SAVE THE DATE FOR BINGO !!

 

 

http://www.magdrl.org/bingoFundraiser.htm

Have You Seen Harley??

MISSING SINCE JANUARY 16TH

Please call the numbers below if you have any information on this family's pet!

Harley Is STILL Missing ~

Have you seen Harley ?

This treasured and adored family member has been missing since January 16, 2013

 

If you have seen Harley, if you have Harley or know where he is PLEASE call the phone numbers listed below.

 

His family and friends are worried and they miss him.

 

It's A Dogs World.........

"A dog owns nothing, yet is seldom dissatisfied."

~Irish Proverb~

Judge getting his treat at the Inner Harbor on Saturday.

Thanks, Missy

Maybe Pet Owners Need To Be Left In Hot Cars So The Dogs Can Shop !

These poor innocent dogs were like children to this couple? They claim (he does, anyway) that there is no way in hell "they" would do anything to jeopardize them. Huh? Maybe you need some cheese with your whine. I don't buy your story for one minute. Isn't the Humane Society of Wicomico County closed on Sunday? I wonder if these people have any idea as to what goes on in a poor dogs body when he is dying in the heat? They probably don't and they could probably care less.

Here's a news flash! People that LOVE their pets and consider these animals their children and as part of the family DO NOT leave them unattended for ANY amount of time. Vaccinations, flea treatments and hair loss? These poor animals were neglected long before they were left unattended in a vehicle. I don't even want to think what this would be like if they had been real children.

Maybe the two of you should be made to take these helpless animals to a doggie spa for treatment while YOU BOTH wait in a hot vehicle for a few hours! Unthinkable? Cruel?


SALISBURY -- A Berlin couple charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty after city officers found six dogs locked in their Dodge Durango parked outside the mall denies allegations that they left the canines in the car for several hours.

Shannon Mecall Hussain, 34, and her fiance, Kirt Barren Greenberg, 45, of West Street, were taken into police custody after officers used a department issued baton to unlock the doors and release the dogs.

"We raised them from babies," Hussain said. "They were our children. There's no way in hell we would do anything to jeopardize them."

An unresponsive German shepherd lying on the floor of the vehicle had a weak pulse, according to police. An officer was able to revive it two times after performing CPR, but was unsuccessful a third time.

Police expect a necropsy report on the deceased dog to be completed sometime next week.

"The others seem to be fine, luckily," said Officer Edward Stewart, a Salisbury Police Department animal control officer.

Hussain said the couple drove the six dogs to the Humane Society of Wicomico County on Sunday morning before driving to The Centre at Salisbury. She said Greenberg's necklace broke while they were at the Humane Society, so they drove to the mall to have it repaired.

Hussain said she waited in the vehicle with the dogs while Greenberg went inside. She left the dogs to take Greenberg his wallet but denies leaving the animals for more than 20 minutes.

"I thought I was a little quicker," Hussain said. "I rushed as fast as I could."

People often leave their dogs in the car while shopping or running errands, but leaving a pet in the vehicle during extreme weather "can literally be a death sentence," said Nicole Forsyth, United Animal Nations President and chief executive officer.

UAN is a nonprofit national organization that provides pet-related financial assistance, emergency and temporary shelter, and educational materials.

"People are under the misconception that dogs are tougher than humans are; that they can handle the heat," Forsyth said. "But the reality is they are more susceptible to high temperatures and depend on us to keep them safe. Even a few minutes in a hot car, let alone three hours, can be deadly."

The surviving dogs --a German shepherd mix, a golden retriever mix, a terrier mix and two Labrador retriever mixes --were weak and fighting amongst each other for water, according to police.

Witnesses reported to police that the vehicle had been parked since 2 p.m., according to charging documents. When witnesses checked back an hour and a half later, the dogs were still alone.

Hussain and Greenberg returned to the vehicle around 5:18 p.m., about an hour after police at the mall located the vehicle at about 4:17 p.m., according to court records.

After the dogs were released from the vehicle, they were transported to the Humane Society, where they were vaccinated and given flea treatments, according to Linda Lugo, the executive director of the Humane Society. One of the canines who was suffering from hair loss was sent to a veterinarian.

Hussain and Greenberg, who have since been released from the Wicomico County Detention Center, have not given up the dogs for adoption so the canines will remain at the Humane Society until the animal cruelty case for the couple has been adjudicated.

"Whether they get the dogs back or not, they will owe us restitution for (the) time they were in our care," Lugo said.

Meanwhile, Lugo cautions pet owners to think twice about allowing animals to travel with them during extreme weather in the summer months.

"Leave your pet at home," Lugo said. "Sometimes people think they'll keep the car running, but the car can turn off. Leave your pet at home. They'll be happy, safe and alive."

www.delmarvanow.com

"Earl Weaver" The Family Pet

REST IN PEACE "EARL WEAVER". You were loved and you will be missed.


This is "Earl Weaver" an adopted dog and family pet. Earl Weaver was saved from being put to sleep on the eve of his execution. For many months he did nothing but exist in a kennel at the dog pound. He had no trips out of doors, no fresh air and ate, slept and went to the bathroom all in the same place. He had no family anymore and not even a nibble for a new home.

