A CASE OF ABUSE

Above is a picture of Bubba when he was rescued. There is a facebook page called Justice for Bubba that I subscribe to and that is where I got this picture. I use it here to show you just what I saw yesterday outside the local SPCA office. The dog did not "belong" to the SPCA, but was being walked along with another by a person who wanted to visit yet another dog currently in the shelter. The mother to the young (10 month old) dog he had on the leash. The dog was a little darker in color than Bubba, who is pictured here, but other than that, could be brothers.

I recognized the person with the dog so I stopped to talk. I, of course, asked the person about the dog. He told me the dog was perfectly healthy and that others had asked him about the dog, too. He SAID he fed the dog brown rice and 1/2 can of dog food once a day. I sincerely doubt it. My small dogs eat that much and more in a day for crying out loud.

Does an animal that looks like the one above look healthy?

The only place I have previously seen an animal that emaciated is on the rescue sites and every one of them is suffering from some stage of starvation!

Well, the person went in to the SPCA to ask if they could see the other dog and the SPCA staff saw the dogs being walked.  They declined to let the person see the dog they had in their custody, however they followed the person outside to ask about those dogs. I don't know what was said, but the person was very uncooperative and the sound of raised voices ensued. They have now initiated an investigation. Though they wanted to apprehend the animal immediately, they have protocols to follow and can do nothing until they get a court document to allow them to seize the animal. In the meantime it suffers.

Amazingly the animal was still wagging it's tail and definitely wanted to give and get affection to humans. The other dog was older and had longer fur so it was hard to see what physical shape it was in, but I would venture to say that it too, under all that fur, would be painfully thin.

How I wish I had things going. I pray for the day that the rescue I have planned is opened. I hope for those to help me who have much courage in the face of these abusers. If I could have, I would have taken this animal by force. I hope they can apprehend it sooner rather than later... later could be too late.



THIS YEAR I MADE GIFTS

This year Christmas came and I was very broke. My Christmas goodies were  supplied by the local Salvation Army. Obviously I had no money for gifts for anyone. Over the years I have been in a variety of different financial positions from being able to give expensive gifts, to having nothing to buy things with. Fortunately for me, I have a creative gene in my makeup so in past years of lean, I have made a number of different things for family and friends.



Above is a sampling of what  I made this year. I was surprised and pleased to find that I had some small ability to paint. I have done many of the name signs in the past for various people and places, with ALL the lettering done by hand. I use the different fonts on my computer for different styles of lettering, print it out in the size I want, trace it onto the wood, then paint it.

This year I decided to try and paint and am very pleased with the results. I have done a number of extra paintings (no two are the same) and hope to sell them to make some extra cash. Some of these  are  shown below. I also now have a Cricut machine for lettering and am using it with vinyl to do the lettering on the name signs. Unfortunately I only have one font cartridge. I hope to get a variety of them as I sell items and can re-invest some of the money into it.

DUCKS IN THE YARD

It started last year when I would walk to the Save-On-Foods store a couple of blocks away from where I live. I cut through a small park with a year round running stream through it and there, in the middle of winter, in temperatures of more than -20C, were a number of ducks managing to keep an area of the creek open for swimming. We had greater than -20C temperatures much earlier than usual last year.

I started taking them wild bird food and scattering it around. None of the ducks would come right up to me, but that was fine. (now many of them eat out of my hand)  My concern was that there was a lot of snow and the temperatures were very cold and were these birds finding enough to eat.

I asked around and found that staff from the store and several of the businesses were taking some food out to the ducks, usually during their lunch breaks etc. There were also others who, like me, didn't feed them every day, but came a few times a week to lay down some food. Many were feeding them bread type foods so I would take wild bird feed for them, thinking it  would have more nutritional value for them. It turns out, after reading a number of sites on feeding them, I was right.

This year the weather is mild and has been all winter. We have little snow, as you can see from the video. The "flock" in the park has split into 3 groups now with a total of more than 100 birds. I am not sure if the number of people feeding the group has decreased or if we just have too many birds now for the food being left for them. Either way the birds appear to be hungry.

A few weeks ago I walked through the park with no offerings for them and the entire group followed me right through the park. The next day I took a big container of food down for them and, as I scattered the seed I started walking toward home. My street is only one block long so from the park to home is a very quiet walk usually. I had the entire 3 groups follow me almost to my gate. Then a car door slammed and they all flew away. However a couple of pairs showed back up outside the gate, so I threw them some food.

