Hector

Kristin, I hope that Patina is doing better and that you get a good diagnosis of what is wrong. FWIW, our young Border Kitty, Skiziks, had diarrhea problems intermittently, and the vet FINALLY figured out that he had coccidia. A two-week treatment with Albon fixed that problem. So sometimes the vets have trouble figuring out what is wrong. Best wishes to you and Patina. Hector

Deb -- Thanks for that link. It was nice to see Taz together with Danelle. Since she had fallen 60 feet down from the trail, the SAR might not have found her without help from Taz. And she might have died from hypothermia if they hadn't found her when they did. That is a happy ending for sure.

I feel sorry for Shelby and you. It's tough to see our furry friends feeling so bad. Hope she gets better fast. This reminds me of when I had my Lab/Elkhound Pattycake spayed. It was done on a Thursday and she stayed overnight at the vet hospital. I took Friday off work so I could pick her up and stay at home to comfort my baby. She didn't need comforting. We always went "running on the bike" every morning where she ran alongside me as I rode a mountain bike. When we arrived home from the vet and got her out of the truck, she immediately started pulling and trying to head down the street. She wanted her morning run! I figured she must not be hurting much so we went for a one mile walk instead. Just watching her around the house that day I could just barely tell that she had undergone a surgical procedure. She just didn't act like anything was bothering her. That really amazed me, as I had thought that she would be uncomfortable and hurting.

I only know what is in the newspaper article. But my best *guess* is this: At the time the SAR people arrived, Taz was running around, probably barking, and trying to attract attention. SAR knew the dog's description so they immediately associated the dog with the missing woman. So SAR likely said something like "Taz, where's your mom? Go find her." So Taz understands and takes off running along the trail, and the SAR follow on the ATVs. Taz was smart enough to know that mom was in trouble and needed help and when the SAR told him to find mom then he knew exactly what to do. As I said that's just my best guess. Hector

Anda, I love your pictures and especially your videos. Ouzo looks like he is having so much fun plowing/swimming through all that deep snow. And your narration and laughter is heart-warming. Take all that snow, put it on a 35-degree hill and we would have powder skiing to die for! In my younger days I did that skiing on the Alta Utah ski patrol. Now I am very happy to have NO SNOW here in Baltimore. But I sure like seeing your pictures. Hector ------------- The best things in life are furry. Bailey - 3yo BC/Sighthound-X Sadie - 10yo Sheltie-X Skiziks - 9-mo Border-Kitty

The term "woman's best friend" certainly applies here: Dog leads rescuers to stranded injured runner

Nice video. Ouzo was having a great time. Thanks for sharing that, it really made me smile! Hector

Glad to hear you are at home and won't have to go out in the storm. Wow -- 2 or 3 feet is a LOT of snow. And the winds will make 6 foot drifts. When the western USA is having weather like that it seems like the east coast usually has balmy nice weather. Two days ago the high in Baltimore was 75 with lots of sunshine. Right now it is sunny and 48. I don't want to trade for your weather. Hector The best things in life are furry.

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Assuming you get everything for your avatar setup correctly, you may still have a time delay before your avatar correctly appears on your posts. I know that happens to me when I make a change to my avatar. Just make sure that the correct avatar picture is showing in your personal profile and then after a day or two it should appear in your posts.

Thanks so much for the link; that is a really nice video. Hector

Wow! That must have been both exciting and scarey. Glad to hear that Lance avoided the buck. An irate buck could definitely do a number on Lance or on you for that matter. Hopefully that incident was highly unusual and won't be repeated. If the bucks seem to be hanging around really close you might consider carrying a handgun to use to fire warning shots to scare them away. Guess that just depends on how close is TOO close.

