A friend who mostly keeps up with me through this blog and via my Facebook posts called to ask me the other day, “Nance, I’m afraid to ask: How is Otto? Is he still . . . alive?”

I have had the same instinct when talking to friends who have older dogs. It’s easy to forget exactly how senior one of your friend’s dogs actually is and worry about asking about the dog, in case you are in for an hour of crying together on the phone.

So I thought maybe I should start out this post by saying, Otto is doing great. He had some dental work in November at the veterinary teaching hospital at UC Davis – a broken canine and a cracked carnassial extracted – and came through all that with flying colors. He enjoyed eating canned and soaked dry food for a few weeks afterward, and has looked rather disappointed with me any time I am in a big hurry and only spill “crunchies” (what my husband calls dry food) into his bowl.

But his recovery from those two big extractions was otherwise smooth sailing, and he even trotted with his head up into the hospital, slippery floors and all, for his follow-up visit two weeks later, so he couldn’t have had too much of a traumatic time there. Of course, I primed the veterinary student in charge of him to know that Otto was a celebrity dog, and that thousands of people would be upset if anything bad happened to him. I brought along copies of the 2019 Whole Dog Journal calendar, which has Otto on the cover, and a couple copies of the magazine that feature his photo, too, so that everyone would know that Otto is a supermodel. And of course Otto was his usual friendly-but-dignified, well-behaved self, and the student kept telling me how much he enjoyed taking Otto out for potty walks and what a good boy he was.

But Otto has certainly taken a back seat to all the drama going on related to the Camp Fire and then the latest litter of foster puppies. Otto’s main job when I have foster pups underfoot is to stand stock still, snarling and growling ferociously at them when they come near him. If they don’t heed his warnings, he will give them a mighty roar “AHWOOF!” and send them running for their lives. He’s never hurt one, and this is actually a good thing for puppies to learn – to approach grownups with respect and caution, not careless abandon. But I don’t force these interactions, and Otto increasingly chooses not to enter the fray when puppies are present.

In contrast, Woody always helps with my foster pups. He takes a big interest in their care, often watching with his big head resting on the baby gate as I feed and medicate pups in the kitchen, and only jumping over the gate to lick the bowl and faces clean when I give him the word. He guides the troops out the back door and, when they are old enough, down the stairs into the back yard for potty time and back inside when it’s over. I can give him directions, and the pups all follow; it’s really a great system. (I only have to watch that he doesn’t steal their toys; the most appealing puppy toys don’t last a minute in his jaws and paws.) So Woody ends up in a lot of photos and videos I take of the puppies, whereas Otto does not.

I’m backing into all this.

You guys, this litter of puppies is definitely the most challenging, heart-rending bunch I’ve ever taken on. And some of the most adorable and sweet. Why do those things always seem to go together?

My Current Foster Puppies: Found in a Field, on the Brink of Death, But Getting Better!

A week ago, my biggest concern was their bendy legs. Shortly after I had written that post, I found out that the local orthopedic specialist I had been referred to was booked for weeks on end, so I made an appointment at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH) for this week, instead. I just wanted someone to look at all those terrible legs and tell me what to do about them: Diet? Exercise? Splints? Casts?

While that is going to be an ongoing concern, yesterday the VMTH vet told me not to worry, that all the bending and bowing and such would very likely resolve with a few dietary considerations and we wouldn’t worry unless there were still significant problems in a month or two.

The bigger concern was the life hanging in the balance of one of the puppies.

Four days earlier, I had the pups outside, soaking up a bit of sunshine. Woody was leading them around the yard, and I was taking pictures and video, trying to capture their gaits and postures. That was the first time that I noticed that one of the pups was walking in an exceptionally weird way, with her head bent downward, as if she had hurt her neck and couldn’t lift up her head. What happened?

I palpated her neck and back and she didn’t make a squeak. It didn’t seem like she had been injured, but suddenly, she could NOT walk or stand or sit normally. I reviewed my videos of the pups playing. Videos from the previous day showed her playing with her usual vigor. She was fine that morning! Now, at midday, she was walking like a dog wearing a neck brace. I thought, perhaps it’s a joint thing like all these other joint things. I sent a text to the vet tech at the shelter and we agreed I would just keep her quiet and see what happened next.