Well, he found a new home. And for a few short months "Earl Weaver" had the best medical care, the best in food, the softest bed and even received a doggy education. He had others to play with, a park to play in, toys of his own and someone to love. There were road trips and plenty of trips to the store for more toys. All he had to do was provide protection for his owner in which he did. It made him proud and he worked so hard.

Suddenly a few days ago "Earl Weaver" developed an attitude that no one had ever seen in him. His actions and behavior became so untypical of "Earl Weaver" that his owner quickly took him to his doctor for a blood test. It was determined today that "Earl Weaver", when living with his first family, (who lost him to the shelter for mistreating him) had fed him lead. The lead that he had been fed once upon a time was destroying his kidneys and his brain.

Yep, someone gave this animal something harmful that could not be detected until Earl did something wrong........like BITE! Thank goodness no one was bitten and his attitude was taken seriously by his owner before something unfortunate did happen.

The decisions we have to make in life sometimes seem so unfair. But for the fairness to "Earl Weaver" and so he would never harm a person (not meaning to), the owner, along with Earl's doctor made the hard decision to put "Earl Weaver" to sleep.

So it's a very sad time right now for those that loved him. But on a happy note he got his time to walk free, play in the park, chew bones and do all the things dogs should get to do when they are loved and especially when someone gives them a chance.

We're going to miss that funny, happy dog.

Isn't it odd though if you really give it some thought........ If a dog bites someone, acts unruly, threatens, or even looks mean the first thing to be done is to be put to sleep. Well, my goodness, we can't have an animal running our streets acting like that!!! What if he was to harm someone????? What if some person really got hurt? Dogs have been known to kill!!!

WELL GUESS WHAT!!! WE HAVE HUMAN BEINGS IN THE STREETS DOING ALMOST THE SAME THINGS THAT WE EUTHANIZE AN ANIMAL FOR. CHANCES ARE ONCE THEY GO TO THE "HUMAN POUND" THEY WILL GET THE CHANCE TO GET OUT AND DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!

We tolerate bad behavior from humans that can cause us MORE harm than a dog could ever do.

Blood Bank For Dogs

If your dog has ever received a life-saving blood transfusion, turn in the direction of Garden Grove, Calif., and give a nod of thanks to Jean Dodds.

Dodds — veterinary hematologist, researcher, lecturer and animal advocate — is the founder of Hemopet, the first non-profit animal blood bank in the world. That makes her, she says, "sort of the grandmother of blood-banking for animals."

In the 1980s Dodds was executive director of the New York State Council on Human Blood and Transfusion Services. After one of her regular meetings with the Red Cross, she had an idea: "I thought, Why the heck don't we have blood banks for animals like we have for people? Like an animal Red Cross?" she said recently by phone. "Wow, of course. And who would do it better than me, since I'd already been doing blood-banking?"

That was the start. It would be several years – planning, paperwork, drumming up interest all took time (in addition to marrying and moving to California) – before Hemopet got rolling in early 1991, "and we've never looked back."

Today, Hemopet has about 50 employees and provides about 14,000 units of blood product over the course of a year (each donation can be broken down into several units). The blood, which has a shelf life of about a month, is banked at repositories around North America and is needed for dogs that suffer a traumatic injury, have blood-destroying diseases or will be undergoing surgery during which there will be excessive bleeding. A unit (about 7 ounces of blood) costs between $85 and $95, Dodds said, with the money going to keep the program running.

Dodds said there are five other commercial blood banks in the country, and several university vet schools have their own small operations. Some veterinary practices also have small blood programs for their own use.

Cadre of canines

Hemopet's blood comes from a colony of 200 donor greyhounds kept at its facility. The animals, former racing dogs that Dodds rescues, donate about twice a month for a year before going into Hemopet's adoption program (http://www.hemopet.org/adoption.html), which places dogs in California only. There's currently up to a two-month wait for people seeking to adopt them.

"We're making a social statement about the inappropriateness of using animals to gain financially or prestige and then dumping them when they don't serve your needs anymore," Dodds said. "That's unacceptable."

Now just roll up your sleeve…

Getting a blood donation from a dog isn't as difficult as one might think. For example: Oliver. A 4-year-old former racing greyhound, he came to Chicago Veterinary Emergency Services to make his first blood donation.

The process was quick and uneventful. Oliver got lifted to the table and placed on his side. A needle, about an inch long, was inserted into his jugular and the blood was drawn into a bag sitting on a small scale. Because of the breed's short hair, shaving isn't necessary. In keeping with the breed's temperament, Oliver was the picture of tranquility and remained perfectly motionless.

When the bag was full, the needle was removed, the puncture mark was wiped and gauze was applied, and Oliver got a colorful wrap to cover the bandage. Then, for him, the best part: the traditional treat of meat-flavor baby food. The benefit for Oliver's owner: The dog gets a free general blood screening, heartworm testing and medication, and flea and tick medication.

