Ridenbaugh Press/Dog Rescue

Well, the research has been done; all the sides have weighed in; the interviews conducted; and the semifinal decision has been made: Either a labradoodle or a Portuguese water dog will reside in the Obama White House.

From my rescue-centric point of view, I’m a little concerned. Rationally I understand the Obama family’s concern about getting a dog that does not exacerbate daughter Malia’s allergies (I’ve seen off-the-charts allergic reactions to dogs, so I take such allergies seriously). President-elect Obama said in an interview with George Stephanopolus that they still planned to get a shelter or rescue dog & all of us in rescue hope that will be the case. However, a quick glance today at the PetFinder (http://www.petfinder.com/) dog listings shows only eight PWDs; on the other hand, the listings for Labradors, chocolate labs, yellow labs; and black labs number well over 20,000 – I’m guessing that some of those are labradoodles since PetFinder does not have a classification for labradoodles. Continue Reading »

This article was being passed around the lists today — I keep thinking that if this woman is a “responsible breeder” and not a “puppy mill” … then why is she saying she’ll have to start producing and selling more dogs if she has to pay the fees the city is requiring?

http://tinyurl.com/ar3rcl

The article said she was raided by “…officers from the McKamey Animal
Trust…”

When I googled the trust I found this:

The Animal Care Trust is a registered nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization
dedicated to animal welfare. ACT was appointed by the Chattanooga City
Council in 2004 to build a state-of-the-art animal care and adoption center.
ACT operates the 26,000 square-foot McKamey Animal Center located on 10
acres of former DuPont property on Access Road in Hixson. The Center
provides comprehensive services for adoption, animal population control,
education and animal rescue for the City of Chattanooga .

The Animal Care Trust contracts with the City of Chattanooga to provide
Animal Field Services. The Center employs all Animal Field Service officers.
Residents of the City of Chattanooga can call 311 (425-6311) or the McKamey
Center at 305-6500 for animal control issues.

By setting a higher standard in animal welfare, the Center has become the
nucleus of our community’s animal care and service program, positively
impacting the quality of life for both Chattanooga’s human and animal
population.

Quite often during the last ten years, I’ve had folks comment to me that they’d love to be able to do what I do (& I admit that dog rescue is my passion — I wish were putting as much energy into our business as I am into rescue); one woman commented, “What a great job to be able to help dogs and deliver them to new homes.”

And I love that I *can* help dogs and see the joy on people’s faces when they walk off with their new family member. I need those days to make up for days like today, which is probably a more typical rescue day: I got up at 4:00 a.m. because the puppy who spent the night with us was awake & yipping — she needed to go to the bathroom, but after she was done, she was not willing to go back into her crate — she wanted to stay up & play & would have been yipping even more vehemently if I’d tried to put her back to bed. (Anyone who’s had an Australian cattle dog puppy knows what I’m talking about!) If it was just me in the house, I might have been tempted to let her do this, but I knew my husband wouldn’t really appreciate it much.

So, I fluffed out the quilt on the couch, laid down with Puppy & after about 15 minutes she finally consented to fall back to sleep & slept for another couple of hours — which means I got to get in a couple of more hours too. After getting up, I wanted to take my shower, but I couldn’t leave Puppy’s sight because she’d start barking; so I couldn’t just put her back in the crate. I ended up letting her come into the bathroom while I showered; then she supervised the breakfast preparations, after which it was time to head out to meet her new family. Continue Reading »