The next day she was a bit worse. Eating, drinking, pooping fine, even trying to play, but with a stiff neck. The shelter vet tech suggested I give her some metacam for pain, to see if that made any difference. It did not.

The next morning, worse. She was uncoordinated and could barely walk. I fed and got the rest of the pups set early in the morning, and was at the 24-hour veterinary clinic with her at 8 am. We were there, running tests, until 6 p.m. (I went home midday, while a three-hour test was being run, to feed/clean up and let out the other pups and then went back.) Everything was inconclusive and the vet was stumped – and the pup was worse; she could no longer sit or even hold her head up. During conversations at some point in the day, I told her I would be taking everyone to the VMTH at Davis the next day, she was relieved. “Oh, they can get to the bottom of this.” We spent nearly $700 and had no answers.

Major Setback: Another Puppy Lost

I wasn’t certain the pup would make it through the night, but she did. And while she had, as the vet put it, “reduced mentation,” not responding like a well puppy, when I spoke to her and praised her, she would wag her tail and brighten. She lapped weakly at water and broth and watered/down canned A/D (food for debilitated dogs) that I syringed into her mouth or held in a spoon on her lips, but would get a little panicky if too much went into her mouth at once.

We left for Davis at 7 a.m., with the five robust pups in the way back of my car and her on the front seat, wrapped up in towels. I sang to her and petted her as we drove and she would wag and follow me with her eyes. I held it together until we got right onto campus, and there was a construction detour that wouldn’t take me where I needed to go and it was two minutes to our appointment time and I could see but could not get to where I needed to be. I had a cursing and crying tantrum for a minute, and wanted to storm through the construction zone. And right then my phone rang, and it was a cheerful student asking if I was close by. I told her, through tears, that I was stuck on the wrong side of some construction and had had a meltdown, and she laughed in an extremely kind way and said, “Don’t worry, I will meet you out front . . . Do you know how to get around all that?” I did know the long way around; I have been bringing animals to this hospital, it seems, all my life. It was only insurmountable for a minute.

I’ll shorten all this. The good news: The vets thought that the legs of the five happy, scampering, playful pups will be just fine without major interventions. As alarming as they look to not just me, but everyone, the doctors said this is common for pups who have been so malnourished and are now on good food. They suggested dialing back the nutrient content of the food slightly for a bit, and checking in again in a month or two. No bracing, casting, or anything else. Sheesh.

The bad news: We have no conclusive diagnosis for the sick pup. Their first thought was distemper, which usually presents with either severe respiratory illness (with purulent goo from their eyes and noses) or severe digestive illness (diarrhea and vomiting) and advances to neurological symptoms, but CAN present with just neurological symptoms.

But to conclusively prove this, only a cerebrospinal fluid sample from a spinal tap can be tested for distemper at this point, not the usual eye, nose, and throat samples (because, like all the pups, she was vaccinated upon intake at the shelter, and would have circulating antigen in her other body fluids from that, giving us a positive result to those other tests no matter what). And the price for this test, including full anesthesia (the only way they will do the test) is over $1,000. AND, even if she HAS distemper, the prognosis is poor. Dogs who recover from distemper can have lifelong neurological deficits and outbreaks of the illness months later.

The other possible diagnosis offered: that she has a serious injury in her neck, one requiring surgery. The neurologist who examined her in a consult said that x-rays would not be enough to diagnose this, either a CT scan or MRI would be needed to diagnose and possibly treat (with surgery). Beginning price tag, $4,000.

And in the meantime, she’s sinking.

The vets’ recommendation: Euthanasia. And yet, that tail-wagging. She is still listening and paying attention to me. I just don’t understand why things have to be this hard.

I consulted with the RVT from my shelter, and she said she had been discussing the pup with one of the vets who does the spay/neuter surgery at our shelter; she practices both Western and Eastern veterinary medicine and uses acupuncture in her practice. The RVT mentioned that the vet would be interested in looking at our girl and trying some acupuncture if we thought it might help. Well, I thought, that beats me losing all my marbles here at the VMTH. So I drove us all home again.