Oliver will donate again in a couple of months. As for immediate after-effects, "I don't know if our owners would notice," said Kate Gallagher, the blood bank coordinator at CVES. "Most of our donors are greyhounds, so, Oh my God, he slept 19 hours today instead of only 18!"

Um… cats?
Feline blood donations are not as common. Cats do donate, but they need to be sedated. Generally the donor animals are pets belonging to staff members, rather than clients, although if a client has a cat in need of a transfusion and has another cat at home that fits donor criteria (age, weight, blood tests etc.), that cat may be used as a donor.

Why greyhounds?There are two major blood types for dogs, 1.1 positive and 1.1 negative. The 1.1 positive dogs can donate only to other 1.1 positive animals; the 1.1 negative blood can go to any other dog, said Kate Gallagher, blood bank coordinator at Chicago Veterinary Emergency Services.
Because 70 percent of greyhounds at 1.1 negative, they're high on the donor list,
Another reason greyhounds are great donors, she said, is "because they have a high metabolism and are athletic. Their red blood cell count is higher than other animals."

www.baltimoresun.com

Do Dogs And Cats Really Dream?

How many pet owners have gotten a chuckle out of watching their dog sleep while its paws race frenetically in place?

Many figured that Rover was romping somewhere in dreamland, and scientists say they were right: Pets do dream while sleeping.

As dogs and cats doze, images of past events replay in their minds much the same way humans recall experiences while dreaming, said Matthew Wilson of MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory in Cambridge, Mass. That's because the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory, is basically wired the same way in virtually all vertebrates and mammals, he said.

"If you compared a hippocampus in a rat to a dog; in a cat to a human, they contain all of the same pieces," said Wilson, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences.

Like people, pets go through multiple stages of sleep, from periods of slow wave sleep to REM (rapid eye movement), where most dreaming occurs.

"From the minute your head hits the pillow and you're out, the dreaming process begins," he said.

Non-REM dreams consist of quick snapshots of things usually done that day. During the deeper sleep state of REM, dreams last much longer and tap into a vast pool of past experiences drawn from weeks, months, even years in the past.

REM occurs approximately every 90 minutes in people, and every 25 minutes in cats.

In dogs, research shows the frequency and length of dreams is linked to their physical size, said psychologist Stanley Coren, author of several books, including "How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind."

For example, he said, mastiffs and Great Danes might dream every 45 minutes for about five minutes, compared to their smaller canine cousins that enter a dream state every 10 minutes with episodes lasting less than 60 seconds.

Owners can tell if their dozing dog or feline is dreaming by looking for these clues: whisker twitching, paw tremors, irregular breathing and — in dogs — occasional high-pitched yips.

But what do our pets dream about? Researchers believe they know the answer. Older studies, done decades ago in cats, involved temporarily releasing the suppression of motor activity that happens during REM sleep so they'd act out their dreams.

What researchers witnessed is sleepwalking cats doing things they'd normally do while awake — walking, swatting their forepaws, even pouncing on imaginary prey.

Similar research showed the same held true for dogs.

"Pointers point at dream birds, and Dobermans growl at dream burglers," Coren said.

Those experiments were not a demonstration of actual dreaming, said MIT's Wilson, but do suggest that in REM sleep the brain is functioning the same way it behaves during normal wakefulness. As early as 2001, he decided to find out if animals did in fact dream by eavesdropping on the sleeping brain.

Wilson used electrodes to record the brain activity of rats as they ran a circular track and later as they slept. He discovered, by examining more than 40 REM episodes recorded while the rats slept, that the sleeping rodents often appeared to replay images of navigating the track in real time. About 50% of the episodes repeated the unique signature of brain activity created as the animal ran. In fact, because records of the neural signals in both the sleep and waking states were so similar, Wilson said he could reconstruct where the dreaming rats were on the track and whether they were standing still or running.

This human-like ability to dream about actual experiences almost certainly applies to pets, he said.

"My guess is — unless there is something special about rats and humans — that cats and dogs are doing exactly the same thing," he said.

In the scientific community, animals are often thought of as reflex machines, operating by instinct alone. But this view is slowly starting to change, noted Wilson, as new information about dreaming in animals is unearthed.

Coren, the psychologist, agreed. He said that one of his heroes, Charles Darwin, "basically claimed if you can prove that an animal dreams, then, in effect, you can prove that's consciousness. Because after all, what is a dream other than a conscious image?"

Wilson's current work goes beyond analyzing dream content and relates to what's going on inside the brain during wakefulness. Using lab-built devices with an array of electrodes, he's found that rats appear to replay memories while doing normal, everyday activities like nibbling on food or sitting quietly. In other words, he said, they're thinking about the past, and possibly contemplating the future.

"The idea that rats may actually be thinking — just as humans think when they're sitting, appearing not to be doing anything — suggests the full range of cognitive abilities that we have," he said.

Wilson believes his work extends beyond using animal models to explore human memory and cognition. "It really is using animal models to study animal cognition," he said. "Understanding the differences will give us a better understanding of where we stand in the hierarchy of organisms on the planet."

www.usa.com