I like spending time with my family. We do crafty things, because they’re fun and everyone enjoys them. One of our traditions, started back when my daughter was in kindergarten, is to make little Valentine’s Day trinket boxes to send to school on Valentine’s Day- a craft I found on the Martha Stewart website and immediately fell in love with. It’s a cute craft- you take empty matchboxes, cover them with scrapbook paper and ribbons, and fill them with conversation hearts. It’s simple, sweet, and it’s always gone over well.
Until this year.
Last Friday, as I was at home recovering from the jetlag of my Westminster trip, I was interrupted in my reverie by a phone call from the school principal, who called to let me know that she had received “multiple complaints” about my little craft. My immediate thought was, oh no, the kids forgot to remove the matches from some of the boxes, but that wasn’t it. Some parents were just mortified that I used matchboxes for a craft. The principal patiently explained, in the same tone one might explain to a kindergartner why gargling with Drano is a bad idea, about the dangers of sulfur residue. Then she said the part that really killed me: “You need to think about the message you are sending here.”
The message I had sent, or so I thought, was, “I care enough about your kids to spend a day running around gathering supplies to make a cute and time consuming re-purposing project.” But people being the contrary types who like to assume the worst read something else into it, what, I don’t know exactly. “Hey kids, pyromania is fun!” “Crack is cool!” Empty matchboxes are the gateway craft, y’all. (more…)
Joe Tosini knows how to command a room. When he shakes your hand with an iron grip and leans in to stare you in the face, you know right away that whatever it is he’s about to say, he feels it from his temples to his toes.
“I used to be a preacher,” he said to me, and I believe it. He has that ability to grab a group of people. I first watched him do it at an ACES session at the Helen Woodward Animal Center, when he was there to tell a group of animal rescue advocates from around the country about his company, Ark Sciences, and how he wanted to change the world.
His subject now is not religion but unwanted pets, but he brings the same fist-clenching conviction to the topic that one would expect from any passionate believer. “We’re going to change the world,” he says, while talking of the pain he felt travelling all over the world and seeing the suffering resulting from animal overpopulation. The room felt it too.
With no background in animal science to speak of, Joe founded Ark Sciences and assembled a team of veterinarians, scientists and animal experts to move forward with his goal. They acquired the patent for a form of chemical castration, which had languished as Neutersol, and re-vamped the protocol under a new name, Esterilsol. (more…)
We tend to take for granted all the medicine we have at our fingertips for our pets- ultrasounds, MRIs, surgeons with insane specialties. It’s easy to forget sometimes the conditions most of the rest of the world functions in. It’s one of the reasons I am in such awe of organizations like World Vets, which sends vets all over the world to not only help animals, but help the vets in other countries learn cutting edge skills.
Running a multi-national nonprofit like this presents challenges you never would think about until you actually get into it: you can’t just show up in a place, do a few fancy surgeries, and take off without taking into account the people that are already there who might resent your intrusion if not done properly. In the case of World Vets, training is a core part of the program: not only for the veterinary students who volunteer in order to acquire more skill, but for the local veterinarians who take an active role in the projects, get trained themselves, and can use those skills year-round to improve the life of the animals who live there. From their January press release:
This year, World Vets officially opened its first year-round International Training Center. Located in Granada, Nicaragua, the Latin America Veterinary Training Center will train over 500 Latin American veterinarians in 2012. In addition to Latin American veterinarians, the training center will also see 160 U.S. veterinary students this summer as part of the International Veterinary Medicine program offered by World Vets.
But what does this mean, really? It means when a pet is injured in a manner a veterinarian is uncomfortable treating, they have a good relationship with a mentor vet they can call for help, and everyone benefits. Take, for example, Princessa. (more…)
by Dr. V | Sunday | November 20, 2011 | Comments are off for this post
It’s a week of being thankful, and in that vein I’m reaching back into something I used to do regularly and make a Sunday post highlighting something great from around the web. Today, two large scale projects meant to bring more shelter pets into their forever homes:
Home for the Holidays
Iams’ Home for the Holidays program has just surpassed the 6 million mark for number of pets who have been adopted since the program’s inception in 1999. Way to go! They’re still working on their goal of 5 million bowls of food donated, as well.
