It may be that when someone talks about volunteering to help animals in a shelter, that the average person imagines herself walking dogs or cleaning cat boxes in a shelter facility. Those are tasks that shelters can often use! But there is literally no end to the ways that people can help homeless animals.

While my local disaster (the devastating Camp Fire in northern California) and the efforts of so many people to help animals are still so fresh in my memory, allow me to list some.

Disaster/Post-Disaster Help for Animals

• Participate in an Animal-Disaster/Emergency Response Training

Find and stay involved with a group so as to be registered to help in case of emergency. There is an amazing group in my area, the North Valley Animal Disaster Group (NVADG), that organizes several of these training courses each year. I recently learned that the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) also offers a number of disaster-relief courses and certifications through its Emergency Management Institute. College credits are offered for completing many of its courses!

• Take the Training Offered by National Animal Welfare Groups

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) both offer training and deployment opportunities to people who want to help animals in disaster areas. I met one young woman, my son’s age (26) whose deployment to the Camp Fire was the ninth such disaster she had been deployed to for the ASPCA. She, like all the other people who came with “The A,” worked 12-plus-hour days for 14 days straight, sleeping in a rented motorhome on site at the emergency animal shelter in our town. She was also a full-time college student, and struggling to keep up with her assigned reading in the late nights after a full day of helping people and animals. Some of her companions were answering work-related calls and emails throughout the day, having left their jobs. All of them had animals of their own in the care of roommates and family members and friends back in their home states. I continue to be in awe of their work. Check out these links for the ASPCA’s and HSUS’s training opportunities.

• Host an Animal Disaster Readiness Training Program!

Here is one offered by the HSUS.

• Help Your LOCAL Shelter When a National Disaster is Happening

Through most of this disaster, most of the action involving the animals who were displaced by the fire had been happening at the emergency shelter facilities set up in temporary locations. But my local shelter was also strongly impacted. We saw many more animals brought in as stray and surrendered by owners than we ordinarily do. We also had a huge spike of community members who had interacted with the shelter in the past come to our shelter to both donate goods for the animals and to ask for supplies that they needed and could not afford. Remember, hundreds of businesses as well as homes were burned down in the fire, as well as schools and a large hospital! Thousands of people were out of work or had no way to get paychecks. Our shelter turned into a distribution (or should I say redistribution site) where we received and gave dog and cat food, bedding, crates, and kitty litter to anyone that had it to offer or needed it. The inflow, sorting, and outflow of goods required tons of staff time.

We also had a number of other shelters within 150 miles of us come to take some animals out of our shelter to help make room for what absolutely became an overwhelming inflow of fire-affected animals. People who could come help load up animals on the days when the cavalry arrived, and then quickly clean cages and kennels and prepare for the new arrivals, were desperately needed.

Everyday Ways to Help Animals in Your Community

Shelters also can use help on an everyday basis: Washing dogs or dog crates, cleaning kitty litter boxes, etc. But not everyone has the time or ability to help in a hands-on way. Here are some things that you can do for your local shelter that does not require that you have the time to bottle-feed kittens or the strength to walk untrained dogs!

• Organize Donation Drives

Organize donation drives through your service organization, church, book club, kids’ soccer league, etc. Shelters always need certain items, such as kitty litter, paper towels, and dog and cat food. But they also usually have specific requests, and a huge inflow of stuff they can’t use can be a burden, not a gift. I and several of my friends spent hours sorting through donations that were dropped off at my shelter – and had to discard a full Dumpster’s worth of stuff that absolutely could not be used by us or anyone else. Lace curtains and hand-crocheted Afghans are lovely – and can’t be used as bedding for cats or dogs in a shelter, as they can be chewed and choked on. Kitty litter is always needed, but most shelters can’t use the clumping type. Call and ask your shelter what they need most, and what types of food or cleaning substances they want – and what they don’t want.