The next day they showed up again and I threw food on both sides of the fence. Of the six that came to eat, only two figured out how to get at the food inside the fence. As the last few weeks have passed I have added grapes (cut in half), bits of apples diced small, lettuce chopped up fairly fine, and other vegetable bits, and peels. I am going to the farm supply today to get feed for them as I have found I will be able to get 3 times as much for the same money. I have been just buying the wild bird feed at the grocery store in the largest bags I could find, but I am getting more and more birds coming in, and my budget is extremely limited. 

I get two pair who are early risers. They show up just after first light. As the day goes on now I see different groups of ducks come in at different times throughout the day, with the largest group showing up about an hour before dark. The group I have filmed above are here mid-day. My dogs have a separate dog yard and use that when they are out. They no longer bark at the ducks and they are all learning to co-exist.

It is such fun to watch the ducks in the yard, and a privilege to be able to contribute to their well-being. I also see it as a step toward animal rescue, which is my desire. I have rescued a number of abused dogs, birds and cats in the past, but when I am able to develop and fund the animal rescue I would like to include the rescue and rehabilitation of injured wildlife as well. In the meantime I am learning what I can.

Until next time, be good to your furry friends.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Well here it is. New Years Day, 2012. The past year has been quite  a challenge. No vehicle. No work. Struggling for many months to pay bills and having to recieve help from others not only to pay the bills, but to even eat. Gives me flashbacks  to the seven years I spent homeless.

But the coming year holds the promise of better things to come. I thought it might happen around Christmas, but can see the  wisdom of it holding off till the new year. That will give me an entire year to organize, make tax deductions etc. so as not to pay so much tax on the funds I am awaiting.

It all started around August when a  friend of mine emailed me two websites that she wanted me to check out and let her know what I thought. In the past she had gotten me involved in another site, mostly so I could get the product at wholesale rather than retail. I paid her back, but have never really done anything with it. I told her I really wasn't into sales of this sort, but that I would tell others if something came up in conversation that led to it. It is a good  product and most, if not all, would benefit by taking it, but that is another story.

Anyway, I told her I would  look at  the sites, but I definitely wasn't interested in MLM or anything of the sort. She also knows I am pretty skeptical about anything on the internet, having spent thousands of my own money trying to find something I could do from home to supplement my income.

I found most things to either need a great deal of funds to get off the ground, or a lot of funds for "advertising" and getting a client base, or they are out and out scams or they don't offer enough information  for the average person to be able to figure out. I have been scammed twice for several thousand each time and am now paying it back to the financial institutions.

One of the sites was to do with MLM and I told her I was definitely NOT interested in it at all. The other I spent some time in, looking around at the information there. It is an extensive site and a number of their claims I had heard before elsewhere. I told her this site may be on the level.... or may not... only time would tell. The educational material on the site was very interesting and in reality that is all they were guaranteeing. There was some reference to a process they were attempting to perfect, enabling a reimbursement of loans taken in the past.

The next thing I knew I had a membership in the club, courtesy of my friend, who absolutely believed that this club could and would come through with what they were attempting. And a few days later my friend also presented me with a pre-paid process against the time they would be able to provide the funds they were talking about.

I have gone through a lot of emotional ups and downs during this last few months. There has been a countdown happening on the site. They say they have perfected the process and they are on  the final steps to complete a new online interface to enable the members to process claims themselves and free up the office time for other things. I have watched a countdown to "red light", which meant that they had completed their research and were ready to put it into action for the members. Then there has been a countdown scale for steps to the completion of the online interface. It went from 10 to 2 in the matter of a month or so.

Then it was changed and each of the remaining steps was broken into 10 decimal points, going from 2.9 - 0.0. It  is now at .5. When it hits 0.0 the club will be funding all its members. I keep thinking something will happen to hinder it once again. I am full of hope for the future.

I believe it will possibly happen in the next couple of weeks and that, at long last, I will be able to help others and create a few dreams of my own. Top  amongst these is to finally be able to travel east and meet my grandson. I have never met him, nor have I been able to do things for him that I would love to  do.

Next on my list is to start the creation of a wildlife rescue site in my area. I already have my sights on a couple of properties that would be suitable.

The new year brings the promise of better things to come. A fresh new start that I will embrace fully.

