, so I rushed the dogs inside.

That’s when I heard Teresa yelling, “Come quick! It’s a moose!”

I grabbed the camera and raced to the other end of the house. There it was, right on our front lawn about 20 yards from our bedroom window, walking from the barn toward the house.

We’ve had moose visit before. The horses are freaked out big time by them, and, unlike deer, moose don’t crawl under or jump over fences — they just walk through them.

I have a confession: I don’t know if this is a male or female moose, as I wasn’t about to do the normal vet sex check, and I don’t know enough about body type to tell.

There are more photos on my Facebook page here; any moose experts out there who know?

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Fabulous 15! A tumultuous year but another Bella birthday

I never thought I would be writing this. Not a dozen years ago, when I got her knowing that she had a heart murmur, not three years ago when she was twelve and first starting on medication for her heart condition, not ten months ago, when I came within a day of euthanizing her because she wasn’t eating or moving around or seeming to want any attention, and certainly not four months ago when she was in the ER for a seizure while we were out of the country. It sounds like Bella has had an awful year, but when I look back on it, all I can see is how many amazing comebacks she made every time I was just about ready to give up on her.

If this were an Academy Awards speech, I would start by thanking her cardiologists: Kirstie Barrett, who shepherded her through annual exams charting the progress of her disease and decided when it was time to start the meds, and Sarah Miller, who took over while Dr. Barrett was on sabbatical and pulled her through that first crisis thanks to judicious treatment with pimobendan and an appetite stimulant.

Next would be Cindy Mar, her ophthalmologist. On top of her other issues, Bella developed dry eye and a corneal ulcer and Dr. Mar helped us work through those and get them under control. And she didn’t even scold me for not making Bella wear an e-collar, which probably would have speeded the process, but I couldn’t stand that she disliked it so much. (Yes, she has me well trained.)

Of course, there are all her regular veterinarians–Dr. Hamil, Dr. G and Dr. Brower–who have all given her lots of TLC this year. Special thanks to Dr. Hamil for taking my frantic phone call from Cayman during the seizure episode and my frantic phone call one night in December when she was shivering uncontrollably for no apparent reason. He talked me through an exam, talked me down from my anxiety about her and told me I could call any time that night if she seemed to be getting worse. I didn’t, and wouldn’t have, but I sure appreciated knowing I could.

I absolutely can’t leave out our pet sitter, Terry Albert, who made all the decisions I would have made for Bella until she was able to get in touch with us and confirm what treatment we wanted done. And we’re grateful that the veterinarians she took Bella to did such a great job of caring for her.

Then there are all of our neighbors, relatives and friends, including everyone here, who have been pulling for her and supporting me and Jerry with lots of love, kind words and good advice. Thank you, everyone.

As I write this, Bella is sleeping beside me, which is her default mode these days. When she’s awake, though, she still follows me around, performing her lady-in-waiting duties as she sees them. She’s back to carefully supervising meal preparation and eating enthusiastically. We are slowly transitioning her to a homemade kidney diet, and she seems to be accepting it pretty well. Outside, I don’t see her running anymore, but she still moves at a spanking pace for an old lady. When Harper and Twyla are getting clicker-trained, Bella notices and comes over to get in on the act. She gets clicked and treated for still being alive. I have gotten good at diapers and gotten over thinking she’s at death’s door at the slightest change in her routine. At least until the next time.

Happy birthday, dear Bella!

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