• If You Have Professional Skills, Ask If Your Shelter Can Use Them

Tax and estate planning? Most shelters have investment accounts that were donated by deceased supporters of the shelter, and many shelter managers have little experience managing investments! Photography? Every shelter needs help to photograph its adoptable animals. Welding? There are always cages or kennels or something that needs repair at an animal shelter! HVAC? These systems work 24/7 to move the air through shelters. My shelter has at least 20 different heat/cooling air pumps, providing separate air supply to the office areas, surgery, dog isolation, cat isolation, feral cat room, cat adoption, dog adoption, etc. There is always some machine somewhere in need of attention! Tires? You would not believe the miles the animal control officers put on those trucks. Every penny saved on supplying some vital service to the shelter is one more they can use for food and medical supplies and care for the animals, and for paid shelter staff.

• Financial Donations Always Needed

It seems crass to say, but money is always in short supply at animal shelters. Large infusions for big capital investment projects are amazing; a local donor once gave my shelter $20,000, and it built a surgery suite in our shelter, enabling us to hire veterinarians to come to our facility and perform spay/neuter surgery in-house, saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past decade on the full-price surgeries that the local vets had been charging the shelter.

But small, regular donations add up to really significant numbers when added together. One hundred people giving $5 a month each adds up to $500. That’s our weekly expense for spay/neuter surgery for about 20 animals who get adopted. Most of us can spare $5 a month – and if you can convince a few friends to do likewise, it really adds up to very significant amounts.

How do you help animals in your community?

How about you guys? More ideas are welcome!

I haven’t mentioned the aftermath of the Camp Fire for a while. Between getting the February dry dog food review done, the February issue to the printer, and what has turned into weekly visits to the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital with some or just one of the foster puppies I’ve been caring for, I haven’t spent very much time at the temporary “shelter” where animals from the Camp Fire were being held. Here’s an update.

At the peak of the Camp Fire emergency, over 2,000 animals were in temporary shelters in a number of locations. This included large animals – horses, donkeys, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, and llamas – who were all taken to a local fairgrounds, where they were held in pens much like any they had ever been held in. I’m sure they experienced some anxiety, but given that their feed and housing was not much different than what most of them had experienced before, I would hazard a guess that they were more or less none the worse for wear.

I’d guess the same could be said for the barnyard poultry: hundreds of geese, ducks, and chickens who were also evacuated or rescued from the fires. Lots of these birds were held temporarily at the shelter where I spent the most time volunteering, and they all seemed mentally and physically just fine, even the ones being held in crates in the medical treatment rooms while under treatment for injuries or illness.

I cannot say the same for the dogs and cats. The household pets were either surrendered by owners who had no means or place to keep them, or were rescued from the fire or fire evacuation zone. They were saved from death in the fire and from starvation and exposure in the weeks following the fire, when the area was still under mandatory evacuation due to the hazards presented by downed trees and powerlines. We could call them the lucky pets – an enormous amount of work and money and love was poured into their care, by literally hundreds of volunteers over the past two months since the fire erupted. But we could also accurately describe them as victims, both of the fire and of their internment in the shelter being managed for their benefit.

One of the ironies of sheltering animals is that while it’s all done for the animals’ benefit, it may be quite unpleasant for them, and perhaps even hazardous to their mental, emotional, and in some cases, even physical health. In the temporary shelters, the dogs were all housed in crates, mostly the wire, folding-type crates. Volunteers walked the dogs at least twice a day, perhaps three times in a day on the days when a lot of volunteers were present, but each walk might be just a few minutes long, especially on the days when volunteers were in short supply.

There were some dogs who were more or less content to hang out in their crates in between their two or three walks per day, but many more were stressed and miserable. There were just too many dogs in too-close proximity to each other, in strange surroundings, with strange people milling in and out, and the food and the schedule was different every day.

There was never enough bedding to make the dogs really comfortable – and in many cases, when you did put a ton of bedding in a crate, dogs would either spill their water all over it, soil it because there had been too much time between potty breaks, or chew it up. Early on in the disaster, there was one person in particular who kept telling the people who were walking the dogs and cleaning their cages to forget about blankets or bedding. “This is just temporary,” he’d insist. “They don’t need it!”

