Please go to www.firststop-laststop.com/rescueranchblog.html to read my blog.

Thanks and see you there!

It has taken countless hours to figure out how to import m facebook feed onto this page--Now that it is done, I just want to say, "Thank you" to a special, special friend who found the rss feed link for me.  I tried, believe me I've tried.  Every day, starting at the very top, all of the posts that I make to fb will be automatically added for you-you don't have to join or check another page unless you want to become a "friend." In that case, the link to my fb page appears just above these blog entries.

Once in awhile, when I need more room, I will write a longer blog or notification here.  I certainly can mention it on fb, so you don't have to keep checking the top and bottom of this page to see what's new/s.  I am so excited that we have succeeded.  I feel like we've just invented the "internet"!!! Gotta laugh. 

Lots of hugs-

Jane

PS Please don't forget to check out our How to Help page, on the main Rescue Ranch site, www.firststop-laststop.com, which has our mailing address, or the 2010 Holiday Collection List for "All Things Dogs and Cats."  We certainly would appreciate whatever help you'd like to offer--caring for a herd (more than a lot) of disabled, special needs, recovering, hungry dogs and puppies is a BIG job and HUGE expense.  Anything "Dingo"--especially Goof Balls--are the number one treat of choice here, even for the big dogs. Thank you so very much!

I am still recovering from anemia. I need to watch how much I do every day/and blogging here daily just has to be put on hold. I hope to be feeling much better by early November. 

BUT, in the meantime, I update my facebook page often--(don't be afraid of new technology if you haven't registered yet. You don't have to give much, if any, personal information if you don't want to.)

 

My facebook home page is: 

http://www.facebook.com/people/Rescue-Volunteer/100000717094455

(Please add me as a "friend" to your page-and then you can view all of my tips, tidbits, photos and more!)

 

My Houston Chronicle Animal Rescue Blog:

www.chron.com/rescuevolunteer

 

For More About The Distemper Project (There is now a serum that kills the canine distemper virus, thanks to Dr. Alson Sears...Distemper? There is HOPE--and a treatment.)

www.firststop-laststop.com  Click on Project Hope

www.kindheartsinaction.com

 

Thank you so much for understanding and for your kind emails and prayers. They are so very much appreciated.

My email: animalrescuevolunteer@yahoo.com

 

Thanks for being patient with me.  If you missed the updates on this site, check out the How To Help page.  I know many readers and RR Angels are gearing up for the holidays and we definitely welcome your help!

Thank you so much for caring.

If you need me in the meantime or have a story idea, please email me at: animalrescuevolunteer@yahoo.com

Jane

Diagnosed with a life-threatening case of anemia, I have to take some time off from everything while the docs try to reverse it/find the cause.  Please stop by again.  I am posting brief updates on my facebook page.  Thank you for caring!

Jane

Please bear with me this week.  I keep running out of time to write as the sun comes up yet another day.

Keep up with life on the RR, on my Houston Chron blog, www.chron.com/rescuevolunteer.  Today's story?  "My Rule of Two."

I am trying to review this site as well to restore and update some pages that were archived.  Hopefully, that project will be done by next week, too.  In the meantime, if you want to mail something to the RR for the dogs or for Project Hope, this is our mailing address only:

Rescue Ranch

c/o Ward

945 McKinney Street #242

Houston, TX 77002

Please be sure to include your email address so I can let you know your package arrived.  Thank you for caring!

All is well.  Mike is home.  We are trying to save a little 2 1/2 week old puppy with distemper this weekend.  She is snow white and the last survivor of her litter.  Even her mama died last night of neurologic (not neurological) distemper. (Usually, the mother's don't die so this has to be a very serious case.) Finally, late today someone gave the foster Project Hope's info.  I pray that it is with enough time to make a difference.

If you have animals in your house, please have a first aid kit--with your-animal-specific supplies.  Cats need different sizes and medicines than dogs, etc.  Have some Hill's a/d canned food on the shelves--at least enough to get through a weekend for your animal/s size and weight. 

Buy a bottle of clear Karo syrup in the baking isle of the supermarket.  Be ready to deal with any kind of emergency.  Even if you know how to reach me by phone--you have to have the supplies on hand--for me to guide you through...

Ideally, you should have a bottle of Pedialyte, some canned, low sodium chicken broth, too.  Order or rent a first aid video for your animal or take a class.  When I first started fostering, I went to the library and rented one.  Then, I watched it over and over and over and over--rewinding section by section--until I felt that in an emergency, when my knees are like Jello and my heart is beating almost out of my chest, I could act out of sheer memory and just react.  

If you can, get some Tamiflu (for you and your dog!) and put it away.  It is a great anti-viral and if in capsule form, will keep for a long time unused.  Get some burn ointment and Neosporin, eye ointment (non-prescription, we use Muro Saline ointment not drops)...just start collecting all of the bits and pieces.  Iodine scrub (which has come in handy more times than I could have imagined) and sterile, non-stick gauze pads and regular gauze pads...