The vet and RVT and even the shelter director came in and we all petted and discussed the very limp puppy. The tail-wagging just broke all of our hearts, and her weak attempts to eat made us agree to try some acupuncture and bone broth and more warmth and love and give her one more night. But, my friends, in the morning she was worse yet. She didn’t seem like she was in pain, but she was definitely checking out more and more. The wags were weaker, and she couldn’t lap at the broth I syringed into her mouth. I took her back to the shelter and we gave her what little we had left to offer: a painless end in the arms of someone who truly loved her.

Five happy, healing puppies left to love and raise.

Thank you to those of you who have made donations to my local shelter, the Northwest SPCA, to help pay for the medical care for these little guys. It has helped SO MUCH and I am so grateful to all of you.

First and most importantly, some recalls:

The November 2018 Pet Food Recalls

Columbia River Natural Pet Foods is recalling some frozen raw diets for dogs and cats due to contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that several dry dog foods had been recalled due to overages in the amount of vitamin D they contained. Curiously, there have been a number of others. On November 27, Sunshine Mills recalled a number of products for the same reason (potentially dangerously high levels of vitamin D). The products include certain varieties of Evolve, Sportsman’s Pride, and Triumph dry dog foods. (See the link for specific date/codes and varieties).

On November 29, yet one more: Certain lots of ELM Chicken and Chickpea dry dog food have been recalled for excessive vitamin D.

See this link (to my previous post) for more information as to why excessive vitamin D is dangerous.

Volunteer Work in the Aftermath of Camp Fire

In my neck of the woods, we still have a huge ongoing mess to sort out with trying to reunite animals with their people following the devastating Camp Fire. Currently, there are three temporary emergency shelters that are caring for hundreds of dogs and cats (and other animals). It’s hard to get exact figures, but more than half of the animals have not yet been identified by any owners, for many reasons. Some people whose homes burned have had to move out of the area, or went to stay with relatives out of the area. Some people are staying in locations where they can’t have their pets. There may be people who have assumed that their pets perished in the fire, and who haven’t come to look for their pets; there may be pets in the shelters who belong to people who perished in the fire (the human death toll is at 88).

The job of caring for all these animals has fallen to volunteers. While the facilities are imperfect (understatement) and there has been an incredible amount of confusion and change in protocol on almost a daily basis, the incredible fact is that people keep coming out of the woodwork to help the animals. In the first few weeks, it was largely people who were already part of the North Valley Animal Disaster Group (NVADG, referred to locally as “nav-dag”).

As the thick smoke settles over the whole north half of the state, the volunteer force started to shift to people whose places of work were closed due to the unhealthy air quality. Of course, those people were supposed to stay indoors; that was the official recommendation of state and county public health departments. But teachers from K-12 schools that were closed showed up in great numbers, as did professors from universities and community colleges. It may be that no one realized exactly how many teachers had been showing up to walk dogs and clean cat boxes until the week after Thanksgiving, when many schools reopened – and for a few days, none of the shelters had quite enough people to help.

But the cavalry arrived in the form of volunteers and trained animal emergency responders from national animal welfare organizations. Consultants and hands-on help came from the Humane Society of the United States, Red Rover, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, American Humane Association, and the ASPCA. Employees and volunteers from other animal shelters in the north state have been arriving in twos and threes and have been sleeping in tents and cars and working 12-hour days.

I’ve worked alongside folks from the Humane Society of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco SPCA, who were here on their own dime and receiving no compensation, and barely any thanks or recognition. “It’s for the animals,” I heard again and again as I thanked people for their help.

It’s been an emotional roller coaster of frustration and sadness and exhaustion, occasionally punctuated with utter joy when someone shows up to recover their dog or cat. We even experience the joy third-hand; we can start crying tears of happiness if we hear about a reunion from another volunteer who witnessed it. The happy stories make it all worthwhile; we all just want to see these stressed animals get back into the hands of people who love them.

