Nashau, NH

We picked up a last minute trip and drove up Friday morning - 24 dogs on board!

Please sponsor me...

in the 2007 Mutt Strut benefitting the Shelby Humane Society! Visit my fundraising page at www.firstgiving.com/herringbones and learn more about SHS at www.shelbyhumane.org.

Chicken bones and corn cobs.

That's what we spent the morning pumping from Marley's stomach. Oh and how could I forget, the handle of one of my Henckel knives.

Lesson learned: Marley is tall enough to reach the very back of the coutertop. And she's apparently part goat.

I need one of those industrial accident signs:

IT'S BEEN "0" DAYS SINCE OUR LAST ACCIDENT.

It's taken me 33 years...

but I've finally decided that it's okay if not everyone likes me. In fact, I'm okay if a few people really dislike me! This week, the people in the second category are 1) the entire office staff of the vet I've recently "fired" and 2) the gentleman who left his Chihuahua in his car while he was shopping in Costco yesterday.

First, the vet. I LOVE this vet. He's incredible. Unfortunately, his clinic is a circus and his office staff are the clowns. Aside from my Beagle-mix's knee surgery a couple of years ago, I've only used this vet for my rescue work (which is a LOT more than I use my regular vet) because you have to wait forever to be seen. But like I said, the vet himself is worth it.

I'm VERY involved in my dogs' (my own and my fosters) vet care. I want to know exactly what's wrong, exactly what will be done to repair/prevent it and exactly how much it will cost. Getting that basic information from said vet's office staff is next to impossible. The final straw was being yanked around about my current foster's heartworm treatment. It's over. I'm done. And I've told the vet as much in a letter sent to his attention. Which I suspect was never given to him...by (you guessed it) the office staff. More to come on that later as I'll be making a special trip by there this week. Anyone have connections with the Bessemer police department? Just asking...

Now, the idiot who thought it would be a good idea to leave his dog in the car while shopping in Costco. Not only did I call the police, but I made it a point to flag them down and point out the car just in case they missed it. Poor little dog was in there for at least 25 minutes yesterday afternoon when it was at least 90 degrees. Yeah, the windows were down about 2" but that's the equivalent of turning your oven on 325 and opening the door a bit. Brandon and I were watching the dog carefully to make sure he was okay and trying to convince each other that breaking the window in the name of saving a dog is a forgivable offense.

Luckily, the man came out of Costco just in time to see the policeman reaching into his car. The officer explained to the man that leaving an animal in a car when it's hot is not only dangerous, but can be considered animal cruelty. I didn't hear the man's excuse (nor did I care to - there is NO excuse for that) but I'm hoping he pissed his pants when all was said and done.

**I'd also like to add that right up there with people who leave their dogs in the car are the people who feel entitled to take their dogs everywhere simply because they're small. If I can't march my 50lb dog into WalMart, you shouldn't be shoving your's in a bag to go in. I buy FOOD there and that's gross. A lot of the kids I see in WalMart are pretty damn gross too, but that's another topic for another post.**

So, now it's Monday and I have a whole new week to piss people off. I'm starting to like this!

THIS is Alabama football!!!

Football and Flyball!!

The only thing more exciting than Nick Saban's debut as the new head coach at The University of Alabama is Marley officially starting flyball practice tomorrow...okay, maybe it's not more exciting, but at our house, it's damn close!

Veronica has been competing for almost three years now - training a dog with ZERO ball drive to run flyball wasn't an easy task, but we did it. And yes, our Retriever couldn't care less about a ball. She also hates water. Freak. Thing is, Veronica runs for us, not because she particularly likes it (as opposed to the Border Collies in our club who live and die for a tennis ball). She could probably outrun any dog in our club at Doggie Funzone (http://www.doggiefunzone.com/ - it's a lure course) but in flyball? Nah, she takes her own sweet time. And see the last picture of her at the box? Yeah, that's not even close to being the right way to trigger the ball!

That's Mazie in the first picture - we worked her for almost two years hoping that she might compete one day, but it's not in the cards. 1) Mazie has bi-lateral hip dysplasia and while the exercise has made an amazing change in her daily activity (and held off hip replacement surgery so far!) she can't run for long periods of time and 2) Mazie is the canine version of Rain Man. She can learn complex series of commands. She can hide a toy and go right back to it weeks later. But she can't seem to make the connection between the jumps and the box. She can do one or the other but trying to combine the two is overload and she resorts to her OCD action of spinning in circles. Always counter-clockwise, thank you very much.

Then there's Marley. Long body. Long legs. Ball drive. She's a flyballer's dream. Unfortunately, she's also still a puppy and a bit of a spaz. She's easily distracted - in basic obedience, she had a crush on our instructor Philip. She would totally ignore me and just stare at him with her big cow eyes! So, step one in our quest for a flyball phenom is harnessing that crazy energy...the races only last about 20 seconds on average so I don't even need a long attention span to work with!

FLYBALL STARTS TOMORROW!!!

Now, are you ready for some football???? ROLL TIDE!!!

Shelter transport update!

Of the 24 dogs we transported only 12 days ago, 17 were dropped at the New Hampshire Humane Society in Laconia, NH (www.nhhumane.org). As of today, 13 of them have been adopted!!!

Amazing when you consider that their fate here was sure death. Lucky dogs ;-)