Project

The last time I wrote, Sweetheart and I were going to do a fundraising event at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City Oklahoma.  We ended up doing four separate speeches to a total of around 100 jet mechanics.  Sweetheart did FABULOUS.  She was sweet and not afraid of any of the people there.  I let one of the supervisors 'introduce' her to the folks as they sat down.  I think a lot of people were touched by her story and how wonderfully she recovered.

This past weekend was hectic for me dog wise.  My friend, who broke her wrists 6 weeks ago, ended up in the hospital with pacreatitis.  I ended up taking her four dogs (two greys and two Ibizans) to Dr. Kolar's for boarding after hours on Sunday.  Then,  I met a hauler at 2 a.m that night.in OKC to pick up three new greys.  I took them to Dr. Kolar's Monday morning.

Finally I ended up at the OKC Animal Shelter to pick up a new 'baby'.  Her name is Eve (I named her as she had no collar, tag or tattoos).  She was brought into the facility as a stray Friday October 7th.  The OKC shelter gives a dog days for the owner's to claim the dog.  She was not claimed by Monday evening so Les and I pulled her.  She is in terrible shape.  She is probably 10-12 months old and only weighs 42 pounds (I think she should be 55 or so at her age and size).  Her eyes were runny and so was her nose.  Eve was incredibly lethargic as well.  In addition, she was scared from being in the traumatic environment of the shelter.  However, she wagged her tail whenever anyone at the shelter would stop and talk to her.

I knew we couldn't expose her to our dogs at home because there is always a high chance that they will catch whatever the shelter dogs bring in.  Once again, Dr. Kolar was there to help.  I called him at 6 p.m. (he closes at 5) and he was still at the clinic and let me bring her in.  I am so glad I was able to do that.

Yesterday I texted Dr. Kendi and they think Eve has parvo.  They are treating her like she does at least. She is getting IV fluids and canned and dry dog food.  She had horrible diarrhea yesterday but as of 2 p.m. today she had not had any more.  She ate a little today and held it down.  In addition to the IV's, they are giving her anti nausea medication in hopes this will help her appetite.

Eve is a touch and go sort of situation.  I read a statistic online that 70% of adult dogs can survive parvo.  If this IS what she has I hope she is one of the lucky 70%. Right now, Dr. Kolar's staff are just in the 'save her life' mode and are not worried about heartworms, spaying or teeth cleaning.  This will come later, once she has gained strength and is 'out of the woods'.

I saw Eve today for a few minutes when I took my friend to get her babies out of Dr. Kolar's.  She was still lethargic and looked so sad with her IV.  I honestly don't know if she will make it.  I hope so, as she is so sweet and friendly and seems like a good patient.  She is getting the best care she can at this point and all we can do is wait and see.

I hope to be able to take some pictures of her when I visit here again.  She will be at Dr. Kolar's at least a week and I plan on bringing her home to my house to foster her and help her recover.

Jess and Sweetheart

Fundraising Sweetheart!

Hi everyone!  I know it has been FOREVER since I have posted anything.

Sweetheart is doing great.  She is holding her weight at around 61 pounds and is spoiled rotten as always.

Every year Fasthound participates in the United Way Combined Federal Campaign (CFC).  The CFC allows federal workers to contribute a portion of their pay to a charitable group or groups of their choice.  Fasthound has had the honor of being a part of the CFC campaign for the last several years.  The generous donations from federal employees have allowed us to be able to do blood panels and other extras for all of our dogs and it has allowed us to focus more on greyhound adoption outreach and awareness versus fundraising.

From September-November the CFC outreach is in full swing.  Federal agencies can request charitable groups to come to their offices and facilities to do speeches and such.  Well, we have a big air force base in Oklahoma City:  Tinker AFB.  It employees thousands of civilians and of course air force personnel.  Fasthound was asked to do a presentation to some of their civilian employees (jet mechanics I believe).  Guess who is going?  Yep, Sweetheart and I!!!  I made up a flyer (which I am having a devil of a time saving correctly for printing at Staples) about her story.  I am going to hand it out to each person attending the meeting and I plan on telling them all about her neglect and fabulous recovery.  I hope she is a good ambassadog and doesn't act like a goof.  :)   Hopefully her gruesome story of neglect will open some of their wallets.  I mean, really, who could resist her?  Obviously not me!