No guarantees, but I have a pretty good computer background. You can Private Msg me if you wish. Hector

Your foundling kitty is very pretty! That is wonderful that you chose to rescue her. It has been 7-1/2 months since we got our rescue border-kitty Skiziks. I have loved the little guy since day one. He is so entertaining to play with and watch. He likes to get on top of his carpeted kitty tower and then chase his tail, doing loop-the-loops as he goes after it. That can brighten up any dull day. We were not planning on getting a cat, but he has been a true gift to us. Hector

26 days and $6680 later we got the car back from the body shop. Our out-of-pocket cost was the $250 deductible. Since hitting the deer we are both driving differently, especially in terms of our route late in the afternoon and in the evening. I have seen several dead deer along the roadside since the accident. That was bad news all the way around. For people living in deer country it is definitely something to think about.

This LED headlamp is really great. http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0032664516921a&type=product&cmCat=search&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&QueryText=princeton+headlamp&N=4887&Ntk=Produc ts&Ntx=mode+matchall&Nty=1&Ntt=princeton+headlamp&noImage=0://http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...dlamp&noImage=0 It provides a lot of light while allowing the user to have both hands free. The design and electronics of the lamp are very intelligent. I highly recommend this product. I have found a lot of uses for mine. Hector ----------------- The best things in life are furry.

ShoresDog -- Thank you so much for the links. That cartoon is very touching. It reminded me of a show that I saw on Animal Planet TV. It was about a rescue greyhound finding a forever home. And to get the dog to that new home, a volunteer pilot transported the dog in his airplane. That was a sweet story. From what that TV story showed, greyhounds make really good companion animals. Since Bailey came home from the ER vet on Saturday evening, we have had to keep him from licking/chewing his foot bandage. So we got an E-collar from the vet. It turned out that Bailey was very frightened when the E-collar was on. He just hates it. So I have been allowing him to go without the E-collar and I have had to watch him closely to make sure he isn't bothering the bandage. This morning, without the E-collar, he started licking at the bandage. I picked up the E-collar, walked over to him and held up the collar. I told him that if he didn't stop licking the bandage then I would have to put the E-collar on him. And ya know, he is a smart dog -- he understood what I was saying because in the past two hours he has not even looked at the bandage.

Jack & Co. -- Thanks for asking -- today is Skiziks nine-month birthday. Yes indeed, he really has blossomed out from the day he arrived here (dehyrated and not eating or drinking). He's a good little buddy -- very people friendly. When I sit down in a Lazy-Boy recliner to watch a football game, Skiziks will jump onto my lap and curl up for a nap. That's like a heating pad that doesn't use electricity. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Hector

Thanks, those ideas are exactly what I was looking for. I will install the padding before Bailey is again turned loose in his dog yard. That will be a while, as his foot must completely heal before that can happen. Following photos are of Bailey sharing his "recovery bed" with Skiziks (The Border Kitty). Hector ____________ The best things in life are furry.

Yesterday afternoon Bailey (BC/Greyhound-X) was outside in his chain-link-fenced dog yard. I went out to bring him in. I called him and as usual he ran toward me at full speed. His standard technique is to run at full speed straight at the gate, and then at the last second he puts all four paws down for braking and slides to a stop. But this time he misjudged a bit and slid into the gate (also chain link covered). In the process he damaged the top of a toe on his right fore-paw. He didn?t yelp or limp or anything like that, but when I got him into the house I saw that the top of his paw was bloody. His collision with the fence had peeled the skin on top of a toe back -- the wound was about ?-inch X ?-inch, and the flesh was showing with no skin/fur on it. I took him to the emergency vet (it was after-hours for our regular vet) and got the wound sewn back together. They sent us home with an E-collar. He slept okay through the night with me close by on a cot. Since he is a very active dog, we have him on a tranquilizer pill that is keeping him calm. Now as he is sleeping he doesn?t have the E-collar on. After this incident I have decided that I need to pad the bottom of the gate on which he injured himself. I don?t believe he will have learned anything from this incident and so it could happen again in the same way. I am trying to think of what kind of padding substance I can use? It must be something that will not be damaged by water (and rot) because we get 35-inches of rain a year here. Any suggestions about what material would make a good gate padding and how I would attach it? It would only have to pad the bottom six inches of the gate, and that gate is four feet wide. The padding needs to be able to take the force of the dog?s paws sliding into it fairly hard, hopefully with no damage to the paws or the padding.