My Mange-Ridden Foster Puppies

Last week, I introduced you to my latest foster puppies, who I took on against all my better judgment. I have been depleted – financially, emotionally, and in terms of time, but I just knew these helpless, pathetic little pups would not get all the help they needed to recover in the shelter. They especially wouldn’t get what they needed in the middle of the fire crisis.

I’m happy to report that the remaining six puppies are recovering super nicely from their kennel cough; we have just a few more days of doxycycline to get through.

Their demodectic mange has taken the puppies through the red and irritated stage, the stinky and yeasty and infected stage, the scabby and crusty first stage of recovery, the smooth and hairless stage, and now they are just starting the hair regrowth stage. A couple of puppies are still bald; a couple more are starting to regrow hair in funny spots and patches. They finally are acting like actual puppies, playing and chewing on everything they can reach, and eating actual dog food (as opposed to the tuna and scrambled eggs and cooked hamburger and Thanksgiving turkey and anything else I could get them to eat when they were so sick).

We’re not completely out of the woods, though. As I mentioned last week, four of the six puppies display a hyperflexed stance, walking on their “wrists” rather than standing upright on their feet. Given the state of severe malnourishment they were in when they were brought into the shelter, it was no surprise that they had almost no muscle, and their bones, tendons, and ligaments are weak. Most shelters have seen this in many malnourished animals; the animals usually recover over time with good nutrition and appropriate exercise (not too much, not too little).

One day, though, as I was preparing their lunch, I noticed something new: one of the pups had a front leg that was bowing laterally to the outside at the wrist. He looked bowlegged in the front! When he sat, his front legs looked fine. When he stood, even though he is still a slim pup, the weight of his shoulders, neck, and head was apparently too much for those weak carpal joints, and the instability started causing first one foreleg, and then the other, to bend like Gumby.

I took this pup to the shelter to consult with the RVT. We decided to splint his front legs as a protective measure, to keep the bending and bowing from permanently damaging his joints and deforming his leg bones, until they are strong enough to carry him without bending.

A few days later, a second pup’s legs started bowing and knuckling to the outside at the wrist, so she has joined her brother in braces.

I’m trying to find a veterinarian who will help us with the overall medical management of the whole litter. I would like to find someone, or a practice with several doctors, who will help advise us on the best diet and exercise plan for these vulnerable pups, as well as a plan for protecting those legs. I’ve reached out to people at the vet school at the University of California at Davis, about 70 miles away, and a few other people who might know where we can get this unfortunate little bunch some help as a group.

Some of you have sent donations to help with their medical care, and the Northwest SPCA and I are very grateful. The support will help ensure that we will be able to do everything we can to see them recover fully from the terrible start they got in life. For all they’ve been through, they are sweet and sassy little things, and when they have a little more hair, they are going to be darn cute. I know we will find them terrific homes, as soon as they are well on the path to health.

Life won’t be the same for a long, long time in this county. The death toll (88 as of this writing, and counting) is staggering, the number of missing people is still high, the number of homes burned (nearly 14,000) is unprecedented, and many of the businesses in the towns that burned won’t be able to recover.

Camp Fire Notes #1

Camp Fire Notes #2

Given that this is a rural area, the impact on the large animal population was quite severe. Many animals, wild and domestic, small and large, were killed in the fire.  Quite a few pets were saved by their owners in the mass evacuation, and many more were saved by first responders of all kinds: firefighters, police, and even utility workers. Three weeks later, animal rescue teams are still finding, catching, and evacuating animals from the fire zone. Where possible, some animals are being “sheltered in place” and provided with food and water by volunteer feeding teams.

Tens of thousands of people and animals have been affected by the fire, and thousands of people are helping those displaced. Several emergency shelters were hastily set up to contain pets. Some of the pets were left at the shelters by owners who were themselves homeless and staying in shelters; many more were rescued and brought to the shelters with either an address or rough estimate of where they had been rescued from.