Sweetheart and I will be going to Tinker AFB this Wednesday from 12-3.  Wish us luck.  I plan on spiffing her up with a bath and one of her fancy collars.

Puppy (Gracie) has been in her foster to adopt home for about a week now.  She is doing fabulous there.  After the event at Tinker Wednesday I am going to pick her up and dogsit for the weekend.  Sweetheart will be thrilled to have her chew toy back.  She was a bit bored after Gracie left.

I hope everyone is doing well.  I am so excited that Sweetheart has the opportunity to do this event at Tinker AFB Wednesday!  I will give a report of how it went Wednesday evening hopefully.

Jess and Sweetheart

Puppster & Sweets playing and Cleo's dust bowl 2011.

Friend's Accident :(

My friend Cathy had a horseback riding accident yesterday morning.  She was riding some horse trails at a local lake with a friend.  She was trotting and the horse lost its footing and went down on its front legs.  Cathy flew forward and caught herself by her wrists.  Unfortunately she dislocated and broke them both.  She will have to have surgery on both wrists Tuesday.

Cathy and her partner Mike have adopted two greyhounds from us.  They also have several Ibizans and Jack Russell terriers.  In addition, they have ten horses, all of which are rescues (they came home from a recent horse sale a month ago with five baby horses because they could not bear to see them put down or sold for slaughter).

Les and I are dog sitting  their greyhounds for as long as they need us to.  Their greys are Lucy and Lucius.  We will assist them in any way we can in feeding and watering their horses and other dogs and in taking care of Cathy.

I would normally never ask for help on the blog for others but I am making an exception.  Cathy and Mike are super people with big hearts.  If any of you who follow this blog can donate something via paypal to Cathy and Mike it would be much appreciated.  All money will go for their animals food and health care.  Oklahoma is in a severe drought and hay alone for the horses is pricey.  They take excellent care of their animals and I know they would appreciate any help that is given.

If you or your friends and family donate via paypal, just be sure to note that the donation is for Cathy and Mike's animals so that way we can keep the donations separate from our regular Fasthound donations.

Again, thank you in advance for any donations you can give.  I can personally vouch for how well they take care of their horses and dogs and the money will be well spent.

Jess, Sweetheart, Lucy, Lucius and Gracie!

 

Puppy and stuff

Puppy 'roach'!

Sweetheart HATES the puppy.  She won't play with her and gives her dirty looks when she comes near her.  Sweetheart is also terribly jealous if I play with the puppy.  I was playing with Gracie yesterday and had a sense of some evil force :) and I look up and Sweetheart is shooting daggers at me from across the room (and continued to do so the whole time I was playing with Gracie).

Actually it is quite funny to me that Sweetheart is jealous.  She has been used to being the center of the world for the past year that it must be kind of hard when a pretty young things horns in.  :)  At least Sweetheart hasn't been aggressive towards Gracie, she is content with giving me nasty looks and sometimes standing in between us and growling (which I don't allow of course).

Grace is heartworm negative but she had a pretty good load of hookworms (these will be taken care of with Trifexis) and her blood work came back that she is anemic.  So it looks like I will be giving her Petinic twice a day for a month to build that blood back up.  I had to do this with Sweetheart so I am used to it.

Gracie is a pure joy, which is not what I usually say about puppies.  She is very sweet and loving and has pretty good house manners for a five month old pup.  We fell asleep together 'spooning' on the couch last night.  :)  Lester said he didn't have the heart to put her in her crate when he went to bed because she looked so comfortable on the couch with me.

