Big Paws Only Dog Forums

Hello everyone longtime no see/read!

 It's been about 18 months since I posted last, It became really painful for me after the rescue shut down and we lost the house/rescue kennels to have much to do with people and places I associated with rescues. So, sorry But we have been doing really well, I got married! and all the animals were welcomed into the family and we now live in a house twice the size of my old one. I am in the process of opening my own buisness, which will be a training facility, retail store, indoor dog park and rescue facility all in one. I'm also back in school and fostering again! Its amazing how much time you have on your hands when you are no longer taking care of a couple hundred rescues.

Well, like I said, we started fostering again and we recently took in a very heavily pregnant black lab from our notorious animal control. She had her x-ray today and I gotta admit I am a little confused at what I am seeing. The vet estimated 14 puppies at 52-55 days. So I have been staring at this picture for the last couple hours and trying to count little skulls and spines and pelvis bones, and thinking "Gee, I wish there was a place I could post this and see if I could get a bunch of opinions" and a light bulb went off HEY how long has it been since I visited BPO??

So here I am

Anyone want to take a gander at this x-ray and guess how many babies there are? (and how far along she is)

Pic is here:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs468.ash1/25689_426223748764_516913764_5346392_656089_n.jpg

Thank you all for your well wishes and support, you cant know what it means to me!

Yes, I do have a boyfriend, we've been together for almost two years- we met a year or so into my exhusband and I's seperation while the divorce was just starting to get nasty. He's been an incredible help and support and has always been really good about the rescue and putting up with my need to bring in .. everything LOL

This actually gets to open a new chapter, since the three of us (Him, his 4 year old daughter, and I) are going to move in together for the first time. Along with the macaws, Whiskey, Cisco, Annie and the two cats, its going to be quite the herd. I am hoping that this will give me a chance to go back to vet school.

We are doing pretty good on moving the puppies out- I have had all my volunteers up and doing home checks instead of just me, so we are approving applications a lot faster. That and halfing the adoption fee has allowed us to move 6 out this weekend. I am taking 35 to the vet on Wednesday and once they are cleared I have several leaving that night as well. I have spent all weekend calling foster homes and begging them to take on just one or two more. With the recent flood and this new hurricane heading straight for us (hanna) I haven't had a lot of luck!

Right now we still need to find foster homes for:
6 golden retriever mix puppies (4 months old)
1 terrier/GSD mix (14 weeks)
1 Australian Shep Mix (4 months)
1 pit/lab Mix (9 weeks)
3 boxer mixes (8 weeks)
1 chow (3 years)
1 beagle/sumthin mix (5 years?)
2 maltepoos

But we are moving forward!


Thank you all for your kind words and prayers. Its going to be a shock to totally shift my life from one direction to another, and I can't imagine not going to animal control twice a week to save what I can, but I am going to sign us all up for volunteering with our sister organization and maybe we can foster every now and then too.

I will keep you all posted- and if any of you are looking for a dog, please let me know!

Hey guys!

Dropping in again after getting out of the hospital this month, I had salmonella poisoning... yuck! I DONT recommend it. Ever. To anyone. Although, I did loose almost 30 pounds in three weeks! Some diet, huh ? HA!

Things are SO crazy here, we are up to 56 dogs in rescue right now, and more and more keep coming in. Even when we say "No, we are full" (Which we have been saying for months now) we get drop offs and dogs tied to our fence. Last week at our adoption fair at petsmart someone walked up with a cart of "maltepoos" or some similar designer mutt and just walked away. I didnt even realize there were dogs in the cart until one stuck their head over the edge of the cart and all of our dogs at the fair started barking. They were one big solid mat, probably never groomed in their lives, so we named them Matt and Mattie.
Here they are:



When we finally groomed them we had to peel them like a banana, and we even found an embedded collar in the little girls fur.

We also had a little pitbull mix left on our front porch, and this little dog....that we dont know what it is.

She is about 45 LBS, shaped like a basset hound, colored like a beagle, and with her back end smooth and short haired. But then she has these tufts of wire hair sticking out in areas, and then her whole front end is long thick hair. Its very odd!!!





Any idea on her breed?

Elsewhere in the rescue is 37 other puppies and 19 adults, including Foxybrown, the lovely chow mother who lost her whole poor sick litter that was born at animal control, Cowboy and his brothers and sisters- 8 golden retriever/collie mixes, the five bottle raised boxer mix puppies, and many many more.

Foxybrown has really, really suprised us all, by taking in and mothering all the puppies here at the central shelter (my house) no matter how old they are. Up to six months old, she cleans them, diciplines them, plays with them, and herds them to and from. She is also the most loving, playful sweet and gentle dog I have ever had come into rescue. She climbs up into your lap and just loves right into you, and she loves to laugh with a great big chow smile and big purple tongue.



My pack of three is doing really well. Cisco is working on training for his therapy dog title, and he is doing very well. We just have to work on his confidence a bit more. Annie has really grown up, and is almost as tall as her big brother now. She is just beautiful, with very soft and plushy fur, and she is a huge snuggle bug and wants nothing more then to nuzzle up to you in your lap.