One of the tasks he had taken on was carrying the big plastic bags of sodden and chewed bedding out of the buildings where the dogs were being held. I asked him about the wet and soiled bedding. “Where does it get washed?” I asked naively. It turned out that it was all being thrown away. Yes, hundreds and hundreds of donated pet beds, blankets, and towels were thrown away weekly, because there was no system/infrastructure in place to do pet laundry.

Dogs who were particularly stressed tended to bark all day, or at least every time a person entered the room, and bark constantly while volunteers were present – and this stressed the other dogs and volunteers alike.

On the other hand, there weremany pets (dogs and cats alike) who were given badly needed flea treatments; put on medication for everything from heart conditions to diabetes; had their ears cleaned, nails trimmed, and wounds treated; and so on. I had to hold onto this bit of good news to keep the sad and bad news from overwhelming me.

Many volunteers formed strong relationships with the animals in their care, and the information sheets/care logs on the front of each dogs’ crate started to sprout notes like, “If this dog is never claimed by an owner, I would like to adopt him” and “I would like to foster this dog!” – complete with names and phone numbers. It became a very sore point with many of the volunteers that they were forbidden by “the rules” to contact the dog’ owners (if known), to let them know how the dogs were doing.

Then an even more ridiculous rule was communicated: People who had brought their animals to the temporary shelters were not allowed to visit the animals. When I (and many other volunteers) heard this communicated as a policy, I was incredulous. How cruel! It’s bad enough that people lost their homes and were staying in shelters or their cars or at the homes of friends, but they also couldn’t see or comfort their pets, or receive comfort from them? The rationale cited: “Liability.” WHAT?

Worse yet: If people came to the shelter to look for pets who may have been rescued, they were told to look on the website that was being constructed (by yet more volunteers!) to see if they could identify their pets by photo. If, after they had done that, they thought one or two pets were theirs, they were supposed to come back with the ID numbers of those pets, and someone would bring the pet/s out to show them. I also considered this insane and cruel. We had lots of volunteers who could show them around! What was the harm in letting people look at the animals in person?? Supposedly, again, the rational given was “liability.”

Liability was also the reason given for the rule regarding the qualification of volunteers. Initially, only people who were part of the North Valley Animal Disaster Group (NVADG) and had been through one of NVADG’s courses for volunteers were supposed to be allowed on the emergency shelter sites. Then the word spread that you could also volunteer if you had registered through a local volunteer agency. The agency was supposed to be screening potential volunteers, “swearing them in” (everyone was supposed to take an oath and swear to follow rules and accept responsibility for the potential dangers of volunteering with animals), and assigning them to duties that matched their abilities. Several of my friends, trying to follow the new rule, contacted the agency and asked to register. Each was told, “We are swamped with applications, we will get back to you.” Most never received a call back.

It quickly became understood that the best way to volunteer was to show up with anyone who had been there previously, who would subtly coach you in the art of signing-in, writing your name on a piece of duct tape (Sharpies and duct tape were there on the table with the sign-in sheets), and entering the facility with a confident air. Once on the property, then someone who had more experience could show you where everything was: dogs, leashes, poop bags; where to dump wet bedding and get clean bedding; where we could walk the dogs and where was off-limits, etc.

In the first two weeks of the disaster, as the air grew dark grey and foul to breathe, the NVADG volunteers were running the shelters and doing the lion’s share of the work to care for the animals. As the event wore on, some of the national animal welfare organizations sent people who had years and years of experience with animals in disaster areas. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) sent people who provided critical organizational leadership at the shelter site in a town just north and west of the fire (Chico). The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) sent about 10 or 12 people, who worked 12-hour days for 14 days straight at the emergency shelter site in my town (Oroville), similarly taking over organization of the shelter site and volunteers alike. I heard about, but never met, people who came from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and other organizations.

During the stretches of time that these experienced people were on site, things started to feel more sane. They redacted some of the nonsensical rules that had been imposed, including the rules against allowing visits from owners who had left their pets at the shelter and allowing people who were looking for their pets to come through and look at all the animals. They modeled more compassionate interactions altogether. When fire victims and evacuees would thank them (or other volunteers) for their help, they would always say, “It is our honor to help you. We know you have gone through so much. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.”