For those of you interested, the site is http://www.freedomclubusa.com/  or, when the new interface is done and the new website ready http://www.freedomclubusa.net/ . Judge for yourself, do your due diligence. I will post about this again when it happens. If you choose to join, please use my member number # 8897 so I get the credit :) 

By the way, if you join after funding happens there will be NO upfront costs to you at  all. Can't get better than that now can it? 

God Bless You and give you increase in the coming year.

Update on Frodo's Progress

The top picture of Frodo was taken December 6th. It was the first  day in almost a week that he even bothered to raise his head. The first day he showed an interest in anything around him. He is wearing a belly band because he has been unable to control his bladder fully. He knows he has to go, but I don't have enough time to get him outside. As soon as I try, he lets loose. His bowels are  working... slightly... but he doesn't know he's going, so I will go to check him at times and he will have left a present. He does try to move away from it, so he does know it's there after the fact.

The picture of Frodo in the Santa sweater was taken, of course, on Christmas day. He is walking! He started to drag himself around some around Dec. 8th. Several friends put him on their prayer lists. He still could not control his functions, but at last the pain was under control and he was moving. This is a progression I went through with him last time his disc blew out. But this time he had a really hard time keeping his legs in position. About this time he started regaining control of his functions as well. 

Frodo is fiercely independent. He hates being carried and would fight me vigorously. I was afraid trying to carry him would cause more or worse injury than he already had. I did find that he would go anywhere if I held his tail and kept his backend up that way. I tried a belt around him to make a handle so that I did not have to try and follow him around all bent over. I have a blown disc as well so it can be difficult for me too. He would have none of it. He wouldn't do his business! To him, the only acceptable manner  was to hold him up and give him balance via his tail. I did what he needed.

About 5 days into doing this and I noticed that he was moving one of his legs, attempting to use it. I was amazed at even that amount of progress having been content at knowing he was  in control of his bladder and bowel and I would not have to put him  down. He has a doggy wheelchair already here, but had been too sick up to now to use it.

His other leg still hung totally useless. But a couple of days later he was standing, using the one back leg, and kind of doing a hop to get around a bit. I continued to keep his activity at a minimal level, allowing him up only to go out a few times a day, but each day he was using his leg better and his back end was not swaying from side to side as badly.

Twenty-four hours later he was randomly moving the  remaining leg, not connecting with the ground yet. A day later he was actually using the leg.

He is still a little weak in the back end and sways slightly here  and there, but he is getting along far better than I had imagined. This is the third time the disc has blown out, the last being just a year ago. The first  time was a sudden blow-out, but the last two have been a  gradual progression. I will notice him hunching and seeming in pain with a stiff-legged walk. He will stop being active and progress to not being able to walk etc. over the next week or so.  This was by far the worse attack he has had. I know that any one of these attacks can be the end of him. If he loses the ability to use his functions I will have no choice but to put him down.

I am ecstatic that it won't be this time.

I pray that before it blows out again I will be able to afford the surgery for him to get it repaired. I guarantee it won't be with the vet that wouldn't help me and left him in that kind of pain because I  didn't  have a lot  of money. They will never see a dollar of mine again.

VET'S IN CRANBROOK DON'T CARE

I have been crying much of the day. One of my little dogs, Frodo, has blown out a disc in his back. This has happened twice before. Once when he was two, and again a year ago. The incident when he was two was a sudden onset blow-out, most likely because he slipped and twisted the wrong way. Several hundred dollars later, a couple of months on bedrest and a year of recovery seemed to put him to rights. At six (last year) it gave out again, only this time it was a progression that took about a week. Over that week he steadily got worse until he could not use his back end at all. Again, several hundred spent at the vet and on medications for almost 3 months (the medications cost around $150/month). At the same time both my other dogs needed vet attention as well. It ended up running a couple of thousand dollars. Fortunately I had a litter of pups to sell at the time and was able to cover almost everything including Frodo's wheelchair (he recovered once again and got use of his legs back) only having to make a couple of payments toward Ginger's dental surgery.

Now I am out of work and have been for several months. There will be no Christmas in this house, but that's ok. I live alone anyway and family will just have to understand.

But Frodo's back has gone again. This time there was no injury and the process took around a week again to fully take away use of his rear legs. He is in a great deal of pain. I couldn't afford to take him in, but I called and asked if I could get the medications that he was on last time. I took the last of my money to get them for him.

