The Virus that Never Dies?

Carrie Allan/HSUSI guess you could say I was lucky: I got through six years as an animal control officer without encountering an outbreak of parvo at my shelter. True, I was called out now and then to pick up a sick puppy, usually a sad little unvaccinated scrap of a creature for whom euthanasia was the only solace I could provide. Afterwards, I scrubbed and sprayed my truck until my throat was sore and my eyes watered from the disinfectant fumes. I was terrified by the tales I heard of past years when parvo had made its way into the shelter itself and total depopulation was required to bring the disease under control. I was determined not to be responsible for such a disaster.

My luck lasted almost six months into my employment as a shelter veterinarian, but it finally ran out one late Friday afternoon (after almost all the staff had gone home, of course). We had finished up spay/neuter surgery for the day and the last of our patients were groggily coming around, ready to be transported back to their kennels. Among our surgery patients was a litter of nine roly-poly rottweiler-mix puppies, transferred from another shelter a couple of weeks earlier. I was writing up my records when a technician wandered in to tell me one of the puppies had broken with diarrhea. Just to be on the safe side, we decided to run a parvo “snap” test. The blue dot indicating a strong positive result was quick to appear, and I stared down at it in horror, thinking about all the places and people these puppies had had contact with during their brief stay at the shelter.

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The Mongoose and the Snake

In a small home lived a girl named Sana with her grandmother. She had a pet mongoose named Gem and a dog, named Poppy. And behind her home lived a snake.Everyday Sana and her grandmother would go out. The dog, Poppy was jealous of Gem because he felt that Gem was treated better than him. One fine day Poppy decided to kill Gem. He saw Gem roaming around the home and went behind him.But just then, Gem saw a snake behind Poppy, and immediately rushed to kill snake to save Poppy.There was a big fight between Gem and the snake. Poppy was stunned to see Gem fighting with the snake to save his life. He realized his mistake. Gem killed the snake. Poppy ran to Gem and asked him to pardon him for planning to kill him. Sana returned home from her school and saw both Gem and Poppy laughing and playing together. She was happy to see this and picked both in her arms and took them inside the home. After that they all lived happily.

In Praise of Older Dogs

I saw his picture on my computer way before I had thoughts of adopting him. He was cute. An ordinary black lab mix, , but cute. You see, I receive the ICARE emails and every time I get an email, I tell myself that I will not look at it as my home was filled already with two dogs (Eddie and Roxie - Eddie was a rescue just skin and bones and Roxie an ICARE adoptee.) And three cats not to mention six horses and two goldfish. But every time I get those emails they are the first that I open, hoping that I might know someone that might want to adopt one of the companion animals in the photos on the email.

The first few emails that I received with his picture, they indicated that he had been at the shelter since February and this was May. My heart went out to him.

Shelter life is not the same as a home with a family, not to mention the trauma involved with being discarded AND SINCE FEBRUARY! And then, I received the ‘911” email that said that the shelter was overcrowded and there were only two ways that this could be alleviated - one to have the dogs adopted and two to put them down.

Well that did it for me. I called Julie at the shelter to inquire and found that he was to be put down the following day. I asked that they hold him, as I wanted to meet him. Julie was thrilled that someone was interested in seeing him and agreed to hold him.

The next day, I met him. He really didn’t look like the picture I had seen and he was so excited to just to be outdoors that I didn’t really have a chance to get to know him as I had hoped. But I felt that I was already committed to this big black dog and with Julie’s reassurance that if it didn’t work out, I could return him, so, I brought him home.


Sonny (aka Jackson) was so thrilled to be outside in a yard and he got along with my Eddie and Roxie right from the beginning. And within the first two days he bonded to me and I to him. I find him to be smart and very responsive. He is housebroken and seems to appreciate every pat on the head, every kind word and of course every cookie he is offered. (To enlarge the photo of Sonny, click on the photo or link)

I am told that when an older dog is adopted they are very grateful. It is like they know just how lucky they really are. He is a gentleman in every way. When I stand, he stands. When I sit down, he sits down. Of course, we have things to sort out like walking on a leash etc. But already, I have had people come up to me when I am with him and complement him. I smile, thank them and thank my lucky stars for my Jackson (5 1/2 years old and nearly 80 pounds of love!), Lisa Schade at ICARE for her emails and dedication to homeless dogs/cats and Julie at the Big Pine Animal Shelter for her excellent care and the concern she has for our unwanted companion animals that are just looking for a home and someone to love.

Wolverine

The young wolverine opened it’s eyes after sleeping well for six hours to discover that the air was ten degrees below zero. After stretching and arching his back, he scampered out of his den into the crisp morning air to search for food. He was always hungry.

He went to his usual food stash, a tree stump about 5 feet away from the opening of his den. In his hunger the wolverine failed to notice the difference in his food stash. The two rabbits he had killed the day before were moved from inside the tree stump to the edge of the tree stump.

As the wolverine ran up to his rabbits, a loud snap filled the air. The wolverine’s foot was caught in a trap. He felt excruciating pain and began to thrashing around, tugging to free his foot. Finally, he pulled himself free from the trap leaving part of his foot behind. At first he wondered what had happened. His foot was bleeding and hurting more than it had ever hurt before.
He howled and whimpered as he went back into his den to nurse his wound. It took three days before the wolverine could walk out of his den and find some vegetation to eat. After a couple of months, the wolverines partially amputated foot healed and he was able to hunt again. But, for the rest of his life the wolverine carried around the remembrance of that day that he was not alert.
Stories written by AaronDrawings by Samuel