Look online at the prepared kits to see what is in them and make your own if you can't afford one.  Do this little by little each week.  Devote $5 or $10 each pay day and go to Wal-Mart's first aid section.  It will take quite awhile--and could be pricey--to gather all of the things that should be in your first aid kit, so start now!

Thank you for stopping by, for listening and for caring.  Especially for caring!

Jane

PS I'll be back on Monday.

 

I never thought I would reach the point of saying, "enough."  Taking care of the RR alone during the week is almost killing me.  We have got to do something different.

At 4:23 AM, I just put in the last load of wash, took warm blankets out of the dryer and changed out any wet linens.  Now, I'd like to brush my teeth, close my eyes and collapse.  There are a precious few hours now before the sun rises and the snores of all of the sleeping doggies will become breakfast nudges and barks.  There is no time to luxuriate in writing my blogs for hours and hours.  They need to be short and sweet.

Mike, on the other hand, even though he is working, is on "vacation."  The company gave him a furnished two bedroom apartment with an attached garage and is sponsoring his meals and "incidentals" for 60 days since it will be awhile 'til he actually gets paid. Since we have lived for so long cutting corners, especially on ourselves, he is trying to find places to eat dinner for $1--one dollar--still.  I keep telling him to go out and have a good burger or warm dinner but I think until he sees that money is coming in, he won't.  It is like living through the Great Depression--living normally again didn't come back overnight. Mike says he comes home to work!

The RR is still running about $2200 a month for food, vet bills, Dingos, supplies.  That is still my responsibility.  Mike is going to save the house and dig out from debt. Thankfully, our health insurance is covered by his company which saves over $900/month--even though the insurance is not as great as the one we had before.

If we were in Los Angeles, maybe I could take a handful of cuties and bring them down to be extras in the movies!  We may have to stand on a street corner, "Will bark for Dingos!" or do something equally creative.  Adopting out about ten of the puppies would lessen the work and financial load but they have to be spayed/neutered first before they can go out.  I hope people adopting our puppies will make a contribution toward the RR or Project Hope.  I don't like talking about money but I think we are at a crossroads where I just have to. 

The weather has been so very, very hot all day long and in a normally cool area, the dogs/puppies are running around for a minute and then heading in.  They are smart enough to know that a/c and cold floor tile is better than the scorching heat and sun.  The amount of water we went through today alone inside was unbelievable!  I kept filling up bowl after bowl after bowl.  It was like the never-ending water bowl.  And, since they were all inside, it also meant a lot of water coming out the other end, too!!  Thank goodness for the washable pee pads from Linens for Animals!  (www.linensforanimals.org)

I hope to be able to write more over the weekend.  Right now, my pillow and quilt are fast calling my name. My liver froze up today and I was dangerously close to having to call Mike home for an emergency.  After just resting and managing my load better, it backed down some (it feels like a frozen block of concrete is just sitting in your abdomen--the pain is a level 9 out of 10). 

When Mike was home, we ramped up our fostering and added the distemper project, too--but when he got a job, we didn't back anything down (at least not fast enough) and now, I am holding on, praying for ten puppies to go to an adoption partner (maybe two weeks from now).

Thanks for stopping by, for listening and for caring.  Especially for caring.

Jane

If you ever had to work 24 hours a day, every day, you can relate to how absolutely tired I am.  After more than 16 months of being unemployed, Mike got a job--but not in the Houston area.  Eek!  Since we cannot afford to turn down a good offer, he can only come home on weekends and at that, he is now exhausted going back to work!  and I don't know how many more days I can continue...(I keep secretly hoping that there will be a Houston-area company who needs a Geo Tech--with a Master's in Geology and over ten years of experience, including working at Princeton University!)

Tonight, Mike called to say, "Good Night." "So, do you appreciate all of the work that I do there?" he asked me as I was in the middle of changing pee pads and doing the twelfth load of laundry for the day.  All I could think of, as he told me about the omelet he had for breakfast and the buffet they had at work during a conference, was how hungry I was!  I barely have time to grab a few slices of cheese--I'm even skipping the bread at this point that would have made a sandwich.

My weight should be plummeting but it is not.  I am drinking more than my normal share of cream soda--I think for the instant energy that I get from the sugar.  I made the switch from Pepsi/corn syrup to the "healthier" soda with cane sugar hoping that that would make a difference in my putting on the L-Bs, but nada so far.  I am still fat. Ugh.