When you have multiple animals in your household, then YOU must be the Alpha, the boss and leader. If you don't clearly establish that you are the Alpha then other pack members (dogs or cats) will try to take charge and dominate fellow pack members and maybe even you. We have a ten year old Sheltie-X (Sadie) who weighs about 45 pounds. 3 years ago we got Bailey, an 8-week-old BC-X puppy from a rescue group. Bailey ended up being about 75 pounds, so he is a lot bigger and stronger than Sadie, plus he is young. As Bailey got to be around 4-months-old he started bothering Sadie a lot. My initial efforts to stop that weren't working too well. I got disgusted with Bailey and decided to assert my position as the Alpha. So when Bailey started bothering Sadie I snarled at him and gave him a swat on the head with my open hand. After the third snarl/swat Bailey got the message that I am the Alpha. He backed off and has not bothered Sadie since that time. If you want to see a really good movie on a DVD, you should buy "Living With Wolves" from the Discovery Channel. http://shopping.discovery.com/stores/servl...catalogId=10000 This is about a naturalist who set up a wolf project in Idaho in order to study how wolves live and interact in their pack. It is a superbly done movie -- very entertaining and highly informative. You will see how the Alpha male wolf controls the other members of the wolf pack. There is no queston as to who is the boss.

Mark -- Very interesting information. That makes perfect sense, namely that deer don't like to stay in the middle of dense forests, but rather they do a lot better on the edge of forests. The "edge" describes the county in which we live, so now I better understand the deer population problem here. Hector

RE: Deer whistles on cars. I spoke to the manager of the collision center where our car is being repaired and asked him about deer whistles. He said "We repair a lot of vehicles that hit deer AND had deer whistles on them." He told me about an incident where he almost hit a deer and he had whistles mounted on his vehicle. So his message was that deer whistles are no guarantee that you won't hit a deer. RE: Controlling the deer population. Deer will reproduce and multiply their numbers until some factor comes into play that stabilizes the size of the deer population. Before humans took over the landscape, nature's control for deer was the cougar. But humans were/are unwilling to coexist with a population of cougars. The cougar is a carnivore and a hunter and they will take whatever prey is available. People would get really upset if cougars were killing their sheep and livestock, or their dogs and cats, or (heaven forbid) their children. So cougars have been hunted to extinction in areas where humans live. In areas like northern Maryland there is plenty for deer to eat so their numbers will not be controlled by the food supply. The only means left to keep the deer population in check is hunting or traffic kills. Given a choice between those two, I prefer hunting. Unfortunately, there are not enough deer hunters in this area to do an adequate job of keeping the deer population down. There are so many people living around here that hunters are severely restricted as to where they can hunt. RE: the bigger problem of humans invading the deer's natural habitat. I consider myself to be an "environmentalist". My own opinion is that the planet Earth's environment is suffering from an over-abundance of humans. The current population is about 6.4 billion, with the forecast being that the human population will reach 20 billion within this century. The solution to this is "human population control" but who is advocating that? Religions are against any such control. Sad to say, there are no answers.

From the facts you have presented, if I were in your shoes I would have a (hopefully) friendly conversation with MIL. I would tell her that you can't leave your dogs at home because of the risk of the ferry shutting down, and that you aren't comfortable with the way her problem dog bothers your dogs. So ask if she would PLEASE agree to leave her dogs at home. If she says no then you have two choices: (1) take your dogs along and keep them crated away from her dog, or (2) stay home on Christmas. If you stayed at home this Christmas, then perhaps MIL would understand that she is really causing you a problem. For her not to recognize this indicates that she is either dense or selfish.

Six months ago I got an 8 week old kitten that had been ill with diarrhea for six days. He was weak and not eating at the time. I fed him Pedialite by a dropper and then made a soup from Pedialite and canned kitten food. I dropper fed him that stuff for a couple of days until he was strong enough to eat. The vet treated him for worms and infection. If you don't get vet help for the pups very soon they may not survive.