The good news: The animals were alive, rescued from the fire, starvation, and lack of shelter. The bad news: Conditions in the emergency shelters are crowded and stressful. All of the animals are being kept in wire cages– you know, the kind of wire crate that folds flat when not in use. There are no kennels or runs for the dogs; the cats barely have room for themselves, their litter pans, and food and water bowls. Despite an army of volunteers arriving throughout the day to walk dogs (and clean cages and bowls, and feed and water), there are so many animals being held in these “temporary” shelters that the dogs are not getting out of those cramped cages for more than 20 minutes or so a day (and of course, the cats don’t get out of their cages at all). And we’re going on three weeks of this, with no end in sight for many of the animals.

Why? Because some of the animals’ owners are deceased or at least missing. Some animals’ owners are staying in shelters or hotels (or campgrounds or in their cars) where they can’t have their pets. Many animals have not yet been identified by their owners for any number of reasons.

Hundreds of burned animals (mostly cats) were transported to quite a number of veterinary clinics and shelters whose managers were willing to take on the care of these unfortunate victims. Again, this is great, because the animals are alive and receiving much better care than they would in the emergency shelters, but their distance from the area makes it that much more difficult for owners who have lots of other basic survival challenges now to track them down and get them back.

When I first heard about van-loads of injured animals being transported out of the area, I was beside myself; all I could think of was how distraught I would be if I could not immediately find my injured pet after a catastrophe. But a friend who was on the front lines of animal rescue following the gigantic Tubbs Fire in Sonoma and Napa Counties last year checked my outrage with a sobering fact: Many of the animals rescued from that fire were never claimed by their owners, and many were held for months by animal control agencies before ultimately being put up for adoption.

Here in Butte County, we have several times the number of rescued/evacuated animals from the 2017 Tubbs Fire being housed in temporary shelters and being cared for by volunteers. I just don’t know how long this effort can be maintained. It rends the hearts of all the volunteers.

A More Ordinary Animal Emergency, Still Tragic

After volunteering for hours every day for a week, I was in this emotionally bruised state when I answered a different call for volunteers, issued by the shelter where I usually volunteer.

The Northwest SPCA is the open-admission shelter that serves all the unincorporated areas in Butte County and the city of Oroville, where I live. The shelter was serving as a collection site for donations of pet food, towels, blankets, and other supplies, and the piles of donated goods quickly overflowed the shelter’s storage space.

Some shipping containers were ordered and delivered to the shelter about 12 hours before rain was forecast to begin – on the day before Thanksgiving – but volunteers were needed to sort through the donations and help move them to and neatly stack them in the shipping containers: Dog food and cat food in one (separated by canned and dry, adult and puppy/kitten), and bedding in the other (separated by towels, sheets, blankets, and pet beds). My husband and I and some friends worked at this task well into the night.

Afterward, I entered the shelter to use the restroom – and that’s when I saw the most pathetic bunch of puppies I have ever seen in my life. Seven emaciated, nearly hairless puppies with skin like raw hamburger huddled in a pet bed in a kennel, staring blankly up at me. I was frozen in place; I could not believe what I was seeing – or smelling. They absolutely reeked like yeast, just seared with skin infections. I asked one of the shelter workers (who was there working incredibly late), “What the…?”

“Oh gosh, aren’t they just sad? Someone found them in a field and brought them in last night,” I was told. “Tomorrow we’ll get a skin scraping and find out what sort of mange they have.”

“And what then?” I asked. What I know about mange could fit in a teaspoon.

“Well…” the shelter worker reluctantly told me, “if it’s one kind of mange, they will get treated for it. If it’s the other…” She shrugged.

I didn’t know this before, but like many open-admission shelters, particularly in an economically impoverished area, my shelter often euthanizes dogs who come in, like these puppies, with severe, all-body mange caused by Demodex canis, a type of mite. That’s because treatment for the condition can often take a lot of time and health complications can arise. In a home setting, treatment is quicker and more successful; in the stressful environment of a shelter, it can take far longer for the dog to recover completely and regrow his coat.

Of course, the mange these puppies had turned out to be demodectic. And of course, despite my vows to abstain from any further fostering for a few months, I had to take the puppies home. I just could NOT live with myself if I allowed their lives to end after such a short and miserable span when I knew I could do something, anything, to help them. Those blank little faces and that angry-looking skin just haunted me – and I was afraid that with all the focus on the fire victims and evacuated pets, and the shelter short-staffed as they were pulled into the rescue and emergency animal-housing efforts, the pups had no other chance.