I had Mike bring home some organic potatoes.  He called me from a store that sold some great organic products--and that was what I was craving at the time, I guess!  On Saturday, I boiled them (washing them in a hydrogen peroxide rinse first) and in a separate pan, sauteed a big, chopped up sweet onion in olive oil.  I added a can of sweet, baby peas and then added the potatoes--and layered it all with Land O' Lakes white American cheese. Salt and pepper. Put a cover on it to get the cheese to melt. A simple, one pan (sort of) dinner for us--with lots of watching eyes waiting for a taste, too!

I cooked up extra potatoes, tossed with olive oil and mash up or cut up and mix with hamburger or Natural Balance rolls for the dogs.  They do indeed love spuds--of any kind!  Sweet potatoes, regular, mashed, baked, grilled, boiled...seems like they like them even without butter or oil, too. I try to give every animal a taste of all new foods--that way, when they move along to their forever homes, most things will be familiar.  It is time-consuming to give each and every puppy or dog a taste of something that I just made, but they wait patiently knowing that their little taste is coming and I just cannot disappoint them!

Mike's mom is staying put for the week at Bill's daughter's house.  She is having Bill cremated this week and then will take his ashes home with her.  She was shocked to learn that it will cost over $2300 to do this.  She also had to pay for a death certificate and her friends told her to order 20 copies of it.  Apparently, you have to give a copy to the bank, IRS, etc. etc. and everyone wants a certified or original copy.  (Who would have thought!?)  The little details that we never knew.  She is feeling very lost--Bill took care of everything and was a social butterfly.  Now, having to face life alone after more than 40 or 45 years together, she is pretty upset and disoriented.  (His family sends their thanks for all of your prayers and emails/kind words.  I read them over the phone at the end of the day.)

Mary, with terminal cancer, still needs to find homes for her four dogs.  Does anyone have an idea or want to sponsor one of them?  Maybe they can go to a rescue group out of state where the foster homes are not so full?  The Houston market is saturated but it is not like that going up north--even into Canada--or east or west.  She needs some volunteers to start contacting those other rescue groups and circulating photos and the dogs' bios.  You can email Mary at: Maryco35@aol.com

I hear a house full of snoring canines so I'd best lay down and get in sync with them.  Otherwise, when they want to get up and eat breakfast, I'll still be here typing and by the end of the day, I will just want to collapse.  As it is, I am working twenty minutes on and off--resting in-between!  Dr. Sears is off this week so we are taking a break on Project Hope--just helping sick dogs to get help.  With distemper, there is no time to waste.  Every single moment counts!

Thanks for stopping by, for listening and for caring.  Especially for caring.

Jane

Mary's dogs...

I was on the phone with a Project Hope volunteer--outside, at night, in the dark (well the porch light was on).  I had a happy, active puppy with me.  We were discussing Dr. Sears' latest revelation--the vitamin B12 injections/vitamin B supplements that vets are giving distemper animals in an attempt to make them stronger is actually killing them!  It helps the distemper virus replicate faster and get stronger!  This was a huge break-through.  So many animals get to Project Hope after being on IV fluids with Vit B12!  Holy cow.

 I feel a huge obligation to get the word out to vets--about how serum works as well--but how do we do share these kind of tidbits on a massive scale?  So many things we have learned need to be shared.  

As we were talking about how to get this info out--and subsequent discoveries--my phone found its way to the ground and being a black phone,  it was impossible to find!  When Mike came home, he went out with a flashlight and could not find it either--that is until someone texted me and the phone "binged" deep in the grass!  It was very surreal to be looking at the grass and hear "it" making a noise! (My caller could hear a dog sniffing the phone in-between!)

On our way in, there was a baby frog hopping ahead of us.  They like to hang around the pools--even though I dump the baby pools at night, the grass stays wet and we get all shapes and sizes of frogs. They fascinate me.  I have to watch the dogs though--some like to lick the frogs (which could be poisonous) and others cant to "play" with them which could be dangerous to the frogs!

I would very much appreciate any ideas on how to start reaching vets with things that we are learning.  Maybe an ad or column in a vet mag? But where do the funds come from to do this. Next time you are at your vet's office, please ask what publication they read front to back each month.  My email address is: animalrescuevolunteer@yahoo.com  We cannot send out letters all the time (expense and waste of energy) and many vets don't read their emails.

We are in need of unaltered--not spayed or neutered yet--blood donor dogs, at least 9 mos old and 60 pounds but really, 100 plus pounds the better!  Unaltered mixed breeds make the strongest serum--to save the sickest puppies--but where are they? 

There is a Donor Dog flier on www.firststop-laststop.com   that you could print and post at work, the dog park, give to neighbors--or send as an attachment via email.  Please help if you can.  Dogs don't have to die of distemper anymore between the vaccines and Dr. Sears discovery, NDV-induced serum but we cannot make serum if we don't have blood donors!  It is truly a gift to all dogs and their owners.

Thank you for stopping by, for listening and for caring. Especially for caring.

Jane