Monte had his yearly vetting this past week.  Not such great news for him.  He is in the first stages of kidney failure.  Dr. Kolar is recommending we put him on a prescription diet in hopes of helping his kidneys.  Monte is 10 and a half and is just a love.  It hurts my heart that he is already showing his age so much.  However, we will do whatever we need to to keep his quality of life high. We are lucky he is such a happy boy.  I hope this food helps him.  I will ask Dr. Kolar when he wants to do another blood test on Monte so that we can see if his kidney levels are holding steady or getting worse once he is on the prescription diet for a bit.

My silly Monte.  Isn't he just a doll?

Jess, Sweetheart and Sweetheart's nemesis, Gracie!  :)

Puppy

So I get a call from a woman in Oklahoma City last night.  She says she saw our group at an outreach event. She decided that she liked the greys and wanted one.  So she sees an ad in the newspaper for greyhound puppies.  She goes to the place and sees the brindle female and falls in love.  She gets the puppy home and a month and a half later realizes that a puppy is too much to deal with.  So guess what, Fasthound now has a new five month old puppy!!

Her name is Gracie and she was bred to be a coyote hunter.  For whatever reason, the breeder decided not to use her for hunting (thank goodness).  Sweetheart wasn't too thrilled at first but I think they will have a blast once Sweetheart warms up to her.

I will be taking her to Dr. Kolar's tomorrow for vetting.  Thankfully she has already been spayed and had her rabies shot.  We will have her heart worm tests, fecal, full blood panel and additional shots.  Hopefully her blood work and heart worm test will come back good!

Below are a couple pictures of Gracie.

How beautiful is she?!

Below are two pictures of Sweetheart eating some of her birthday cake!

Jess, Sweetheart and Gracie

Sweetheart's Cake

Here is a picture of the cake I made for Sweetheart's Birthday party tomorrow.  It isn't perfect but that's OK, I love her very much and am happy to have been able to make this for her party!

This cake took a box and a half of cake mix.  The rest of the batter I made into a small square cake.  I let Sweetheart have two pieces of the small square cake (without icing) while it was still warm.  She LOVED it.  She followed me into the kitchen and watched me ice the heart cake, hoping I would drop it on the ground for her..  :)

Jess and Sweetheart!!

Birthday Girl!!!

Sweetheart's "Birthday" is Saturday!!!  I cannot believe it has been a year since we rescued her.  She is an amazing girl and I am so thankful to have her healthy and happy and spoiled rotten.  Dr. Kendi (actually Dr. Horner but I think of her as Dr. Kendi) from Dr. Kolar's office is going to be there with her own personal greyhound.  I am so excited to have one of the vet's who was with Sweetheart from day 1 and instrumental in her recovery be there to share in this!  Without Dr. Kolar, Dr. Kendi and all the Prague Veterinary Clinic staff Sweetheart would not have made the wonderful recovery she has.

Sweetheart's Birthday party will be at Mann's Best Friend Pet Boutique this Saturday, August 13th, from      5 p.m. to 7 p.m.   Mann's address is:  10700 S. Penn, Suite 24, Oklahoma City OK.

One of Sweetheart's blog friends is auctioning a gorgeous silver and turquoise greyhound pendant on EBAY in honor of Sweetheart.  All proceeds from this auction will go to the adoption group of Sweetheart's choice :)  The link to the auction is:

http://cgi.ebay.com/150645043159?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.ebay.com%3A80%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp5197.m570.l1313%26_nkw%3D150645043159%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1#ht_500wt_949

The item number is:  150645043159  


If the link doesn't get you there just copy the item number and paste it into the EBAY search box and it will take you to the item.  


I am excited to share Sweetheart's recovery with everyone who is able to come to her party!  Thank you to everyone who has followed her story over the past year via this blog.  I hope there are many years and many stories to come!


Oh yeah, Benny has gained close to 30 pounds and weighs about 100 pounds now!!


Jessica and Sweetheart.

Short video.

Pictures!