2011 Results to date:
Since October 1st, we have helped find new loving homes for:
Dog/Puppy 214,741
Cat/Kitten 190,484
Other Adoptions 8,678
Total adoptions so far: 413,903
Total meals donated so far: 1,525,920
The Shelter Pet Project
Speaking of adoption, the Shelter Pet Project has just released a new set of Public Service Announcements in a joint project with the Ad Council, HSUS and Maddie’s Fund.
The PSA message is “A person is the best thing to happen to a shelter pet.” Truer words were never spoken!
When I was on the Hope Telethon last weekend talking about pet health holiday tips, the reporter asked me (without warning) if I was going to be bringing home another pet from Helen Woodward. And I answered honestly.
If it wouldn’t cause a major rift in the household, I would. I can manage 4 pets, and we’re at 3. If I can’t get a Boston, I’m thinking maybe I could just sneak in another cat for Apollo. He’s social, he likes friends. He’d like a pal.
In conclusion, there is really no reason NOT to have just one more, I say.
In return, I get a solid NO. So alas, I must wait and bide my time until I can convince him otherwise. Subliminal advertising, bribery, I’m trying all angles.
But maybe you’re in a better position than I am! It’s National Get a Pal for your Pet Day, after all, sponsored by Pets Add Life. Why not? You’ve probably got a lot of time off coming up, what better time to introduce a new pal.
And if anyone has some sly tips for convincing a husband to bring home just one more, I’m all ears.
This post is sponsored by the Pets Add Life campaign and the American Pet Products Association. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about the benefits and joys of pet ownership.
It hasn’t been in the news nearly enough, but there is a major disaster happening in Thailand right now. 20 of Thailand’s 77 provinces have been hit by floods since July, affecting 1/5 of the country’s population.
In a county whose resources are already stretched thin, imagine the impact of this sort of natural disaster on the street dog population. In Bangkok alone, there are an estimated 60-70,000 stray dogs, and they are suffering greatly. Local organizations such as Soi Dog and Wildlife Friends Foundation are beyond overwhelmed trying to rescue and treat these injured and starving pets. My friends at World Vets are, as always, some of the first on the ground, and they asked for my help getting the word out about this situation. From World Vets VP Kyle Baird:
Most of the dogs are territorial so the flooding has displaced them causing them to congregate on higher ground wherever they can find it. One of these places is being called “dog island” by the locals and it is now home toat least 150 dogs who bark and howl when volunteers come by to drop off food. (It’s) crazy.
To make matters worse there is now a shortage of dog food because all of the local food manufacturers are under water and have stopped production. The current rescue operation is going through 2000 lbs per day. Veterinary medical supplies are also much needed and inventories are very low.
No food.
No medical supplies.
World Vets has had people on the ground since last Thursday – two veterinarians and one first responder. They are treating the over 1000 rescued dogs that have been taken to Wildlife Friends Foundation in Thailand. The rescue groups in Thailand have asked us to send more veterinarians in December. This is not going to be going away any time soon.
We have already sent $20K in medical supplies and plan to send more with our next team.
If people want to get involved the probably best thing they can do is make a donation to World Vets. Now that we are there we can see which organizations are doing the work and we are passing donations and supplies on to them. One of the really tough issues is getting food and supplies where they need to be. For this reason we are sending all product donations with the volunteers.
How To Help:
1. Make a donation- this is the most direct way to provide immediate assistance.
I miss Oprah’s favorite things show. That was the best show ever, and also how I ended up with a pile of things I never knew I HAD TO HAVE until Oprah said I had to have them. That is how I wound up with a quilted pink Burberry jacket six years ago, and I don’t even like pink.
Anyway. Giving stuff away is fun.