He is laying on his side yesterday and today and I can see the spasms hit him, causing his front legs to extend, but when I touch them he draws them back. He is still able to do his business and has not lost control of his bodily functions. I called the vet again and explained what was happening and asked if there was something more that could be done for him. They said they could add another pain medication so I got a friend of mine to drive me down to get them for him (I lost my vehicle after being out of work a few months. I had already asked on the telephone if I could bring him in and make payments to them to get him seen.... they refused. It's cash up front here in Cranbrook... at  ALL the vets.

I found out that, even if he is so bad he needs to be put down, no one will help without cash up front. They will (and they said this when I asked) just let him suffer, and me helplessly watching.

Anyway, when I got there to get the meds they said they could add to what he is taking, they refused to give them without making an appointment and bringing him in.

Understand that I have NEVER had a vet visit anywhere in this town without it costing me close to $200. And that does not include any bloodwork etc that may be needed, but would include medication in Frodo's case. But not x-rays which will be needed again in Frodo's case.

So, in my opinion, the almighty dollar wins out over everything else. I wasn't asking for them to do anything for free.... just to give me some time to pay for it.... but without the cash up front, forget it.

I thought they cared about the animals, but now I can see that they don't give a damn about anything but how much they can make off someone.

I expect the coming days will be full of tears, as today was/is. If you are prone to prayer, please pray for my little Frodo. He is my buddy and I am at a loss over what to do now. Thanks

Frodo is black and white.... he is 7 next month.... Ginger is with him... she will be 13 next month.

HOW CAN WE, LORD?

    I have always had a soft spot for animals. Any animals. When I was young I would watch the progress of different nests of local birds. There were a pair of red-headed woodpeckers in a hollow tree. They got so used to me they would allow me to handle the babies as they grew. Then there was the robin’s nest in the old grader at the edge of our property. I never touched that nest... just observed. Another nest I never touched was the great horned owl nest. I was afraid of their beaks and talons. Snowy owls often sat on the edge of the deck rail and once my mother and I got a picture of one sitting side by side with a great horned owl. It was quite a sight to us.

    I have fed wild deer from my hands and seen them bring their fawns to the deck in the spring to introduce them to my mother and me. I have been in the midst of a pack of coyotes when out hunting. That was scary for sure, and a wonder when they left of their own accord. I have experienced the unexpected gracefulness and speed of a moose running through dense underbrush and seen many a bear loping along to the next meal spot.

    I have owned and bred fish, birds, dogs, cats, and gerbils. And when the good Lord calls me home, I look forward to being in the midst of the critters. You can find me there if you wish. I love animals.

    I am a supporter of anti-animal abuse sites and visit them often, signing what petitions they offer to defend animals. I have little disposable income, and though I have been unable to give much financial support to various organizations, I have been able to rescue a number of animals from abusive or neglectful situations and have been blessed to be able to do so.

    Once in a while I go on the abuse sites. Some of them have some very graphic depictions and I cannot stand to go to them often. I always end up in tears. Last week I went to one and once again my heart tore for the horrific pictures I saw there. As I sobbed I called out to the Lord, "How can we do these things, Lord? How?"

    I just cannot understand how the human race, who have been made stewards of the earth and all that is in it, or on it, can be so utterly cruel.

    Take the story of Mercy. Someone stabbed her, cut her and then doused her in gasoline and set her on fire! She was 10 months old. She did not survive despite all efforts to save her.

    Or the story of a 3 month old puppy who had his legs literally torn off by two teenage boys.

    Or any of the thousands of stories that you can find just by googling "animal abuse".

Look into the eyes of these trusting animals as they undergo surgeries and recoveries, still trusting that those who have them now will help.

    Then I think about all that man does to each other. Genocide, homicides, child abuse, sexual abuse, torture and maiming, war and allowing starvation. We turn a blind eye to horrific things happening all over the world. People suffering. People starving. We have no regard for each other, how can we have regard for other species.

    It is said one of the precursors to someone with the tendency to become a serial killer is cruelty to animals. What of those who practice abuse in the guise of research?

    I love animals. When I am able, I will contribute to animal rescue. If the Lord allows me, I will create a place to bring the rescued to. In the meantime I will donate by clicking and do what I can to spread the word.

And I will continue to cry when I see the evidence of man’s cruelty. "How can we, Lord?"

examples of what is out there   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK42VZAJ-58