What I enjoyed about Will Gilmer's guest lecture

The thing I was most impressed with was that he would actually make up these goofy songs about the things that he does on a day-to-day basis and post them on YouTube.  I think that is a fun way to inform people about not only your farm, but about agriculture.  If these videos were shown to a class of high school kids they would probably want to know more about what he is singing about and why he thinks these things are so cool.  He has taken an initiative to promote his family owned farm and is very proud of it! 

Parasites!

Today I want to talk about some of the parasites that can be cared in an animal shelters environment.  Giardia, tapeworms, roundworms, hookworms, and whipworms are some of the most common parasites that can be found in an animal shelter.  Some of which are zoonotic (can spread from species to species). One way to find out if your animals have these is to collect a fecal sample and  have it looked at under a microscope by a veterinarian.  Sometimes you can see the worms in the sample and all you need to do is identify them so that you can treat the problem.  To treat roundworms, hookworms and whipworms, you can use Panacur: given once a day for 3 days; 3 day treatment repeated in 3 weeks and again in 3 months.  If you are only dealing with hooks and rounds, then you can treat with StrongidT: 1 to12 weeks old: given every 2 weeks until 12 weeks old; 3-6 months old: dose repeated in 2 weeks, then given every 4 weeks until 6 months old; > 6 months old: dose repeated once in 2 weeks.  As you can see, neither one of these treat tapeworms.  That's because you must use Praziquantel.  This is a onetime treatment but it can be used daily or whenever needed, if needed. We haven't talked about Giardia.  You may be asking yourself what it is exactly.  Well, Giardia is a parasitic protozoan that lives in the intestinal tract of dogs.  They can be infected with giardia if they drink contaminated water or eat contaminated food.  Giardia gives them loose stool, with a foul smell and a mucus discharge.  This can be treated with Flagyl twice a day for 14 days.  All these medicines have certain measurements that need to be administered to your pet for these problems, so please, LEAVE THE TREATMENT TO YOUR VETERINARIAN!! And yes these are all zoonotic parasites.

Christmas!

Christmas is approaching fast and what better way to give thanks than to adopt!  Shelters are full and these animals need a warm, loving forever home to go to.  Parents, your kids want a little puppy or a kitten for Christmas; they ask every year.  Maybe they can tell Santa to bring them one on Christmas morning. :)  Or maybe you don't have kids and you would like to adopt one for yourself.  Someone to play with and love you.  It is better to give thank to receive.  Give a shelter animal a chance!  

Christmas Open House

Dec. 1st, Christmas Open House. Someone will win a Sanyo 46" flat-screen TV! We thank the following merchants who will have our $5 TV chances for sale: Coon Tattoo - Petal Pushers - Annabelle's Antiques, - Rose Drug Co. - Culin-Arts - West Point Animal Clinic and Frank's Package Store. If you would like to help the Shelter by selling tickets for us or if you would like to buy tickets please call 662-524-4430 or come by the Shelter. Thanks!

Fluffy

A cat that we have had at the shelter for about one month has been adopted.  She came in with a broken leg, but it was an old injury, so she had learned to walk on it.  When the MSU-CVM students came for our regularly scheduled Spay/Neuter day we asked them to take a look at it and see what we could do about it.  After they examined her, they told us that they could amputate it; we agreed.  After the surgery they told us that she had no more muscle left in that leg and that she was essentially walking on the bone, so we did the right thing.  After a few days of her learning to walk on just one leg on her front end, it was like she'd been doing it all along.  After another week a lady came in to our shelter and wanted to adopt her!  She took her home and we have been hearing nothing but good things ever since.

The things we do for our animals...

This is Meadow and she is a beautiful Boxer mix.  She was found wondering the streets of West Point and was brought in by the city.  She has been spayed and is now looking for her forever home with YOU! She is wonderful with other dogs and even cats! All she needs now is a warm place to call home! 

Beulah is an 8 week old female kitten that was brought into the shelter when she was about 3 weeks old. A wall had to be cut into to retrieve her and her siblings. She loves to be held and played with.  Looking for a best friend? You found her!!!

 

We have a Facebook page called Shelter Pet Profiles and our shelter posts pictures and short descripions of all the animals we have.  Not only do we do this, but we have various fundraisers throughout the year to raise money for our shelter.  We even have a lady who comes and dresses our animals up and does glamour shots of them so that we can have a booth set up at all of our events to showcase them off and try to get them adopted.  There are a bunch of people who are dedicated to getting our animals forever homes and we greatly appreciate your support and help!

Shelter Family

One of our best employees left us this week.  Not sure why or where he is going, but he was one of the best.  He never complained about what we needed him to do.  Whether it was bring a dog in for his/her shots or giving them a bath because they were stinky.  He was always willing to do anything that we asked him to do. Plus, he was the only male that we had working there.  Now, it is nothing but women and very stressful. You when people say there is too much estrogen, they should try working with them on a daily basis.  Going to miss that guy.  We still haven't found anyone to take his spot because no one wants to work for minimum wage and have to do all the work that they have to do.  Hopefully soon though!

Shelter Behavior

When people come to a shelter they are thinking of all the cute little puppies that want to play and well behaved dogs that just sit and wag their tails wanting to be pet.  Now let me pull you back down to reality… This is never really the case.  Most of the puppies, while cute and inocent, are normally scared to death.  They are unsocialized animals that were put out by someone, somewhere and they are trying to get use to being around other dogs and people.  So when you see this just remember that it is not because they are crazy, it’s because they do not know any better.  Get them out and play with them.  The more human interaction they have, the better dog they become.  With the older dogs, when they run up to the cage and start barking at you, it’s not because they are aggressive and want to bite you.  They do this to try and get your attention, to show you that they are the better dog and that they want to be petted and played with as well as the others.  Shelter dogs are not aggressive, they just want a good, warm, loving home to call home. 

