Pets of Hurricane Sandy

The feeling of helplessness is one of the hardest things for me to deal with.  I remember back to Hurricane Katrina and all the people and animals left behind in its wake.  To see the days and weeks pass with the images of death and destruction coming at me from every form of media, was much more than I could deal with.  To see the animal tossed to the curb so folks could get on a bus and get to safety was unbelievable. I can remember a friend of mine who lived in Mobile at the time was rescuing dogs and putting out of town rescue folks up in her house, doing everything she could with in the confines of no power and no water.  Then came the tsunami in Japan that displaced half the country. A group of dedicated vets and vet techs started to help the pets of disaster. We now have the technology to spread and share information and to help, I am proud to be a member of the Blogger Disaster Response network.  I have added the links for the immediate needs of the disaster stricken coast.  Please share and spread the word to help get the animals of disaster help.


 Blogger Disaster Response network members will be the first to know about World Vets initiatives. For more, please visit worldvets.org or facebook.com/worldvets.

With Hurricane Sandy and the pets who need help being such an immediate need we wanted to share a few articles and resources we gathered. Many of these links are updating as information changes so be sure to check back frequently:

Hurricane Sandy Lost and Found Pets https://www.facebook.com/SandysPets

Shelters accommodating pets: http://www.examiner.com/article/monday-evening-update-pet-friendly-evacuation-shelters-for-hurricane-sandy

PetFinder shelters/rescues in need: http://www.petfinder.com/blog/2012/10/30/help-is-needed-after-hurricane-sandy/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=social+media

Red Paw Emergency Relief Team is on the scene in PA: http://www.redpawemergencyreliefteam.org/

Baltimore shelters preparing for cleanup: http://www.examiner.com/article/some-baltimore-animal-shelters-without-power-preparing-for-cleanup

Road trip from Hell

There is a lot to say about a long road trip, trapped in a van with 4 teenage girls and 17 dogs; now one might be in shock as they read 17 dogs. But they're small so if I do the math and take the average dogs size is about 40 lbs. and the average size of my dogs is 10 lbs, times 17 is 170 lbs divided by 40; I only had 4.25 dogs with me. Then add some rain, pop up camper, mix well and be parked on a bridge when the highway gets shut down due to a traffic accident 20 cars ahead of you. Then the wonderful world of peanut size bladders click in, The girls already having a predisposition for the dramatics, have gone into their Oscar rolls for the evening and the damn dogs are up for nominations in there leading rolls pee pee dances in the van.

I have no interest in the drama going on in the van just in the length of time we will be on the highway. I can see the emergency crews working on getting the truck and its camper along with the 5th wheel and the truck it's with strewn across the highway and the cab of one of the semi's that is facing the wrong direction with its trailer across the highway looking like a huge capital L, and the other semi that now looks like a ball of cooking foil tossed out, cleared away. My shoulders are now touching my ears and I have a head ace and neck ace from hell. I hear one of the kid’s say they want to get out and pee. I said "which side of this bridge looks good to jump from or do you just want your stuff hanging out for all to see"? I then get the pleading and threats of peeing in the seat if they are not allowed to pee.  Okay I will just rub your nose in it, so help yourself. Wow that set off a wild fire of verbal complaining. Then they start thinking out of the box and ask if they could just pee on the pee pad we had for the dogs. Are you nuts back there just slap pee bands on the dogs and take your mind off it. The rain just kept coming and the windows fogged up so I turned the car on every now and then to clear window during a window clearing I found the car in front of us had some engine problems so a few folks are out and about trying to help get the car started again. Thank GAWD for cute guys; it sure did take their minds off the pressing urgency of their bladders. I ask one of the girls to put her arms around the head rest of my seat and rub my neck. Now this is something they have done for me before as the long drives we do, can give me a big pain in my neck. They again start thinking outside of the box and the girls tell me to pull my shirt up and they will rub my neck oil on it and really make it feel better. Don't worry Ma no one can see in here. Okay what the hell I can use a back rub and can't pee so might as well get a back rub. Now the shirt is over my head and one of the kids is rubbing the right shoulder/back and another kid is rubbing the left shoulder/back and dogs are hopping all over the place. I look up to see if the cleanup has progressed any further, when I decide to turn the wipers on to see better and hit the light switch instead. I thought I would break my neck trying to get my shirt down and the girls are laughing at me for showing my stuff to the cute guys. All I could do is laugh at what the other cars must have thought when the lights came on for the strange show going on in the van next to them.

