Pippin, World Class Dock Diver

None of you could have forgotten our Christmas story this past year . . . posted on our blog December 22, 2008, entitled "Our Christmas Story" . . . starring Pippin and a young man whom we will always salute as a hero.






AND HERE SHE IS, THE FEARLESS ADVENTURE LOVER, PIP-PIP !!!!! And MaxineeBean shakes her head indulgently at the antics of her young roommate as she heads back to the tent where multiple doggie comforts await. Angela puts her babies first, as do we all, don't we now?

We will forever be grateful to the young man who rescued Pippin, and to Angela, a truly fabulous mom.

Truly an ending we never could have foreseen. It's still all about the love, baby.

SHADOW DOZES OFF

Sweet dreams, darlin', darlin'.

"Lay your head

Upon my pillow.

Hold your warm and tender body

Close to mine . . . "

For the Good Times

by Kris Kristofferson

FROM SNAP TO SUGAR SNAP

Someone had named her "Snap".

And snap she did, as close to the rear corner of her kennel as she could possibly be, from anyone who approached her in any way, lunging, baring teeth, growling. So utterly fearful of absolutely everyone - had her former people named her Snap because they thought it was funny to see such a tiny little dog acting so ferociously? Someone clearly had made this little girl act incredibly aggressively towards people - for one of those insane reasons we don't even want to guess at.

But we had something different in mind for her. And lots of experience with good instincts based on former successes. I waited her out. I would pass by her kennel and say hello to her without looking at her a few times a day. I would open her kennel door, and again, without looking at her, place some tasty morsels on the floor, close the door quietly and leave.

Then I spent short increments of time laying down as far away from her as I could be and ignored her. I did not lift my limbs, I moved very slowly, and not towards her. Using a lot of the calming techniques of Turid Rugas, such as keeping my body relaxed, soft yawning, quiet lip smacking, and never looking directly at her.

I upped the ante slowly, letting her feel safe enough to initiate an approach. At first, of course, there would be slight movements towards me with lots of darting retreats. Gradually, very gradually, her approaches became closer and she began eating treats in front of me, then from my hand. I still did not make eye contact with her, keeping my head lowered and facing away from her.

When I first touched her, I still did not face her directly, but let my hand drift towards her neck, speaking softly and cheerfully, saying her name a lot, and letting the tips of my fingers wiggle playfully just the tiniest bit. It worked. She was ready. My hand came towards her, always touching the blanket, and I never lifted it until I reached her neck and then I reached up to underneath her neck where she could see it. I stroked her gently and she stayed. Oh, baby.

That was the beginning of our love affair. It went slowly for a while and then she made the leap. Suddenly I was the apple of her eye, the person who made her twirl with happiness and jump for joy, who made her heart sing. She trusted someone. She found out about love. And how!!!

Then it was time for others to do the same thing. She needed to continue to grow and expand. She decided that was a good thing to do, although it took time with each new person, with each new place, and with each new dog whom she encountered. She met each challenge with suspicion and wariness and perhaps she always will.

Someone changed her name to Sugar Snap. Perfect. A little ( :-) ), or a lot (!), of each, our baby has finally made it out of the kennel where she began her transition into the dog she will become.

Sugar Snap is in a foster home with Grateful Dog Rescue and awaits her forever home.

FARAH aka LADYBUG - update!

Who could resist a face like this?

Well, it didn't take long for our little charmer to find a forever home, but it's turned out that there was a glitch in the works,as she reports from Lake Tahoe (where she spent the weekend with her foster family), "my new forever family has had a family emergency that is going to be a long term time commitment, so they had to put off getting a dog. Yup, me. Oh, dear, dear. So, I'm going to be with my lovely foster family until my new forever home finds me. My foster dad emailed this about me: I am housetrained, crate trained, I know sit, down, stay and come. We are working on loose-leash walking and I am improving on that quickly with his good leadership. I am (listen to this!!) incredibly good with adults and older children, and other dogs. I am active and affectionate and snuggly.