Told you so....

The dog I spoke of, literally, a month ago was laid to rest yesterday.  He was an aggressive pit bull that should have never been adopted out in the first place. The lady who adopted him began to fear him and the trainer who's facility he was at did not want him there anymore.  The woman then took him to a pit rescue to try and, in my words, "dump him off" on them.  He bit the woman who runs the rescue as well as two other individuals.  We told that woman she was making a big mistake by trying to adopt that dog out to someone, but instead of listening to people who know dogs and what aggressive behavior looks, they adopt them out anyway.  This is a huge liability anyway, thank goodness for contracts and paperwork.  Once aggressive, always aggressive.  Not only are you doing injustice to others but also to an animal who will never have the quality of life that you want for them.  I hate to say I told you so, but............... I told you so.

Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound is a program that the MSU-CVM students do to get shelter animals adopted in the northern part of the U.S.  The shelters do a PowerPoint of the animals they would like to see go and the students forward those PowerPoints to a few of the shelters in New York.  About a week later they send us an email with their picks and we foster those lucky puppies/dogs out the volunteers for 2 weeks.  They must be out of the shelter environment 2 weeks prior to the transport.  After the first week they come back and get their "halfway check-up".  They do fecal testing and blood work on them to make sure that they are healthy.  They send the foster family home with a couple of wormers for the animals and the next weekend they say "goodbye" to their foster family and "howdy" to a new one in New York! We get success stories from the adopters all the time wanting to know a little more about their background.  "How did they get to our shelter" and why someone would ever want to get rid of such an "innocent creature"?  We try to answer them as much as we can, but there is only so much you can tell someone about how a private citizen found him/her in a cardboard box on the side of the road.... Homeward Bound is a wonderful program for all those unwanted animals that we are overpopulated with here in the south.

TNR

I bet you are wondering what a TNR is?  Well, a TNR, in its entirety, is when you trap something, get it spayed/neutered and then you release it back from where you found it.  This is a very useful tool at the shelter where I work.  MSU-CVM students come to our shelter once a month and perform spays and neuters on our shelter animals. We never adopt anything out without it being sterile; and by sterile I mean not fertile or cannot reproduce.  They also do, what we call, TNR’s.  Residents in Clay County have a big problem with feral cats and this program allows us to offer them a chance to get these cats fixed and release them back out where they found them.  The only stipulation of this agreement is that if they were feeding them, they must continue to do so.  According to the ASPCA in 2012, “it is impossible to determine how many stray dogs and cats live in the United States; estimates for cats alone range up to 70 million.  The average number of litters a fertile cat produces is one to two a year; the average number of kittens is four to six per litter” (ASPCA, 2012).  By offering residents this kind of help can and will make a big difference in our community.  There are many feline diseases that can be spread, not only through bites and saliva, but from mother to kittens in utero.  Most of these diseases are not zoonotic, but there are a few that humans can contract.  Such diseases include: rabies, cat-scratch disease, salmonellosis, etc.  When you control the population, you control the diseases as well.  So, offering this program is a good thing to help keep the population of cats down in our community.

               

Shelter Stats

Are you ever driving around on afternoon and see a stray dog? For us here in the south, it is a common sight.  Did you know that "[m]any strays are lost pets who were not kept properly indoors or provided with identification" as quoted by the ASPCA Pet Statistics.  And the sad part about most of them is that their owners did not care enough about them to go looking for them or to even put fliers up with their information on it so that if the animal was found they would know who to contact about them.  Instead they end up in shelters.  Some pet owners have microchipped their animals so that if they do end up in a shelter all the shelter has to do is scan them with a chip reader and the small piece of equipment displays a company name and chip number.  Then, all the shelter has to do is call that company and get the owners' information so that they can contact them to come pick their animal up.  "According to the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy (NCPPSP), less than 2 percent of cats and only 15 to 20 percent of dogs are returned to their owners. Most of these were identified with tags, tattoos or microchips" (ASPCA, 2012).  Some people just get tired of owning an animal and let them go so they do not have to deal with them any longer. 

Adoption

We were very excited Friday afternoon, one of our dogs that had been at our shelter for a little over a year go adopted out!  A man and his wife came by last week from two and a half hours away and feel in love with our Hershey.  Hershey is a chocolate lab that came to us with heartworms.  She was treated for heartworms at the beginning of the year and is now clear.  This family was so excited to have her become part of their family they had already bought her accessories and installed a doggie door for her before she had even gotten there.  It's always a great feeling to know that one of our babies is going to a loving home.   

Really?!

The dog we have had for about four months now is finally gone.  The woman that adopted him wants him to be a therapy dog, HAHAHA!  This will never happen.  He was too aggressive to begin with and now she wants to put him around people that he doesn't know..... recipe for disaster if you ask me.  People are idiots sometimes. 

Me!

I have named my blog "Family and Animals" because I talk a lot about both.  I work at an animal shelter and I consider my co-workers to be my "shelter" family; that is where I will be taking my "platform".  People never cease to amaze me with the things they do and stuff they come up with to try and pawn an animal off on us that they don't seem to want any more.