So, for the past week, while I’ve been trying to finish work on the January issue of WDJ, I’ve been caring for this sad little litter of who-knows-what puppies. (It’s surprisingly hard to guess the breed of pups who lack hair.) Their infections are obviously linked to immune system failure, at least in part due to their malnutrition. They are skinny and yet bloated, and half of them have what’s called “carpal hyperextension” – a weakness of the carpal joints causing them to walk on their “wrists” rather than their feet, which is, we hope, a temporary condition that will improve with a good diet and better health.

But they are so depleted and weak. The largest pup in the litter, who is also the one with the most hair, is the only one who wags his tail and gets out of their bed to greet me; the rest will get up to eat, drink, and potty, and then they go right back into the bed and curl up, miserable.

I took them to a veterinary clinic and got medicine to treat the demodex mites, as well as an antibiotic and an antifungal medication to treat their skin infections. Several days into those medications, we had to abruptly stop those medicines and switch to a different antibiotic to treat the kennel cough they picked up at the shelter. The kennel cough made them feel crappy enough to lose their appetites, and I was beside myself trying to get them to eat something, anything.

And then the worst thing happened: The smallest, sickest puppy just tanked. On Sunday night, she would neither eat nor drink. Before dawn the next morning, she vomited and then had a bloody stool. I took her to the shelter, and the shelter’s vet tech ran a test for parvovirus – and the test was positive.

Puppies can be pulled through a parvo infection with aggressive supportive care, but this puppy was so weak, and had so many health challenges. The vet tech was sympathetic but grim. I was heartbroken, but didn’t want her to suffer any longer, with just a poor prognosis and no indication she had the strength to fight. She was euthanized, and I went home to both cry and redouble my efforts to get the rest of the puppies to eat.  Since the whole litter was probably exposed to parvovirus – the part of town where they were found is historically rife with parvo cases – all I can do is try to keep them warm, fed, and unstressed, and pray that their immune systems do what immune systems are supposed to do, and that the virus doesn’t get the upper hand with any of the rest.

So I’m a little behind at work, and with the formidable job of keeping these guys warm, clean, medicated, and fed, I’m not able to help at the emergency shelters – at least not until the next issue is at the printer and the puppies are out of the woods. As I write this, three of the pups now feel well enough to play, and the other three remaining pups are starting to show an interest in playing. It’s a start; I’ll take it. Keep them (and all the rest of the souls displaced by this disaster) in your thoughts, won’t you?

If you would you like to support the efforts of the animal rescue and emergency sheltering of the animals evacuated from the Camp Fire, donations are gladly accepted by the North Valley Animal Disaster Group.

Here is a linkif you would like to contribute to the medical fund for the sick puppies (or go directly to www.nwspca.org and click on the donate button).

I stopped that account on the night before my first day volunteering at one of the two sites established for animals who were being evacuated from the fire zone. I had actually been at one of the sites all day, but it was too fresh; I couldn’t have written about that day on that night if I had to.

There are animals at these sites for two reasons: either they were brought to the emergency shelter by owners who fled the fire and who have no place to stay where they can have their animals with them, or they were rescued by law enforcement officers and volunteers who are allowed behind the mandatory evacuation lines and brought to the shelter.

Animals who were burned and in need of medical care are being taken to veterinary hospitals. I haven’t seen any of those animals in person.

One of the two emergency shelters was established at the old airport in Chico, about 30 miles north and west of me, and one was established in an old county hospital building here in Oroville, the town where I live. The fire zone is triangulated right between these two sites.

There is a local organization that was activated within minutes of the first sign of smoke from Camp Fire: the North Valley Animal Disaster Group (NVADG, which is pronounced locally as “nav-dag”). It’s an all-volunteer group that provides ongoing training for people who are interested in helping with all types and sizes of animal rescues in this part of the state, from overturned horse or cattle trailers to all-too-common wildfires.

