Fifi meets My Little Pony

Amid the depressing flood of so-called "designer dogs" comes this chuckle:

The Ponydoodle.

Intestinal Fortitude

Eating in? Plenty of dogs do, landing them on the surgeon's table. Pagers, batteries, toy cars, drywall, hearing aids -- you name it, a dog's probably swallowed it.

Veterinary Pet Insurance offers this list of the top 10 items that are surgically removed from companion animals:

Top 10 Surgically Removed Items

1. Socks

2. Underwear

3. Panty Hose

4. Rocks

5. Balls

6. Chew Toys

7. Corn Cobs

8. Bones

9. Hair Ties/Ribbons

10. Sticks

Night light burns in stall number eight

Come on, now. An Arabian saddlebred horse should be easier to find than a whisp of a whippet!

"J.J." went missing from his barn in south coastal Massachusetts after he was spooked by nearby cows. His owner worries he might get hit by an automobile.

Contact Perry Paquette Equestrian Center at (508) 993-7578 or the Fairhaven Police Department at (508) 997-7421.

In happier news, the Ridgeback missing out West was recovered by his owners.

Made My Day

This  post on Craig's List has been making the Internet rounds, and for good reason: It sums up the anger and disappointment rescuers and adopters feel toward those who treat their animals like "disposables."

Oh, to come back in another life as that poster's dog!

The Battle of Kruger

It's not pet related, but, heck, they're quadrapeds: For those who didn't catch it on TV last night, this footage of a clash between a herd of Cape buffalo and a group of young lions has been all the rage on YouTube.

Be forewarned: It is not for the squeamish, though there is a seemingly happy ending.

Welcome, Bodie

You might remember Striker, and his sad story. The 7-month-old golden retriever puppy had to be euthanized last year after he licked his owner's plugged-in paper shredder, with tragic results.

His owner, Ellen Lutz of Aquebogue, made it her personal mission to tell Striker's story so that other dog and cat owners could prevent such avoidable accidents in their own homes.

And, finally, Ellen has a new arrival. "Yesterday we brought Rhumbline's Bodie Island Light home," she wrote in an email to family and friends today. Although he will never replace Striker, he will help to heal our broken hearts. "

Bodie, an  impossibly cute bundle of blondness, is pictured here.

"Please let people know that dogs are still being injured," Ellen adds. "A month ago a German-shorthair pointer named Molly had to have extensive surgery to repair her mangled ear. "

Please, unplug your shredders when not in use; keep them out of the reach of animals, and, for that matter, children; and never, ever leave them on "automatic" mode.

Thumbs down

If you read my column on Monday about how to break up a dog fight, there's one rather indelicate tip that didn't make it in there.

But, thanks to the blogosphere, here it is:

Jeff Kolbjornsen, founder of Elite Animal Trainers of America in Islip Terrace, says the tried-and-true way to break up a dog fight is to stick your thumb into the dog's rectum. Apparently, the surprise factor makes the dog stop and release his victim -- at least momentarily.

Still Game

Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, says the Long Island Game Farm.

The Manorville attraction opened this week for its 38th year, amid false rumors that it was going to morph into a condo development.

"Rumors have been circulating for some time now, but we have no plans to develop the Game Farm's propert," said co-owner Melissa Novak, suggesting that people may be confusing her venue with the Catskill Game Farm, which closed in the fall. "But our facility has no relation to theirs."

Except for two of its residents: The Long Island Game Farm opened its doors to a camel and a cougar made homeless by the Catskill closing.

The Long Island Game Farm is open this week for an "early peek" at its new exhibits, which include "Kindergarten Kats," a tiger show aimed at toddlers. It will then be open only on weekends until April 30, and daily thereafter until Columbus Day, Oct. 8.

A fatal slip of the tongue

Keep pets from paper shredders

By Denise Flaim

It's never what you worry about.

Ellen Lutz of Aqueboque, N.Y., learned that firsthand last month, when her 7-month-old golden retriever, Striker (left), ambled into her home office and licked her paper shredder.

To her horror, the machine latched onto his tongue, and began to grind.