I spent all day yesterday sorting through the giveaways to pick winners, and to make my life easier I’m listing them all here:
Biscuits by Lambchop giveaway: Susan Montgomery
Iams Gift Packs: Jason and Michelle Spayde
Scent of the Missing: Catherine, Karen B and julie in chicago
Lickety Stix: Quinn and Esther
Calming Collar: BBQduck
6 Packs 9 Lives: Emily E
If you’re a winner you should be getting an e-mail from me this morning, but if for some reason you don’t have anything by noon shoot me a line through the contact page with your shipping address and I’ll get your prizes to you!
I have another giveaway for you all that I’ll have up some time this week. I’m super excited for it because it’s something really cool and I don’t have one, but I decided to give one away as a thank you to all of you for your support the last three years. And NO, it’s not a Boston terrier. Stay tuned.
Normally when I do these blogathons, I park myself on the couch with a pile of chocolate and a liter of coffee and just go for it. But this year, this year I decided to be ambitious. I will do my blogathon on location, I thought. Let’s make it NUTS.
The week before, I drove out to the Lions, Tigers and Bears sanctuary to verify they had working wifi. It was slow, but not too slow. Good enough for the blogathon, I figured. My friend Star and I hatched plans. We’ll camp out in the bear sanctuary! We’ll bring night vision goggles and do live updates from the lion cages like we’re Anderson Cooper!
Um, yeah.
That was before we had the Storm of the Year. And while those of you who deal with inclement weather on a regular basis may laugh, we got a month’s worth of rain in one day here in San Diego, one day of horrific weather that none of us know how to deal with, sandwiched in between two more typical sunny beautiful days. And it was into this storm that I drove, with totally inappropriate clothing and a non-waterproof camera. DA DA DUMMMMM…
I was standing in the tiger enclosure while we were shooting the catnip videos in a sweatshirt, umbrella on the ground due to lack of space and hands, getting pounded by freezing rain while trying to protect the camera from the rain. My fingers went numb. The spectators were popsicles. The cats ran and hid. By the time 4 o’clock hit and we were ready to shoot the crossbow videos, it was dark out and the hills were flooded.
The rain continued to pelt us. The satellite on which the wifi relied was shrouded in rainclouds. And at 6 pm, the internet went out and refused to come back. I tried to post a few times from the phone, but who can do a blogathon from an iphone? I tried to tether the wifi to my phone, but I don’t even know what that even means, so that was out. Going outside in that weather was useless, and even if I did, with no wifi I couldn’t upload any pictures. My blogpocalypse was getting blogpocalypsed for real. So meta.
So at 7:30, I hiked back out to my car in the absolute pitch black with nothing but a lantern for the treacherous drive back to my house. It took me a while to find it. I have a black car and it was parked somewhere in a big meadow. I was swinging the lantern back and forth, trying to find my car in the rain in a muddy field, and all I could think was, this really is the apocalypse. I’m going to die.
I drove back home through the mountain pass, hoping against hope to avoid hail. I made it to my exit 45 minutes later, and saw this:
Road closed. Another 15 minute detour, on the phone with my husband giving him instructions to get such-and-such guest post published so I wouldn’t miss the hourly benchmarks. By this point I was convinced my blogpocalypse was just me being prophetic. Driving, flooding, lost connections, drama, police…talk about setting the mood.
I finally made it back home and busted through as much as I could overnight to get posts up with our functional home wifi, so that at 6 I could get BACK in the car and drive BACK to the sanctuary just in case the weather improved. I had no idea if the wifi would be working again or not, so I had to have backup posts ready to go in case.
I got back to the sanctuary and it was beautiful out. Of course it was. This was my attempt at ”zombie shadow looming over an abandoned something-or-other.” It was the most ominous I could get by that point, being exhausted and all. It would have been much funnier with the crossbow.
But at least the cats came out! I got to spend the morning doing all the stuff I was planning on doing the night before, like getting to feed the lions. Who, by the way, are very loud when they rumble.
And Conga the leopard, who spent the night before sulking over the rain, was out and ready to visit.
yum yum yum she said, right before dripping chicken juice into my eyeball.
What you don’t hear is me screaming, “I’m infected now!” Salmonella, right in the eye.
So rest assured, I worked for every dollar you all so generously donated. And it was totally worth it. Because those cats eat a TON of chicken, and Bobbi just got back from Wyoming with someone’s pet bobcat, and Natasha the tiger had surgery for uterine cancer last week.
