Posted on June 23, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

Nova’s problem though was a nasty skin condition, which gave her an itchy red rash, and was making her fur fall out. They did several skin scrapings and couldn’t find out what it was. She was given weekly triatix baths, which didn’t do much, and then I got the idea of rubbing her with aloe vera, of which, thankfully, I have a good supply at home.

Posted on May 31, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

The first thing I noticed was that the little Shih tzu poodle was bleeding from the back; it was an ominously heavy flow, and bright red. Alarmed, I called an attendant, who told me she had been diagnosed with tick fever, she was contagious and shouldn’t be touched without gloves.

Posted on May 26, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

I was asked to cut the matts off a dog that had been brought in by a lady who found her on the road, and wanted to keep her. However, she could not cope with the distasteful task of  treating the maggot wound in her eye.  She had named her Lace, and it was a perfect name, [...]

Posted on May 18, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

The PTS Room contains a table and a big freezer, nothing more.  You can gather what happens there.   One day I saw a smallish, greyish-brindle dog tied up right outside the room, just where those dogs who are next in line to be put to sleep are usually tied, and in dismay I asked what [...]

Posted on April 28, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

Riggs was full of himself, and into everything. At first he wouldn’t keep quiet long enough for me even to look at his face properly, but after a few days when he settled and knew he could trust me, I was able to comb him out, trim the hair around his eyes so he could see properly, and verify that, for a change, here was a little dog, bursting with personality, and with nothing wrong with him.

Posted on April 22, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

The motionless heap on the table bore no resemblance to a dog – it looked to be no more than a filthy bundle of horribly matted hair, leaves, debris and foul-smelling excrement.

There was an ugly wound all around his neck from a deeply embedded collar, which had been twisted even tighter with a stout length of thick wire, so that it had very nearly pierced his windpipe, and to complete the picture there were three large puncture wounds in his chest, all oozing with maggots.

Posted on April 15, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

She was an enigma. One Monday morning there she was in a cage with no sign or label, and no accompanying paperwork, and no one who had worked the weekend was willing to own up to having brought her in. She was a very large dog, brown and black, I guessed a mix of rottie and shepherd, and had an extensive, hard mammary tumour, so she could have been brought in for evaluation, or treatment, or even to be put to sleep, but no one could be sure, and for the time being they were not willing to take the chance, because her family might turn up after several weeks saying ‘Where’s my dog?’

Posted on April 04, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

Pepsi was delighted to be outside and strutted around like a king in his regalia. Most dogs will spend a lot of time rooting around in the grass and picking up news (almost like humans who compulsively read magazines), but he wasn’t really interested in the ground at all, he positively stomped about, looking either straight ahead or up at the trees, with the branches swaying in the wind and the leaves dancing. I braced my legs (with my heart in my mouth hoping I was doing the lift correctly), and hoisted him up so he could put his head in among the low branches, and he was fascinated, his tongue slipped out a little and his head swung from left to right as if he were in a trance, following the sounds of the breeze as it swept through the leaves.

Posted on March 22, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

I wasn’t there the day he was collected, I only saw the empty cage and my heart gave a lurch, especially when they told me that when the owner arrived Smokey didn’t remember him (well, it was two months, after all). Come to think of it, it’s a good thing I wasn’t there, as I wouldn’t have let him go.

Posted on March 14, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

They had two of the loveliest faces I had seen, their fur was soft and lustrous, and I could never be perfectly sure whether they were twin sisters or maybe mother and daughter. Sugarpie had obviously had a litter of pups, while Honeybunch was flat as a dab, but aside from that you could hardly tell them apart except that one was a tad darker around the nose. They were remarkably laid back.

Posted on March 05, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

Tyson was a gorgeous hunk of Great Dane whose owner didn’t want him because he had hip dysplasia. Surgery had corrected it, but he was still newly healing and would have to go to a very special and caring home. In the meantime he needed gentle exercise, but it is not easy to convince a hundred and something pound dog to go easy when he is frustrated at being cooped up in a cage barely bigger than himself. I had to devise a way to get Tyson outside smoothly, or I knew I would be dragged down steps, round corners and through railings, probably on my rear, a prospect I didn’t relish at all.

Posted on February 28, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

At first I didn’t even realize there was a second dog in the cage, as most of it was taken up by a large, black rottweiler mix. But yes, right at the back, folded tightly into the corner, not moving a muscle, and earnestly pretending to be invisible, was a diminutive, cream-coloured baby who wouldn’t even raise her head when I made a noise.

Posted on February 13, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

One lesson I learned, to my cost, is that if you have two rambunctious dogs in a cage, dying to get out, you have to be very quick, open the cage door, grab both collars, attach one lead and then the other, then proceed forwards.

Posted on February 07, 2011 by WayCoolDogs

Therapy was recommended for the family after Jeff died. We didn’t need it, because we had our own in-house therapist: Charlie. We could talk and talk and pour our hearts out to him for hours. He listened attentively and gave unconditional love. He settled down to being a gentle, kind, and intuitive friend. Charlie had a soul. (Guest Post by Charlene Wexler)