"He was screaming, and he was fighting for his life," says Lutz, adding that in his panic, the 67-pound puppy did even more damage to his mutilated tongue. She immediately disconnected the shredder, and took Striker to a nearby emergency hospital.

"I was covered in blood from head to toe," Lutz remembers.

A story this horrific is hard-pressed to end well: Striker's injury was so severe - basically, most of his tongue was gone - that he was euthanized.

"I've been in emergency medicine for 10 years, and this is the first time I have seen or heard of this," says veterinarian Gal Vatash of the East End Veterinary Emergency and Specialty Center in Riverhead, who treated Striker in December. "But I'm surprised it doesn't occur more often. Most of us have paper shredders at home, and dogs are always sticking their noses in all kinds of places."

Indeed, Striker is not alone. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has recorded five dog mutilations involving shredders, and what is not known is how many cases go unreported.

In February of last year, a young boxer puppy named Cross from Socastee, S.C., caught his tongue on a home shredder, mangling an inch of it into what his owner, Sandra Clarke, called "hamburger meat."

In 2005, in South Spokane, Wash., a 7-month-old mix named Alice Lane licked a paper shredder, which in turn ground up all of her tongue. "I will never forget the sound it made when she pulled away," her owner, Adam Forney, told reporters. In her panic, the puppy bit off part of Forney's pinky. Like Striker, the dog had to be euthanized because of the extent of her injury.

Even dogs that are lucky enough to survive lead compromised lives, Lutz says. "They have to be on soft diets, and they have to learn how to swallow again." For an active dog like Striker, his favorite pastime - going on hikes through the woods - would have been an impossibility, she says, because there was too much damage to his tongue to allow him to pant.

Not surprisingly, Lutz no longer has a shredder. "Before this happened, I was the shredding queen," she says. "And while I know they're really important in our lives to help destroy documents and prevent identity theft, it's going to be a long time before I'm going to have one in the house again."

Some simple precautions can ensure that accidents such as Striker's do not happen. Among them:

-- Unplug shredders when not in use.

-- Store shredders out of reach of animals (and, of course, children, especially those under 5, who can also be victims of shredder accidents). Make sure that the shredder is located in a place that is "pounce proof": Acrobatic kitties that jump atop shredders can also do terrible damage to themselves.

-- To avoid attracting animals, never put food wrappers through shredders.

-- Do not leave shredders on the "automatic" setting.

-- When buying a shredder, look for one with a protective bar over the opening.

To ensure that Striker's death was not in vain, Lutz has embarked on an awareness campaign to alert owners to the perils of unattended paper shredders. She will e-mail fliers to anyone who requests her. (Contact strikerluv@ yahoo.com.)

Married for 32 years, Lutz says she and her husband have never been without a dog in their household. Soon, she thinks, it might be time to think about getting another.

"Life without a dog," she muses, "is just not a life, you know?"

WRITE TO Denise Flaim, c/o Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY 11747-4250, or e-mail denise.flaim@newsday.com

Pathetic rescue excuses

Today's Animal House column. I couldn't make these up if I tried:

<<

Pet dumpers' litany of lame excuses

Denise Flaim
Animal House
July 24, 2006

Here's a question as bedeviling as that zen koan about the sound of one hand clapping:

What is the most pathetic excuse for giving up a companion animal?

Living as we do amid an epidemic of tepid commitment and laser-sharp detachment, people routinely discard their companion animals. Some reasons - like a child's allergies or sudden homelessness - are understandable. But many are not - at least not to those who consider their animals family members, a status that is not usually negotiable.

Rescuers - you know them by the plastic airline crates in their hatchbacks, and the Milk-Bones in their glove compartments - are in the non-profit business of cleaning up the messes people make with the sentient beings they've brought into their lives. With big hearts and tiny budgets, they grit their teeth as clueless, oftentimes obnoxious owners hand over the leash - or cage, or tank.

Excuses - they have heard them all before. But maybe you haven't.

Moving is a perennial reason for dumping animals. "It's everyone's favorite," says Barbara Williamson of Best Friends Society, who polled staffers. "Nobody here can even begin to understand how you move into a place that doesn't accept pets when you have pets."

(Another head-scratcher: The person who returned a cat to the Utah sanctuary because its neurological condition "wasn't bad enough." In other words, the cat wasn't special-needs enough.)