We had torrential rain here from the hurricane, and coupled with a year of drought, we had horrible flash floods over this week. Two of my foster homes were completely flooded out, and the dogs who were crated in the basement had to be moved out of standing water. The kennels in the backyard where they go out to the bathroom are completely covered, and the foster moms car that she parks under the deck in the backyard had water up to the top of her windshield. We are pretty lucky here, and the rescue kennels aren't flooded, although they are very muddy from tracking paws and we have been shucking wood chips and things to help dry them out.

Whiskey is doing great, and is actually hanging out right here next to me at work. I started sneaking him in last week and now he comes to work with me every night HA! Here he is hard at work protecting the world from burglars:





As you can see, he is quite the busy working dog!

OK well back to work I suppose. If anyone has any idea on Ruffles' (The odd little mixed breed) breed, I'd love to hear them!!

I just thought I would once again sneak online and fill you guys in on the Good Fight.

We rescued a chow mother who had given birth at gaston county animal control to 5 tiny babies. The animal control offices were A) unaware that she was pregnant B) unaware that she had given birth. After 3 days of intensive vet work and therapy, we sadly lost all 5 newborns. Mother chow (Foxy Brown) is recovering, but is very sick. Shortly after, during our investigation, we learned that 4 of the 6 dogs in the kennel before the chow had been placed in there had died of some disease. (Of course they had recieved no vet care, so we have no idea WHAT disease) The kennel was not cleaned before chow mamma was placed in there and gave birth. we are assuming that is what killed the babies. Foxy curently has kennel cough, coccidia, giardia, and developed pyo as well.

We are up to 24 puppies at the shelter (IE my house) ranging between 5 weeks and 12 weeks. All were shelter pulls trying to get as many out before Dr. Frankenstein arrived (see below) All 24 puppies were in one of three runs that held a total of 43 puppies. We tested five random puppies from each run for parvo, and all five, from all three runs (meaning 15 puppies) tested positive for Parvo although none were symptomatic. That was about 10 days ago, and I have been dosing liberaly with Parvaid every 4 hours and giving antibiotics and immune support. So far 22 of my 24 have not broken out, but two have. Of the two one successfully recovered on homeopathic treatment and parvaid, and the other has been hospitalized. We faired much better then the rescue group that split the 43 puppies with us- of the 19 that they took, they have lost 6 to parvo and have another 8 in hospitalizatio n. If I did not believe in good supportive immune system care before, I sure as heck do now.

I spent what few hours I wasnt nursing sick and dying animals this week protesting outside animal control. Dr. Sam "Frankenstein" Houser is in town, and hosting a gassing clinic at Gaston County Animal Control, where I pull most of my dogs. If you are up north, it is hard to imagine how bad rural southern shelters are, but let me tell you, Gaston county is one of the worst. I have seen 20 dogs crammed in runs 4 X 10. They have food dumped in big litter boxes and tossed in with them to fight over. There is no vet on staff. No dogs recieve medical treatment or even a glance over from a vet. They do not seperate sick or dying animals. They do not treat animals as they die on the floor unless someone raises a stink, and then they remove the animal to die in the back. They do not have air conditioning or heating. The cats are in runs, just like the dogs. Sometimes 100 per run. I once saw a small dog get torn apart by a pack of large dogs in a run. They use a gas chamber and hundreds are gassed a week. Almost every animal that walks through the doors ends up dead of disease or the gas chamber. Very few make it to adoptables- about 1 in 50. There are 40 4 X 10 runs at AC, and only 1-4 are adoptables. The rest are awaiting their deaths, or a rescue group to save them.

And this is the shelter chosen by Dr. Frankenstein to come and do his death seminar on how to gas animals. All week they have been gassing random animals from the shelter, including adoptables, as "demonstrations". They had originally closed the doors to rescue groups and had not let us save anyone during this week. However after protesting outside and lots of news coverage, they let us in to take as many as we could. Hence why I have so many now!


Now, here are some happy pups that were saved from the gas chamber.
Enjoy!























So anyone looking for the next love of their life?!

Hi everyone!! Sorry for the disapearing act, my home computer bit the dust and I havent had the money to replace it yet. I just thought I would jump in and say hi to everyone and I hope things are going well!! Heres a few new pics I thought I would share- sorry for the quality- camera phone again.


The pups are 9mos old now! Annie and Whiskey with Cisco in the background


a ball of wrestling goldens


Cisco and Annie 9mos


Bone chewing


Would have been a good shot if Cisco hadnt stood up!


What are you doing up there mom??


more chewing

My fish tanks- these are new since I have been here last!!


30 Gallon

Blue Gourami in the 30g


45 gallon with Sammi the cat watching TV




Some of the fishies


Gold Gourami

Paradise Fish


Pearl Gourami


Pearl


Tiger Barbs

Heres some new residents of the rescue:


Dingo

Petie



Pepper

These three possibly purebred cattle dog puppies were tossed out of a moving vehicle on the highway. One of them was hit before good samaritans could gather them all up

Ok.. I'm off to try to read as much of the new posts as possible before I get in trouble for sneaking on at work, LOL!

Good to "see" you too Cindy! I hope all is going well with your pack and your rescues!!

OMGosh shes a cutie. And yep! I'd say "Sproinging" is a pretty common activity for a border collie or aussie pup (or both). Kind of like "Hey mom! *Sproing* bye mom!"

Maybe you should look into fly ball!