My husband’s only comment was this: We spend two weeks in Africa and you come closer to death here at home trying to do something with your blog. SO TRUE.
Though I am perilously close to feeling like one. Yeegads. When I am not so sleep deprived and my fingers are no longer curved into arthritic claws from typing a month’s worth of posts in one day, I will give you the behind the scenes look at a blogathon that, for all intents and purposes, really did end up feeling like a real life apocalypse. There were cops and power outages and insanity and late night evacuations and everything. But it all worked out in the end, and we raised $1240 for Lions, Tigers and Bears so all’s well that ends well!
The best part of it was all of you, hanging tough. And the amazing people who also came on board to do their own insane blogathons- they rocked it! A HUGE thank you to:
The Blogpocalypse Survival Team
Dr. Finch: Who was a tireless cheerleader, organizer, and brought in her entire family to participate!
My Brown Newfies: Who did a fantastic job in her first blogathon supporting the Columbus Zoo;
Dawg Business: rocking out a great post about the real dangers to dogs aside from zombies;
BZTAT: Who did a draw-a-thon, which is crazy to me because she doesn’t have the luxury of guest posts or anything. It’s all her. Bids are still open on her drawings- go check them out! I am of course bidding on the ZOMBIE VET AND GOLDEN duo.
and Kol’s Notes, who did an incredible bang-up job on their very first blogathon and knocked it out of the park with a zombie extravaganza! What a show! Great work!
The Pawcurious Support Team
I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who sponsored giveaways and wrote guest posts for me during the blogathon- it means so much to have that extra help. THANK YOU to Star, Malice and Bobbi at LTB; Dr. Mahaney, Romeo the Cat,Generation Vet, PetSafe, KnobNotes, Biscuits By Lambchop, Calming Collars, Iams, and Pudgy and Pals! And of course, everyone who helped with a generous donation and comments during the blogpocalypse!
The sun rises over a new landscape. Dusty, quiet, ravaged. Cleansed, if you will.
Not much left by way or man nor beast.
Under the cover of darkness, Amanda Brown slipped into her Hummer while Dr. V covered her escape and made a run for Los Angeles, where she found Dr. Patrick Mahaney under the Hollywood sign at dawn. They lived and shopped happily ever after.
They never did find that blond vet or her cute little red dog, but it’s said that she strode out into the maelstrom with her crossbow muttering something about “If you want something done right….Dangit Brody!”
Rumor had it she may be hiding in the hills, perhaps scavenging berries and picking off wild turkeys. One can only hope she didn’t become one of the undead, because veterinarians know too much about death. They know how to cheat it , too. The search and rescue fund will continue here:
It’s too soon to give up hope. She did say she was scrappy.
I love these sweet black bears. Liberty, Blossom and Delilah rock. We fed them some zombie bits this morning.
And Liberty likes zombie fingers. Mmmm!
Ugh, that bit was a tad bit rotten.
Cower before me, flesh eater! I’m a BEAR! Rawr! (And yet so cuddly)
As you can see, the bears are currently living in fairly small enclosures while they are waiting for their big awesome 3 acre habitat to be completed. First priority is the dental work for Blossom and Delilah, who have a decade’s worth of neglected teeth to take care of, then their habitat. And you guys are helping them get closer to getting there! THANK YOU! Can we get over the 1K mark in this last hour?
I thought I would tempt you with some more Africa pictures. Wildlife is beautiful no matter where it lives.
The wild carnivores are surprisingly lackadaisiacal. I have video of me 10 feet from him in a Land Cruiser a little panicked he might try to pounce.
Did I tell you about the time the elephant almost took out the tour guide? No? Well I might… if I survive. I’m feeling a little peckish this morning. I had to cover Amanda Brown’s escape and I think a zombie peacock pecked me.
But if I die, at least I can say I’ve seen one of these in the wild. Seriously, all head and no butt. SO CUTE.
Zombie viruses can only be killed by charitable donations. I may survive yet. YOU ALL ROCK!
Stay tuned.