Another common catalyst is the arrival of a sweetheart. New lovers or spouses who hate dog hair or slobber issue ultimatums, and their not-so-better halves comply.

The dissolution of a marriage is a prime reason for relinquishing animal companions, as is the arrival of diminutive two-leggers. "When the excuse is that the owner is having a baby, I send her to the president of Alaskan Malamute Rescue of New England," says Malamute fancier Susan Conant, who writes dog-centric mystery novels. "She is the mother of triplets."

Yep, family ties can be nooses for some animals. Marjorie Lipson of Long Island-based Second Chance Labrador Rescue offered up the interesting approach of blaming the kids: "My youngest child is now in college - it was her dog that we purchased 14 years ago," one owner told her as he turned over his gray-faced dog. "We never wanted a dog - the kids did."

For those who have written their wills to ensure that their furry and feathered family members will be cared for after their demise, think again. "Even though I promised to care for the dog, I knew I really wouldn't," explained one relative Lipson encountered. "I just wanted the inheritance."

Avarice is predictable. But this excuse isn't: "A woman had a 12-year-old male cat she wanted us to take because 'He won't play with toys anymore, so we want to replace him with a kitten,'" says Dottie Zammetti of A Home at Last Animal Adoption Network in Brightwaters. More than one rescuer reports cats rejected because they would not sit on laps. Or male dogs tossed because they don't lift their legs.

"He doesn't photograph well in our family portrait" is so sad that it could be made up. But it isn't.

Norwegian elkhound fancier Lexiann Grant of southeastern Ohio, who contributed that one, also had this doozy: "An Akita was surrendered because the family decided to do away with their current 'Japanese landscaping' and go with a southwestern theme."

If you find it hard to believe that people can be that superficial, consider this chestnut from Barbara Sawyer-Brown, a Ridgeback breeder and longtime rescuer from Chicago: "We redecorated and the dog no longer matches the decor." As one rescuer put it, "It's the accumulated oblivious sincerity that really gets you."

File this under "craven compassion": Pam Dennison, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Positive Dog Training," had a friend who took in an 18-month-old Schnauzer. "She had a kidney problem and the owners 'loved her so much they couldn't bear to watch her die.'" (Postscript: The friend kept the dog, switched her to a raw-food diet, and five years later, the dog is still going strong.)

People dump their bunny rabbits with such infuriating regularity that Mary Cotter of the House Rabbit Society keeps a list of common excuses. Some deadbeat owners have simply performed a cold-hearted calculation: "He's sick - we're not going to pay $50 for a vet visit for a pet that cost $15."

Debra J. White of Tempe, Ariz., started volunteering at animal shelters in 1989. "I have seen and heard the most dumb, pathetic and lame excuses," she says. "The cat meows. The dog barks."

But nothing prepared her for this beaut, delivered by a pregnant woman who was jettisoning her child substitute to make room for the real thing.

"My fetus," the mother-to-be proclaimed, "is allergic to the dog."

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.>>

Good deed for the day

A local rescue group emails for help:

<<The unthinkable has happened.  Little Shelter’s food pantry has completely run out of food.  Dogs whose impoverished owners are part of the Training Wheels Program and countless area feral cats in the Alley Cat Program rely on Little Shelter’s stock of provisions for their very lives.  At this time of the year – when many people and their pets are enjoying picnics and cookouts – these poor dogs and cats face the possibility of bare cupboards or food that may not be providing them proper nourishment.  Little Shelter desperately needs your help to feed the hungry.

Little Shelter president Maryann Chernovsky implores folks everywhere:  “Hot and humid weather is upon us; many of these dogs and all of the cats must bravely face the blistering heat.  Don’t let them be hungry or malnourished as well.  Please do whatever you can to help them have the comfort of a full tummy.  Do not hesitate; act now.  The situation is desperate. ”

Dog and cat food donations may be brought to Little Shelter at 33 Warner Road in Huntington between 1 PM and 7 PM on weekdays and from Noon until  5 PMon Saturdays and Sundays.  Monetary donations are welcome and may be sent directly to Food Pantry at Little Shelter. 