They also welcomed every person who showed up to volunteer and found something for every person to do. “No experience with cats? Could you sort these donated blankets and towels, and fold and stack them in these containers in separate piles?” (This was a huge help for the people who were cleaning cages, to be able to come and grab armloads of the right type of bedding in just a minute, instead of having to grub through piles and locate appropriate things.) “What do you do? A software engineer, you say? Could you help with some Excel spreadsheets that will help us track which animals are in various parts of the facility?” Strong people were put to work unloading and organizing donations of pet food, kitty litter, and crates. Fast people were given jobs running all over the facility, passing messages and carrying supplies.

It was during this phase of the event that I spotted the litter of starving, mange-covered puppies that had been brought into my local shelter. I had gone there to answer a call for people who could help the already beleaguered staff move a lot of donated goods from an outdoor location into shipping containers that had been rented for extra temporary storage. As I recounted in an earlier post, the sight of this pathetic bunch just broke something inside me; I felt strongly called to help them, especially since I thought it was highly likely they would be lost in the bigger, more dramatic emergencies going on with the fire victims and evacuees. With my hands full taking care of these pups, and with the ASPCA folks on site, I stepped away from volunteering at the temporary shelter…

…And almost immediately started getting reports from friends who were still volunteering that as soon as the ASPCA left, things had started to go downhill at the shelters. Soldiers from the National Guard were brought in and given assignments to help care for the animals. A series of animal control officers arrived from different, out-of-the area locations – San Diego (some 10 hours away), Monterey, Oregon, Texas! – and were put in charge of the shelter. To this day, I’m not sure how these selections or assignments were made, or whether it was up to our county animal control department, the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), or the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), but I know that each of these organizations had staff working involvement in the oversight of the event. And while each change of leadership brought competent, caring people to our community, the weekly changes in policies and practices exhausted and discouraged volunteer after volunteer. One by one my friends and acquaintances stopped volunteering.

Well, the number of animals in the shelters was slowly reducing anyway, as owners reclaimed or found their pets – and after the county animal control department finally permitted volunteers to contact known owners and arrange for foster care of some of the animals whose owners were known. As I write this, a little more than two months since the fire started, the last of the temporary emergency shelters began closing up shop. The last animals, including some 37 unclaimed dogs and more than 350 cats, have been sent to a number of local shelters (including the one where I ordinarily volunteer). It’s up to the shelters as to whether they continue to hold the animals apart, in hopes that their owners still might show up, or to adopt or allow people to foster the animals.

Dog Safety Takeaways from After A Natural Disaster

What are my takeaways from all this?

1. Microchip your animals, and keep the registration/contact information current. Chipped animals are the first to be identified and returned to their owners.
2. If there is any natural disaster coming your way, keep your pets close. Don’t leave without them, if possible.
3. If your pets are separated from you after a disaster, keep checking every place where rescued animals have been taken – daily, if you can. Get them out of temporary holding facilities as soon as you possibly can.
4. If you have no place to go with your pets, try to arrange for one of your friends or family members to foster or care for your pets.
5. I’m sure there is more, but this is what the experience has engraved on my brain.

Thanks to all of you who sent donations to either NVADG or my local shelter, the Northwest SPCA. The extra support has come in handy, as all the local shelter are full to the brim right now. And thanks to all the hundreds of volunteers who have helped care for these animals.

When I last told you about the puppies, I was at the U.C. Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH) with the largest pup, who has something going on with one of his eyes.

Thank goodness I relentlessly photograph these pups. Thanks to the automatic online backup of the photos from my phone, I can recount what is otherwise a blur in my brain:

• • The pup’s eye was FINE on November 27.
  • It was swollen and painful on December 2 (and on December 3 I took him to see the shelter RVT, who examined the eye but couldn’t find either a foreign body or a scratch, and who gave me some broad-spectrum antibiotic ointment for the eye).
  • The eye improved at first and then worsened and was examined by a local veterinarian on December 6. He prescribed three medications to put in the pup’s eye
  • After a week of treatment and not much progress, that vet was fairly convinced we were going to end up losing the pup’s eye. But he referred us to an ophthalmologist at the VMTH
  • We saw the veterinary ophthalmologist at the VMTH on December 19. (That’s when I wrote the last blog post about the pup.) The doctor was able to examine the eye in much more depth, with much more advanced instruments. The last medication added to the pup’s treatment had helped a lot with the ulceration, and overall, this doctor was much more encouraging about the eye’s status. She changed the medication protocol, adding some and taking away others. Taking a cue from the responses to my blog post, I started calling the puppy “Champ.”
  • With the change in medications, the eye improved a LOT for about five days, and then abruptly ulcerated again. This was confirmed by the local veterinarian, who examined the eye on December 27. He suggested putting the antibiotic medication that helped with the ulcer the first time back into the mix, but again was fairly doubtful that we were going to end up saving the eye. I started considering one of the other names suggested by readers: Odin. (Odin is a Norse god who traded one of his eyes for wisdom!)

Three of the pups underwent spay/neuter surgery on December 28. I picked them up from the shelter and stayed with them at my office/house that night. I posted their photos on the shelter website, to let people know they would be available soon. By the morning, all three were playing and eating/drinking/pottying normally, and I felt fine about taking them to the shelter for the five hours that the shelter is open on Saturdays, in hopes of getting one of them adopted. But there were no takers that day.

I did, however, receive an inquiry from someone who saw the shelter’s Facebook post, and wanted my best opinion on how big the puppies might get. It turns out that Bethany was someone whose house burned down – with her dogs and cats in it – in the Camp Fire disaster. Oh my god.

After weeping through a typed, direct-message conversation with her about that, we discussed the puppies. She said she saw the puppies photos, and it was the first time in a month she considered getting another dog; given their own tragedy, she and her partner, Drew, would both like to help an animal touched by this local disaster. But she and Drew and their son will be moving into a mobile home in a park that has a strict limit on the size of the pets they will accept. I am completely uncertain about the size that these pups might mature to, but I invited them to come to my office/house to meet them anyway.

The whole family arrived the next day, and she introduced me to Drew and their son . . . Odin!!!

We decided that the pups might end up as too large for her housing situation, but I promised I would keep an eye out for an adult dog of an appropriate size at the shelter for them. They would ideally like to adopt a dog who lost his or her home, too, and since there are lots of people having to rehome the pets who were evacuated in time from the fire, or who were rescued after the fact, it’s likely we will be able to make this sort of connection, to help heal them all.

And I decided I needed to start calling the pup with the eye injury Odin. As hard as I have worked to save this eye, I have to face facts. And the coincidence of running into a person named Odin at that particular moment was remarkable; it felt like a message. I have never met a person named Odin in my 55-year-old life!

As I write this, we just got back from a follow-up visit to the VMTH. As we checked in at the front desk, I asked them to update the pup’s records to reflect his new name. It seemed like acceptance.

We saw a different veterinary student and resident veterinary ophthalmologist from the last visit, as well as a member of the veterinary ophthalmology faculty. All of them were suitably impressed with little Odin’s manners; every time they entered the exam room after a delay, he was curled up asleep on his little mat, and got up to greet them in a polite but friendly manner. Only the faculty vet seemed to recognize the significance of “Odin”; he chuckled when he heard the pup’s name.

And then, after examining the eye, he held Odin’s face in his hands and said, “Don’t trade your eye away just yet, young man.” And then he turned to me and said, “I think the eye is looking very promising. It’s true that it ulcerated again, but it’s healing inside nicely. Dogs heal faster than humans, and puppies heal faster than adult dogs; he’s got that going for him. Let’s make a few more changes to the medications, and have your local vet check his eye pressure in four days and let us know what the pressures are. If they are good, let’s see you back here in two weeks. And keep up the good work, both of you!”

Champ? Odin? We shall see. I will keep you posted, of course!

I had to check last year’s blog posts to see if I had published any New Year’s resolutions last year; I didn’t, so I don’t have to admit how much or even whether I met any of my resolutions. But this year, I want to give public resolutions a go, to see if it will help me get any of them done.