NVADG volunteers immediately started working with law enforcement to rescue animals in the fire zone and were setting up the emergency shelters within hours. The first started early in the morning on November 8, and the shelters filled very quickly with animals. The call went out for more cages, more cages, and more cages.

Within a day, there were more than 1,000 dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, pet birds, snakes, and more at these shelters. Large animals including horses, cows, goats, sheep, and pigs were taken to other shelters. Care and feeding of the animals – not an insignificant task that involved taking dogs out of their cages to potty, and cleaning cat boxes – fell to NVADG volunteers. (As of today, more than 2,000 animals who have been rescued or evacuated from the fire are currently being housed and cared for in NVADG shelters and in veterinary hospitals.)

Ordinarily, NVADG allows only people who have attended one of its training sessions to participate in one of its emergency response events. But within a week, its volunteer network was very strained. Caged animals need lots of care, and there were LOTS of them, and more arriving from the fire zone every day.

My friend Sarah Richardson was contacted by someone in NVADG and asked for help. Because Sarah has been training dogs in Chico for more than a decade, and runs a boarding and daycare facility, she has an extensive network of clients and employees that she can ask to help in an emergency. In fact, many of them did so when Sarah took in a bunch of dogs from the evacuation of my local shelter during the Oroville Dam crisis two years ago! So that’s how I, Sarah, and a half dozen or so of her employees and clients ended up reporting for volunteer service at NVADG’s Oroville emergency shelter site, at 7 am on day seven of the fire.

Dog Disaster Relief

I’m glad someone called Sarah, because when we got there, only one other volunteer was on the grounds, although more kept trickling in as we got to work. We were briefed on what was where and what to do – and I mean, briefed. Leashes are here, poop bags are there, go that way… Two or three of you take dogs out to walk and one person will clean its cage while the walkers are outside. Dump the water bowl, wipe it out with paper towels. Check the bedding (if any). If it’s soiled, take it out, and put it in that barrel. Fresh bedding is over there. Put some food in a paper bowl. That’s that. And write on the chart whether the dog had finished its food from the previous feeding. The walkers will indicate whether the dog pooped or peed, and note whether each dog seems to have any health issues that the vets should look at.

Problems cropped up and we solved them as we went. We ran out of large plastic garbage bags; someone found more. The poop barrels filled; someone stepped up and found a cart to haul the large garbage bags full of poop bags to a dumpster. This dog was going berserk and kept getting trapped halfway in and halfway out of its cage, bending the bars with superdog strength; we arranged for that one to be transported to the local shelter, which has a far more secure facility. That dog has a terrible case of fleas and tapeworms in her poop; she got put on the vets’ list for treatment for both issues. And on and on.

By about 2 pm, about 20 volunteers were present, and all the dogs had been outside at least once, and all the cat boxes and cat cages had been cleaned – and it was time to start over at the beginning. I could easily see why the NVADG volunteers were exhausted. And this was the smaller of the two shelters being operated by NVADG!

In addition, the work was not just physically tiring – it was emotionally challenging. It was cold outside, with the sun being completely blotted out by all the smoke in the sky. Many of us were wearing masks in an effort to filter the air, but we had headaches and raw throats and runny noses anyway. Most of the dogs were frantic to get out of their cages (wire crates) and get out of the rooms in the building that NVADG has been allowed to use. All the spaces were quite small and have poor ventilation; the room with the best ventilation and most open space was up a flight of narrow stairs! A bit of a hazard when being pulled downstairs by large, stressed dogs.

SEE ALSO: Smoke Inhalation in Dogs

Some of the dogs are dealing with the stress by nonstop barking; others are terrified and shaking at the proximity and noise being made by all the others; others are just shut-down and depressed. A Pug puppy quickly became a volunteer favorite for being neither barky nor upset, but rather, playing in his small cage all day every day, happy to leave his cage and just as happy to return to it and entertain himself by tossing his stuffed toy around in his cage. He was definitely in the minority.

The condition of many of the dogs made many of us sad. The population in the shelters includes very thin dogs, dogs with tumors that ought to be removed, dogs with coughs that sound like they are heartworm-positive, dogs who are grossly obese and sporting super-long nails, dogs who are so flea-infested that they can’t stop scratching (and whose poop is full of tapeworm segments), dogs with mange, and more.