On behalf of all the innocent animals who need help, Little Shelter thanks you from the bottom of their hearts.

For more information, please call 631-368-8770 Extensions 205 or 206.  Please be sure to visit the Little Shelter web site – www.littleshelter.com – for more updates.>>

Hop to it

Bunnies never get any press. This is a plea from a Long Island rescuer (and friend) who has her hands (and hutches) full:

<<Need temporary, donated garage space in Nassau County: Owners let breeding rabbits get out of control and we volunteers are trying to contain, sex, neuter, medically treat and socialize about 35 rabbits. Many rabbits have injuries/wounds/abscesses from being loose and getting into fights. Despite volunteers' Herculean efforts, three litters were born in last 2 weeks (one litter died). One broken leg bun recuperating in my home, a few bunnies being fostered/adopted in volunteers'
homes.

We are making twice-daily visits to the site to keep the situation under control and help keep the bunnies clean and fed. And with the hot weather, we are trying to prevent deadly heatstroke and flystrike. We are doing adoption events for these rabbits at a local Petco.

So far, we have the cooperation of owners to access their property but we *desperately* need to move the bunnies -- most all now sexed, separated and caged -- into a centrally located garage, warehouse or basement that we have free access to, because it is getting hot, too crowded, and fly infested in the filthy, cluttered, tiny shed on the owners' property.

We can keep the bunnies and their cages clean but we need space to do it. We cannot turn around in the shed where the bunnies are now. And we must constantly keep rotating in frozen water bottles to keep them from succumbing to the heat.

Do you know anyone with a relatively cool, unused garage who would like to help by lending us their space for a few months? Or perhaps a business owner with basement storage? As I said, we'd need access because the volunteers are really dedicated and are making multiple care visits daily-- early before they go to work, and late at night too. Finding an ideal space at this point is more important than anything.

Thank you for any suggestions!

Mary Ann Maier, Licensed Educator
NYC House Rabbit Society
(516) 671-6654

altitude8@yahoo.com

www.rabbitcare.org>>

Over the top?

Here's a bright question for a gloomy Monday:

What's the most indulgent thing you've ever bought your companion animal?

For me, it would be the mini-biker Halloween outfit. At least it was pleather.

Debating doodles

My column today talks about hybrids, from Bengal cats (I covet them!) to flowerhorn cichlids (if the fish's markings resemble Chinese calligraphy, he is said to be lucky).

The "hybrids" that we are most familiar with are "designer dogs," from cockapoos to goldendoodles to puggles.

I've always taken exception to these crosses, thinking them glorified mutts, and arguing that when you cross, say, a cocker spaniel and a Jack Russell, you are playing genetic roulette. You can't guarantee what your "Jackapoo" will look like, how big he will grow, or how he will behave. Not many people can handle a terrier temperament -- and Russells are the apex of earthdogness, little mosquitos on crack zipped into dog suits.

But -- step aside while the lightning bolts from my fellow purebred fanciers wing their way to me -- I have a lot of trouble finding fault with one of these crosses: the Labradoodle. It is one of the few hybrids with a purpose -- to provide a relatively hypoallergenic guide dog. Both breeds meld beautifully, both in terms of their appearance and temperament. And because the breeds have different genetic problems, these first-generation crosses have hybrid vigor.

The same argument applies to the lurcher -- traditionally, a sighthound crossed with a herding dog or terrier, developed hundreds of years ago in Great Britain and Ireland for poaching because the ownership of greyhounds was restricted to the nobility. (Gypsies are credited for popularizing these dogs, and word "lurcher" is said to derive from the Romani word "lur," meaning "thief.") The classic lurcher combination is a greyhound crossed with a collie; Whippet x Beddlington is also popular. These dogs have the speed of their sighthound forebears, with the nose and often biddability of the other parent.

So ... if a reputable Labradoodle breeder does the appropriate healthy screenings recommended by the respective parent club of each dog, and the puppies are sold on spay-neuter contracts with a return-to-breeder clause, is there really anything wrong with this? (Other than the argument that any selective breeding of any dog, purebreds included, just adds to the overpopulation problem.)

What do you think?

And now for something completely mindless ...

www.reincarnationstation.com

I'm a rhino. What are you?