"I've been living on the streets of San Francisco (yes, I have heard of the tv show!) for most of my young life with different folks and I was never sure who my family was. How I landed in the isolation kennel at SF/ACC I'm not really sure, but there were some bald patches on my skin that made me itch like crazy, so I'm guessing that someone just dropped me off. One bath and a few Full Spa Treatments from the folks at GADAB changed that pretty quickly. Here's the kicker, though, I was adopted from ACC by Home at Last Rescue through the magnificent efforts of a particularly spectacular woman who is an ace at finding foster and forever homes. Her name is Joyce. Remember that, all you people who are looking to hire a most excellent foster coordinator. This is her true calling and we need to keep her in this field!!! By gosh and by golly!!!"

"Anyway, on one of the first days that Corinne had taken me out to the shelter park, she tossed a ball for me, and as I ran to catch it, I slipped onto my belly and then frog-legged to the ball. That cracked her up so much that she almost fell over too! Add that to my natural affection for people, that I play well with most dogs, and you can see why she called Joyce about me that same night.

"I am a lucky, lucky dog. J and C (as I call them) make a fabu team. Hey, guys and gals, I'm here to tell you - Dreams will come true."

10/06/09

And so it did. I have a nice size family: two (count 'em - 2!) dads, a doggie brother, and a kittie.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Joyce of Home at Last Rescue in Berkeley.

ANIMAL TORTURERS

Make my blood boil. Horrified beyond belief. Afraid yet compelled to read one more paragraph. I’m sorry, I like happy endings as much as the next person, they very much make my day, but how do I ignore the rest? Soapbox time. Graphic too, I’m afraid, and very off topic from GADAB’s Mission Statement, but may I? For the squeamish, skip through to the last four paragraphs if you just need to know how you can make a difference.

The recent news stories, about the three state dog fighting ring, involving 30 men and 350 dogs, made news, I’m afraid, because of the sheer numbers involved. And that would just be the current number of dogs, not those maimed and killed over the years that these men were in business.

Men and women who fight animals are profiteers in other ways - arms smugglers, drug smugglers, gamblers – big money. It’s a huge business as well as a sick pleasure. You say it doesn’t happen in Canada because it’s illegal? Here’s a wake-up call – dog fighting is illegal in every state in the Union. Multitudes of animals are fought all over the world. Perhaps Michael Vick could offer some insight into the vast networks of global animal fighters.

Those of us who are familiar with dog fighting busts, canary fighting busts, cockfighting busts, also know about those animals who are bred to be tortured daily in testing laboratories all over the world. Include beagles as a breed especially victimized by animal laboratories, bunnies, monkeys and other primates bred as “test” animals by agencies that are both familiar and unfamiliar to you. The packaged meats that are displayed in your supermarket and butcher stores with nice fake grass sticking up between the different cuts – those farm animals live sickening, abysmal lives that the consumer does not see.

How about that new mascara being touted as “24 hour perfect long-lash” worn by the beautiful model smiling at you from the full page ad in a national magazine? That mascara was tested on many, many cute animals that you would snuggle in your arms as quickly as you could swoop them up, but she wouldn’t have any eyes, since the chemicals used to test that mascara have burned those little eyes crisply and effectively, without anesthesia. Anesthesia is too costly. But those companies don’t tell you that other, equally effective ways have been developed to test those live-saving drugs that are pushed as the reason for animal cruelty. Cosmetics are barely mentioned.

Those eggs that were $.79 a dozen last week at the supermarket chain people shop at were produced by chickens living in filthy cages so small that they could not move. They are filthy themselves, living in stacked cages, beaks removed so they cannot injure each other, living with dead chickens. Their life span, understandably and thankfully, is very short. Eggs come at a cost higher than $.79/dozen.

Puppy mills have been in the news lately. Good. Those darling little white and fluffies in the pet shops are damaged goods - both physically and behaviorally through no fault of their own. Breeders are to be looked at carefully; and just try to meet the dams and sires of those little ones. The lives of the dams especially would make you gag.

And Breed Specific Legislation? How safe does BSL make you feel? Wait til they target your favorite breed. Who will stand up for you?

What to do? Really, where to start? As always, with education. Then, in this economy, how do most of us afford to put our money where our mouth is?

As always, there is finding out who our legislators are and writing them, emailing them, calling them. There’s one-person boycotts, again contacting a corporation or company who practice animal cruelty and letting them know that your dollars are going to a socially conscious competitor. There’s going bigger - joining an organized group or donating a few or lots of your hard-earned dollars. In this networked world, it’s pretty effortless to do something easily and quickly.

