Archive for January, 2010

Davenport’s Treasures

I love our shelter’s retail store. There are always so many fun goodies to find for all the critters. I am feeling the shopping craving about to hit and thought I’d share some of the great things I have gotten from Davenport’s Den recently.

Libby the Wonder Dog showing off in Davenport's

A favorite of most of the pets in the house and occasionally used by humans as well, are the Ortho Air Beds by Precision. These are made to fit in each size dog crate that Precision makes. Romeo of course has the hippo sized crate and they even make a bed that big.

Romeo trying out his bed the day he got it

I got him this bed a few months ago, when we started carrying them in the store, but more recently got the round one so the dogs could have one around the house too, not just in Romeo’s crate. Cecilia the cat gets the most use out of it since she loves the fleecy cover.

One of the great thing about working in the shelter is seeing the new products right as they arrive. One thing I barely let out of the box before snagging one for my puppies was a Bottle Buddy.

Bottle Buddies: Stuffed animal outside and crinkly empty water bottle in the inside

My boys got the yellow dog one. They really enjoyed the sound it made when they crunched the bottle inside. Around Christmas we had a Santa Bottle Buddy which got sent to Pennsylvania for my sister’s pack.

Treat dispensing toys are very handy. One we’ve had for ages is the Twist ‘n Treat.

Twist 'n Treat

I like this one since you can adjust how big the opening for the treats is by screwing the pieces together as far as you want. The other night Trent gave the dogs Kongs, but unfortunately Romeo’s Kong was still in my car which was at work with me. So Trent dug this out and found that Romeo LOVED it.

And no, my dogs aren’t the only ones who get treats. Cecilia, the friskiest of our kitties, has let us know her two favorite toys.

Catnip tackle bag

Cecilia love to snuggle, rub all over, kick and sleep on this toy. We have gone through a few tackle bags before, but this is our first one with a tail, which makes this her definite favorite.

Living the life of an indoor kitty without rodents to chase, Cecilia also loves her toy mouse.

Squeaking mouse

This toy chirps when it is touched and has a great furry texture. This toy is often stolen by Boris the cat and even Julio the dog and frequently has to be dug out from under furniture.

But of all my recent Davenport’s purchases, my favorite is the Bob-a-Lot.

Another treat dispenser, this toy has survived many a dog who has demolished less resilient varieties. All my dogs, from 140 pounds down to 5 pounds, enjoy pushing this thing around to get the treats to fall out. I like how it rocks around (occasionally bopping Romeo in the face) and makes them work for it. It can hold a whole meal and the treat opening is even adjustable. This goody also made multiple appearances this Christmas.

Well, the week is about to begin which means the next Davenport’s order is due to arrive soon. Wonder what amazing things will appear…

Bunny time

Bunnies invaded our spay/neuter clinic today. Four rabbits donated their reproductive organs to help kick off our first rabbit surgeries.

Dr Terri Jackson, who has helped spay and neuter WHS’s rabbits for ages, came in to teach bunny surgery to our vet. We had two girl bunnies and two boy bunnies, so Dr Jackson could demonstrate a surgery for each gender, and Dr Holt could then work on her own.

Congratulations to Dr Holt on her first rabbit surgeries!!

I loved walking through the clinic and seeing the recovery process for the rabbits. To keep them from hopping around when waking up, each was confined in their own laundry basket.

Baskets o' bunnies

Sookie is up for adoption and now ready to go home since she’s spayed.

Sookie, already pretty perky after her spay

Smores still thinking about waking up

Our clinic won’t be offering rabbit surgeries to the public, but it will be nice to be able to fix our shelter’s adoptable rabbits just down the hall, instead of in the next town.

WHS was on tv!

A local tv station’s coverage of WHS’s Spay & Neuter Clinic grand opening:

Happy 100

This morning, during our clinic’s ninth day of surgery, we did our 100th spay/neuter!! The patient was this adorable cocker who had the greatest fluffy fur.

Chester feeling a little nervous about what is in store for him

Chester’s surgery went very well and he spent some quality time on the recovery mat with Melissa while he woke up.

Not quite sure he feels like waking up yet

Today was the sad day we had to say goodbye to Dr Eure and Melissa, our mentors from Humane Alliance. They’re on their way back to North Carolina in the morning, but I hope they come and visit us again!

To help celebrate the completion of the spay/neuter clinic, my thoughtful husband ordered cupcakes for our shelter’s all-staff meeting today. These weren’t just any cupcakes, they were amazing creations from Liz and her Artisan Cake Company. Just look at what she made for us!

Much yummy deliciousness

Her detail is so fun to see. I loved the orange tabby!  Liz even added our logo :)

The one on the right looks like Liz's dog Yoshi

In addition to being adorable, these were also delicious. I’m not a chocolate fan, so I left those for everyone else. But the white cupcakes had raspberry filling and there were spice cakes too. I’m not sure which one I liked better (of course I had one of each to try to decide!)

I can’t believe Thursday is already over. This week has disappeared, vanished and evaporated all at once.

PS – Monte, our male torbie got adopted today :)

It’s a…?

At work we got a cute kitty surrendered – an adorable 4 month old torbie teenager. Look how sweet:

Nothing too unusual about this except for the fact that this kitty is a boy!

Calicos, tortis, and torbies are generally girls since those color patterns require two X chromosomes, which equals girl child. I found a fun website that goes into more detail on how this actually works. (The short version is that these cats have an extra chromosome, having two Xs to allow the tricolor trait, and a Y, making it a boy.)