I had to drive long into the night to try and make up some the lost time. But with two more traffic jams due to accidents on the highway I knew I would never be able to meet up with my contact the next day. Now it is hard for me to believe the excitement that went on in the van when we saw a KOA but I was even happier then I had been all day. It took me a while to figure out how to register us at one in the morning without waking the whole camp grounds. Keeping the all the dog quite, putting up the pop up and walking the dogs in the rain did present a whole host of problems I was not prepared for. The little bastards did not want to pee in the rain and I am soaked to the bone and tired and sleepy. So I put them in the pop up spread pee pad on the floor and went to sleep knowing my chances of a wet bed just went up 200%. Something about too much stress and no sleep makes those odes seem acceptable. Morning came about 30 seconds after I closed my eyes and the camper is about to roll away with all the dogs bouncing from one bed to another in an excited pee pee dancing. Now I have not seen myself but I also am not thinking how scary I am at this point and started slapping on the harness and leashes. I chased the girls out of their beds and gave them each a hand full of leashes with highly excited dogs bounce around on the ends of them. I am out the door first and looked up to see another camper walking bye, the look on his face set my red flags off like a wild fire out of control. I passed my handful of dogs off and moved quickly to the bathrooms a mile away. I opened the door and scared myself as the thick layer of hairspray on my 10 hairs got rehydrated and dried again in a manner to give bed head a whole new meaning. After the necessities were taken care of I looked for a hammer to drive the scary hair spikes down. No hammer lets rehydrate again, Wrong move on my part. Now I have no time to shower and no time to play with my hair so off I went trying not to look anyone in the eye.

The next morning was equally as bad and now my clothes are nasty from crawling around in the mud and underbrush the night before. Again I dropped into bed around 3 am to awake to a much more horrifying reflection in the mirror the next morning. As I am so not caring how bad I look because I will never see these people again.... LOL, I met a women with a beautiful white standard Poodle and a little black puff ball, of course I need to oogoogle over them and tell the lady forgive me as we have had a long weekend and it was not all good and we have a huge drive ahead of me so I can get home tonight. Oh where are you from? Michigan. OMG so am I, she said "what part"? Lansing. I am too! I am not sure how to describe the amazement at meeting someone from my home town so far from home, or the fact that we have communicated through e-mails as we are both very linked to the dog community in Lansing. So now, my I don't care because I will never see these folks again, is making me back stroke through the apologies of my appearance. I will dress much better when we have coffee soon to put faces to our e-mails and names. But I am real sure the mental eraser will not work on this one.  Never say Never…..

What color is shock??????

Tonight you could have colored me shocked; I was on the phone talking to a friend and one of the girls is trying to tell me something and I don't want her to bother me.  So I blow her off and she comes back a few minutes later and starts again, Now patients is not something I have very much of, so I save the small amount I have for work, and tell my daughter to get lost I'm on the phone, "Beat It". She turns and grabs an envelope off the top of the pile of opened mail, scratches something on it and passes it back to me.  As I'm standing there with the deer eyes in the headlight look, I tell my friend on the phone she may have to come by and pick my butt up off the floor as my kid just ask me to dinner for the first time.
This being one of her first steps into adult hood it caught me by surprise. She just started her first job a couple of weeks ago and when she got the first pay check it was so exciting. First thing she opened a checking account and got a debit card, then the cell phone that does everything except talk for you. Wow! Broke already, who knew that would happen? The Mom in me kicks in and starts cautioning her about spending everything she earns.  Remember you need to save some and not spend it just because you want something: you must discipline yourself and resist the temptations of just buying stuff.  Now I am sure she is thinking that’s easy for me to say, the person who hates to shop……
The fact that she wants to pay for my dinner and her sisters with her second check was a total shock, right out of left field and I never saw it coming.  Now she never saw the sticker shock coming as the 50$ check was handed to her. I did have my moments of gloating when she swallowed hard as she looked down at it. But I caved and left the tip.  I must say it was a different feeling being taken out to dinner by my daughter. It’s like putting 40,000 miles on your car in one year and you have never sat in the back or passenger seats.