1. Brushing My Dogs’ Teeth

One of the things I have been meaning to do, and that I think many dog owners ought to do, is brush my dogs’ teeth. Argh! I really don’t want to! But I need to just do it! Neither one of my dogs minds having his teeth brushed; it’s just one of those things *I* don’t enjoy and have a hard time making myself do. But Otto has gotten to the age where his teeth seem to attract more plaque, and it’s certainly not healthy to let it build up and give tartar formation a leg up. And even though Woody is only three years old, his teeth are already looking like he’s going to need his teeth to be cleaned by a veterinarian sometime in the next year, so he clearly needs toothbrushing as well, so I ought to get it together.

Rupert, the dog I owned before Otto, died at 14 and a half years old and never needed a dental cleaning in his life. I miss that. Maybe you get just one of those dogs in your lifetime, I don’t know. But I need to get rolling with this basic maintenance. Of course, the vets say daily toothbrushing is most effective. I’m going to aim for a few times a week and see how it goes.

2. Getting Woody His Canine Good Citizen Title

I want to work on the Canine Good Citizen exercises with Woody, with the goal of earning his CGC title. He is capable of all of the things in the test, but putting them all together on any given day would not necessarily be a slam-dunk for him. He can be spooked by strange people at times, and working on the exercises in the test would be a good way to help him get more comfortable with meeting people and improve his reliability in public settings.

I want to find a class to work on these things, or even start a Meetup-type group with other local dog owners who would be interested in helping each other with our dogs to accomplish this goal.

3. Agility Competitions!

I want to try an agility competition – even if it’s only once! – with either or both of my dogs. This is going to require more than a small investment of time, however. I have taken “fun” (i.e., not serious) agility classes with both of my dogs. Otto and I took a class years and years ago, and Woody and I took a class a few months ago. Both of my dogs love running and jumping and are even really good at the contact obstacles; but Otto is not crazy about weave poles and Woody has never even seen any. So this resolution, too, will require that we find a class and perhaps a practice facility, but it’s something I have been talking about forever, and it’s time I give it a shot. I really want to try it!

One of the reasons I am such a fan of agility has to do with the off-leash nature of the sport. If a dog doesn’t understand what his person wants, or finds the situation to be aversive in any way, it is painfully obvious to all observers, as the dog may take the wrong obstacles, decide to stop and sniff things, or even leave the ring! This forces the handler to be clear and precise, to have built a strong foundation of communication with her dog, and to have kept the training fun! I love the high-stakes nature of all that!

I think these three resolutions are PLENTY, and maybe even too much, but I am really going to try to get them all done in 2019. I will even commit to reporting on my progress as the year commences.

How about you? Anyone care to share some dog-oriented resolutions?

If there is one thing that all of us who are in and around these buildings have in common, it’s that our animal companions are critically important to us, whether they are huge (like the Great Dane puppy I saw in the main receiving area five hours ago) or tiny (like the ancient, doddering Pomeranian wearing a cone who just hobbled out of another exam room in the ophthalmology department).

However, your purebred Springer Spaniel with the gleaming, show-worthy coat and condition is no more important than my scruffy, mange-recovering, mixed-breed shelter puppy. Thank goodness, we are all equals in the eyes of the dedicated vets, vet techs, vet students, and even the support staff at the front counter and answering the phones. These people exude compassion for every human and every non-human animal equally.

When you see a person carrying a dog bed wrapped in a blanket with just a dog’s nose sticking out, and the person has obviously been crying, don’t even think about asking a question or even saying anything in a consoling tone. Just smile and look away.  No one wants to be observed or explain anything at a time like this.

No one who works in or visits this sector of the campus will walk past an animal without a smile, from the custodians to the vets to other pet owners.

There is no one kinder than a veterinary student. Period. They are equally interested, friendly, appreciative of the pets in their care, polite and sweet to owners, patient when taking even very long-winded histories, and earnest. They have thanked ME for caring about the shelter pups I’ve brought here. I’m old enough to be their mother, but every single one that I’ve cried in front of in the past week – and I think we are up to at least three or four, at this point – has been so compassionate and kind that it makes me cry again, just thinking about that.