This little guy has been the talk of the shelter and is very sweet. Some lucky adopter is going to have a fun kitty to take home.

Monte shortly before his visit to our clinic for his neuter. He's now ready to go up for adoption!

UPDATE:

Monte made the news! A few local groups picked up his story, including KGW. And even better, Monte was adopted on his first day up for adoption!

Opening Day

Now our clinic is fully and officially open. Today was our first day doing spays and neuters for the public’s pets. Ten cats and five dogs visited our clinic today and went home this afternoon minus the ability to contribute to the pet population.

Things ran remarkably smoothly today and I think we have most of the kinks worked out of our paperwork process.

The local paper did a story on last Friday’s grand opening which I’m sure contributed to the mass of emails and calls that came in over the weekend and today.

Tomorrow we have lots of our shelter’s animals making the trek down the hallway to have surgery so they can get ready for adoption. Yippee!

Pretty Pibbles

I learned a new word today, but found out that I had already been using it. For years I have called Alice, my ex-foster dog and now my mom’s loyal companion, a “pwetty wittle pibble” not knowing that pibble is actually used as a cute name for pit bulls. So of course I had to search for pibble stuff online and found fun things at Cafe Press. I found a t-shirt I want, but loved this too…

Cute pit bull attire from Cafe Press. I can picture Alice in this!

I’m hanging out at my parent’s house this weekend and enjoying spending time with their pibbles.

Alice was my foster for over a year when I worked at Heartland and was then adopted by my parents. She’s so pretty:

Cute thing! The scar on her forehead is from an abscess she had as a puppy - don't worry, nothing traumatic for this pampered girl :)

We adopted Rose from my current shelter before I had any idea I’d be working there. At the time it was Humane Society of the Willamette Valley and had a satellite adoption center at the mall. On impulse my mom, my sister and I had a look around while visiting the mall one weekend during my freshman year of college and found an adorable 8 week old puppy named Rose.  Now Rose is almost 12 years old and still a wonderful girl!

Pretty RosieKins

Strangely enough, I learned years later that my boss at Heartland had been Rose’s foster mom briefly. It took us a long time working together before we even realized this connection. Small world!

Grand Opening!

We did it! We completed our first week of surgeries in our spay/neuter clinic and celebrated at our grand opening tonight. Grand total so far: 44 spays & neuters. Next week this number is going to go up much faster when we officially open to the public.

We had a short day of surgery today so we could be cleaned up and ready for our celebration this evening. Today was our first Feral Friday and we had 9 cats arrive in live traps for surgery so they could be returned to their colonies minus reproductive organs. We also had two adorable foster puppies who I missed getting pictures of – one was the scruffiest thing ever.

Our clinic was prettied up when the Turners, exceptionally dedicated, longtime volunteers and supporters of WHS, sent us flowers yesterday to celebrate the dream of a spay/neuter clinic becoming a reality.

Jenny busily scheduling more appointments. We are completely booked for the next two weeks already.

In preparation for the open house, staff staged the different areas of the clinic with stuffed animals to show the different steps in an animal’s day in the clinic, from initial check up to surgery recovery.

A willing volunteer from our education hall's herd of stuffed animals demonstrating the use of equipment in the surgery suite.

This dog in surgery made me do a double take when I walked by it for the first time. I saw the animal and couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t anyone in there with the animal to monitor anesthesia and why Dr Holt wasn’t anywhere in sight. It made a lot more sense when I realized what was up.

Some very nice "feral" cats demonstrating the use of our live traps in the feral cat room. And another volunteer showing the use of the recovery mat for animals just coming out of surgery.

Everyone hanging out before the open house begins. From left to right: Beth, Dr Holt, Marissa, Dr Eure (vet from Humane Alliance), Melissa (tech from Humane Alliance), Jenny, Dawn

All of our clinic staff milled around during the event to show visitors around the clinic and answer questions. It was great to get to show off the clinic and talk about what we are doing.

Just before the open house there was a VIP reception for donors to the clinic. It was so nice to be able to thank this dedicated bunch for their contributions and to show them the tangible results of their support.

Susan unveiling the donor recognition board

To kick off the main event, we honored the tradition of ribbon cutting with enormous scissors.

Susan preparing to officially usher in our shelter's era of high volume, high quality spay and neuter services for our community's animals

During the three hour event over 100 people visited us, ate munchies, toured the clinic and got to meet our staff. I’m not sure how many people actually attended since I’m not good at estimating crowds and since people dropped in over the course of the whole event, but there were lots of people everywhere the whole time.

What an exhausting week – I may not get up before noon tomorrow. Bright and early Monday morning we get to kick off our clinic’s first real week serving our community!

The calm before the celebration

Our clinic’s pretty lobby…

In just five days this space will be full of people dropping off pets for spays and neuters! Yippee!!

And on Friday it will be full of people during our grand opening festivities. Can’t wait!

19 and counting

We’re up to 19 surgeries in our clinic so far – 9 yesterday and 10 today. Today was only a half day though and we’re getting up to speed pretty quickly. I’m so excited that we’re getting caught up on shelter animal spays/neuters this week!

My biggest happy thought of the day was getting our admission forms off to the printer so we can have them back by the end of the week to be ready for the public’s animals next week. Not too big a deal since everyone else did a bunch of the work, but a nice project to get off my desk.

Tomorrow we have some adorable kitties scheduled for surgery!