Its Back to School season, and I am desperately ready for cooler temperatures. This used to be my favorite time of year. I’m not going to lie, I miss autumn up north. New Orleans is a great place to live, except for July and August. Summer break is absolutely my least favorite time of the year here. It feels like winter up north; we are stuck inside day after day, heat, humidity, mosquitos and afternoon thunderstorms minimizing any time outside at all. It is much easier on me when I’m working from my front porch office and the dogs can be out playing. Back to school means that cooler weather is coming soon. My baby just started middle school and my oldest will start high school applications soon. They are becoming more and more independent, still, we have a lot going on around here.
One of the first assignments of the school year is the What I Did This Summer project in my son’s French class. He came to me asking for pictures of Bernie, who is very missed around here after his adoption. Of all the things he did this summer, Bernie was foremost in his mind.
We had a crazy summer. He picked one, but I’m thinking of all of the dogs we have had here. We reached 9 at one point, which is too many dogs, though I wouldn’t do a thing different. What I did this summer is save dogs, as many as we could. I didn’t get much work done, but I saved a lot of dogs, and I’m happy with that. I found out that the shelters fill up in the summer. People surrender their pets left and right.
We started the summer with our permanent residents, Pen, Ollie, and Bailey, plus Henry, (our beagle who was undergoing heartworm treatment and had to go through months of cage rest) and Tres, our Tripod lab mix puppy (who had FHO surgery and two months of rehab an hour from home). I put a few miles on the car going back and forth across Lake Pontchartrain, but it was worth every mile to watch Tres heal and run and play without pain. He is doing really well. Yesterday Tres and I did an interview with the local tv station, WWL-TV, and we are hoping that once it airs, Tres will find the perfect forever family. He has such a compelling story.
In June we brought home the dachshund mixes, Lucy and Bernie, at 8-weeks-old, and that began the summer of pee and poo accidents! It was memorable. We thought it would never end. House training a single dog is easy. Training with a house full of dogs is a whole different thing! We used more Lysol wipes and paper towels this summer than a single family should ever use in a lifetime. We found out that puppy pads are great – for small puppies. Some of the big dogs thought they could go back to using them too. Not pretty.
I started fostering for a wonderful local rescue, Take Paws, and we helped Bruce, the suave Catahoula, Sasha the sultry Siberian Husky, and chipper little Chihuahua Whit find their forever homes. Whit started off terrified of my children, and we really worked with him a lot on overcoming his fears. I was so proud of my kid’s empathy, patience, and persistence. Whit took a lot of patience, and gave a lot of smiles. We eventually moved Whit to another foster without children, because I hated to see him scared, but he was quickly adopted after that. Yay!
One of my favorite rescues happened this summer. Sweet little Nola was a stray pup that followed a tourist and we welcomed him into our home until I could deliver him to his tourist in Ohio. He chose her. I took Nola and Bernie on my very first puppy road trip and it was so much fun. I don’t usually meet and speak with perfect strangers when I travel, but traveling with adorable puppies opens up a world of conversations with random strangers. It was so much fun!
Cocoa, our chocolate lab girl, joined us and just about pushed me to my limit. From the day she arrived, she vacillated from playful and happy to picking fights with other dogs. She was a bit of a wild thing. We loved her and did everything we could to help her decompress and keep her safe while she waited for her transport to Virginia. I have decided not to foster for the Virginia rescue any longer because it was too difficult getting them to communicate with me about the dogs. Fostering through adoption requires a tight knit team of volunteers, and sadly, some teams don’t work together as well as they could. The rescue decided to board Cocoa for her spay and recovery, because I was concerned about keeping her calm here. Females need extra healing time compared to males after being fixed. I didn’t want her or the other dogs to get hurt. Cocoa was very active and reactive and prone to mayhem with the other dogs. My first priority is to keep everyone safe. Have you ever had to break up a dogfight with 8 dogs? Not easy. They form teams.
The good news is that Cocoa is on her way north and has an adopter eagerly waiting to meet her in Virginia! She will be an only dog for now, which is perfect. Best of luck Cocoa!
As the summer is winding down, we have Hurricane Harvey hitting Texas and western LA is evacuating its animal shelters. We are prepared for a big rain event and flooding with this slow moving storm. I am ready to shelter in place or evacuate if things turn this way. The ground is saturated. This has been the wettest summer on record. New Orleans has pumps that aren’t working and catch basins that are clogged. Total SNAFU. Let’s pray this passes us by without incident. In the meantime, I am ready to help with evacuated dogs if necessary.
This past week we welcomed Murray, a beautiful 9-12 month old yellow lab who was stray, and last night we welcomed 8-week-old Rocky and Marshall to The Cecchine Hotel for Dogs. Here we go again with 8 dogs!
Murray is a full on, active, happy puppy. The first thing that I did was take him to the vet to be neutered. We hope he calms a bit without all of those pesky hormones. I was sad to find out that what I thought were dog fight wounds were actually BB and pellet wounds. This poor boy was shot repeatedly with different weapons. The vet removed a BB from his scrotum and a pellet from near his jugular. There are others still in him, including one between his toes on a rear paw. How could anyone ever do that to a dog? I will never understand. Murray will have a safe and happy home from now on. He is a great dog, a typical gregarious lab. He is happy and loves everyone.
As I write, Marshall and Rocky are asleep on my left. They are intimidated by the pack and so we have isolated them and we are bringing the other dogs in one at a time to meet and greet until they are comfortable. They are doing great for their first day away from momma. They kept their crate dry and slept all night. I’m in love with them and hoping they will be adopted quickly, because puppies this age are a lot of work! Also because there are so many more that we can save!
So, this summer we helped Henry, Tres, Cocoa, Murray, Rocky and Marshall. We completed Henry’s heartworm treatment and saw Tres through his surgery as well as a few spays and neuters here and there. We adopted out Lucy, Bernie, Sasha, Nola, Bruce and Whit. A dozen dogs–so far. I don’t think I’ve ever accomplished so much in one summer!