It isn’t just well-heeled people visiting the veterinary oncology, ophthalmology, and other specialty departments that are in this building. I mean, it’s impossible to know for sure, but judging from the cars in the packed parking lot and the people I see waiting in the waiting rooms with me, we are from every socio-economic strata and racial background.  If our pets need a specialist, they need a specialist. And so we are here, taking what inspiration we can from the posters about various veterinary success stories that line the walls and halls.

There is nothing so gloriously thrilling as an obviously healthy, thriving dog dancing out of a facility like this. Perhaps he was here only for a checkup, or maybe his treatments healed him. Either way, it makes all of our hearts glad to see him.

*I am back at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital [VMTH] at UC Davis, just a week after my last visit. Last week, I was here with a dying puppy. This week, I’m here for an emergency ophthalmology consult for another puppy from the same foster litter.

Not quite three weeks ago, the biggest, strongest pup in the litter suddenly developed a big swollen eye. My local veterinarian prescribed one course of treatment, and a week later, another, but the eye hasn’t responded. Since the origin of the problem is still a bit of a mystery (a scratch was suspected, but no actual injury to the surface of the eye was observed), he has started to suspect that the cause is not an injury but some other disorder. Hence, a higher-tech consultation.

The pup has been prescribed a whole new course of oral and topical medicines:  gabapentin for pain, doxycycline in case it has been caused by a tick-borne disease or even leptospirosis, and, to reduce the dangerous fluid accumulation in the eye, a low-dose oral steroid, a saline ointment (to be applied six times a day) and an NSAID eye drop (to be applied four times a day). And we will recheck in a week.

You guys, this puppy is a champ. He’s so well behaved that people keep mistaking him for being very ill; after a few minutes of sniffing around and me rewarding him with little treats for staying on the little blanket I brought for him, he curls up in a ball and resigns himself to a few more boring hours. What amazing self-control for such a little guy!

However, given the practically hourly regimen of eye medications we’ve been dealing with in the past two weeks, he’s bonded to me very strongly. The ophthalmology intern took him into the back for about an hour, and I took the opportunity to go in search of a snack vending machine and a restroom. When I got back, I heard the puppy’s loud complaints (he is a howler) from a cage in a room a few doors away from the waiting room. As soon as the doctors were done with him and the intern saw that I was back, he was brought back to me and he settled back on his little blanket without any further fuss. He’s such a good boy!

Also, folks, he needs a name. I usually assign my foster pups a different colored collar for the few weeks they will be with me, and refer to them by the color of that collar. But this bunch has needed so much help, and since we want to make sure that the health conditions they are fighting as a result of their early abandonment and subsequent malnutrition (demodectic mange, wonky legs, and now this vexing eye issue) are completely resolved before we even try to find them forever homes, they are going to be with me for a good bit longer than usual. It’s well past time for a real name, even if it gets changed when he finally finds a home.

My friends keep calling this puppy Blue, both for his blue merle color and now, sadly, for his compromised eye, but that’s confusing, because he’s the puppy who has been wearing the yellow collar and coat. When the ophthalmologist asked about his name, I told her that he’s the yellow collar puppy, but my friends keep calling him Blue, and that I didn’t want to name him for a condition we were hoping to resolve. She laughed and said, “All my pets are named after the conditions that brought them to me!” When I, also laughing, asked her for an example, she said, “Well, for starters, my cat Ringo came to me with ringworm…”

Anyway, suggestions for a name would be gladly accepted.

As would donations for the medical bills that he and the other puppies have incurred. The donations that the shelter has received are what’s making all this medical care possible; we have done much more for these puppies than this open-admission shelter or I are usually able to do. And for that, I am so grateful. This is an extremely worthy bunch of pups, and I’m so glad that they are going to get a real chance in life, instead of being euthanized for severe but highly treatable conditions.

If you are so moved to make a year-end, tax-deductible gift, please go to northwestspca.org and click on “Donate.” You can specify that your donation be used for the medical care of the mange puppies. If there is any money left over by the time these guys are out the door, healthy, neutered, and microchipped, the money will go into the shelter’s medical fund to be used to help other special cases. And thank you from the bottom of my heart.