Go to caringconsumer.com, do a search on Covance Research Products or Huntingdon Life Sciences. Your helping stop animal cruelty can just be a click away.

As for dog fighters, harder to find, harder to stop. But we can make our laws stronger, the penalties more severe, and teach our kids that morality applies to all species.

Speak up.

STOP THE MICHAEL VICKS OF THIS WORLD

ENOUGH

For NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to even consider meeting with Michael Vick, who was recently released from federal custody for dog fighting, speaks volumes about the NFL.

As for Michael Vick, his efforts to resume his professional football career indicate that he has little understanding of how sickened we were, and are, by the "blood sport" which he practiced. And, how additionally sickening that he wants to return to his former "glory days". It's over, Michael Vick. There are no more glory days for you. We all know who you are.

If such a meeting does occur, from the statements given by the Commissioner's office, I hold little hope that it would be to discuss Michael Vick's more appropriate future, which would be to spend the rest of his life speaking publicly, openly, and apologetically about the harm he has inflicted on the most maligned and victimized dog breed in our world today, the American Pit Bull Terrier. Easy victims are brutalized by the most cowardly of people.

Courage, Michael Vick, means openly recognizing that you chose to victimize helpless living beings in unspeakably cruel ways. Courage means owning up the harm that you have done. Courage means saying no in the first place.

But it also means that you, along with your influential friends and acquaintances, have a unique opportunity to educate the public and to actively promote the positive character of American Pit Bull Terriers, and even further, to discuss animal cruelty in an open, humane forum that addresses the possibility that one day, our species will stop hurting other species. Activism works. I hope you can meet some of the dogs that you terrorized and tell them that you are truly sorry and I hope you have heart enough to mean it. I hope you cry until you have no more tears. It will do you good to cry.

And then I hope you put your money where it belongs - directly to the shelters all over this country who care for these animals. Do you have guts enough to volunteer in a shelter? You see, it's not the animals who judge you - it's us, we're the ones who will be looking at you and trying to understand and forgive while we mop up canine blood from the floor.

Don't even think about giving your money to big animal organizations - that's the easy way out, to write a big check. Do some homework. Opportunities exist for you to make some reparation.

Then you can look your kids in the eyes and tell them that their daddy finally learned how to do the right thing.

JOIN US THIS SATURDAY - JUNE 20 over at SF/SPCA

Rescue Recycle Renew Adoption Fair



Come look for our table


have a great time with all

of us! Cats, dogs, birds, bunnies, other small mammals . . .

and YOU!

San Francisco SPCA invites you

Rescue, Recycle, Renew

Free Adoption Fair

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

11:00 am - 3:00 pm

201 Alabama Street
(in the courtyard of The SF/SPCA’s Leanne B. Roberts Animal Care Center)

FREE parking available

♥ Variety of Rescue Groups (adoption fees apply for each group)
♥ “Second Chance Sale” of new or gently used pet toys, outfits, bric-a-brac, supplies & more
♥ Education on recycling: garbage vs. compost vs. recyclables
♥ Tours of the new SF/SPCA Leanne B. Roberts Animal Care Center
♥ Maddies Pet Adoption Center
♥ Foster Care Program with kittens, and Fospice (Foster/Hospice) animals

Participating Bay Area Groups:

California Chins
Copper's Dream Animal Rescue
The Dog Spot Rescue

Give A Dog A Bone

Golden State Greyhound Adoption
Grateful Dogs Rescue

Hopalong and Second Chance Animal Rescue
Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue
The Milo Foundation

Muttville
Rocket Dog
San Francisco Animal Care & Control

Save A Bunny
Toni's Kitty Rescue
Wonder Dog Rescue

Meet some really cool animals and bring your kids

- the next generation of adopters.

Adopt a homeless animal and save a life! Join The SF/SPCA and Bay Area rescue groups for a free Adoption Fair featuring cats and dogs of all ages, birds, bunnies, and other small mammals!
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Participating Vendors ...

Dress My Pooch
Greenhome

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Sponsored by ... PetCo Foundation - thank you, PetCo!

SEE YOU ALL THERE !!!!