There are also dogs who are in good condition, but of course, the ones who are in rough shape just really stick in the mind and heart of dog owners who have the luxury of helping at a time like this. I don’t say these things to criticize victims of the fire for their pet care, just that this is a concentrated population of dogs belonging to people who likely lack the resources and/or knowledge to provide top-notch care to their pets.

To many of us volunteers (a population that largely has the resources and ability to spend time volunteering instead of at work), the sudden immersion in this other world of dog guardianship in a highly depressing setting was stressful.

Not that we expected it to be sunshine and rainbows.

And yet, time spent in these shelters is far less upsetting than it is for the people who work in all the animal hospitals where burned animals have been taken. I can’t even imagine how traumatizing that is for the people who work there.

So many burned animals have been brought in that local veterinary hospitals have had to send many animals to hospitals and shelters that are hours away. This is good for the animals, many of whom would not survive without serious medical intervention, but many of us are worried about how or whether the animals will ever be reunited with their families.

A website has been created with photos of the unclaimed animals at the emergency shelters, and links provided to all the veterinary hospitals that are hosting and treating burned animals. Those hospitals have created their own online photo albums of their patients. Click through to any one of those albums, and try to imagine you are looking for the beloved pet you were separated from when the fire broke out. See how many photos of burned and bandaged animals you can look at before you start to cry. Imagine caring for those animals all day long. I have so much respect for the people who are doing so.

As I write this, a full week after my last post, things are not yet much better, but there are a few signs of hope. Some animals are getting picked up by their owners – but more continue to be brought into the shelters by rescue workers in the burned zone. I’m not sure if any standards are being used to screen volunteers at this point; but if people show up at the shelters and they don’t seem to know what they are doing with the animals at all, we ask if they can help find more towels, or wash bowls, or take the trash out. Everyone who can do anything can help – and many more people are showing up every day.

We’re getting some highly qualified help, too. The California Veterinary Medical Foundation (CVMF) has sent veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians who are also volunteering, and who are helping to triage injured and burned animals brought in by rescuers, while also providing examinations and treatment for all the animals in the shelters. They arrive each day in teams of two and administer medication, change bandages, check and recheck the condition of animals with chronic health problems, and provide the sort of ordinary care than many of the animals seem to lack: the application of flea treatments, medication for mange, de-wormers, eye ointment, ear cleaning, and more. I don’t know where all the drugs they are using have come from, but I’m incredibly grateful for them.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) was asked by someone to come in, and their advisors were a great and calming influence. They helped create order at the larger emergency shelter in Chico, and established routines and schedules that will greatly benefit the animals. There are plans to set up two entirely new locations for the ongoing management of these shelters; all the “owned” animals will be moved to one shelter, and the as-yet unclaimed animals will be moved to the other. A rumor is going around that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) will be running one of the shelters, which, if they run it like IFAW, will be supremely welcome.

I took a break from the shelter one day and, instead, allowed myself to be recruited by a friend who was volunteering at NVADG’s warehouse-based headquarters, where a room full of laptops – lent to the group by some office in the county government – had been set up by volunteers.

Someone had built a custom file for NVADG so that volunteers could enter data regarding animals and requests for service so the group could, among other things, generate a “feeding report” each day – a list of addresses where the NVADG volunteers would be dispatched to feed livestock (and quite a few cats) who are being “sheltered in place” behind the evacuation lines (but out of danger from the still-burning fire). About 15 of us spent the day (and others spent more days than me) typing in information from forms that had been filled out by the more highly trained and experienced NVADG volunteers who were going into the evacuation zone each day and continuing to rescue some animals and simply feed and water others.

Also at NVADG’s hub of activity: volunteers answering the phones from people with requests for service; volunteers who were helping unload giant truckloads of hay, grain, chicken food, dog and cat food, bowls, beds, blankets etc. that have been donated by people from all over; volunteers loading this donated feed into the trucks of the people who were going out to feed and rescue animals; volunteers who were feeding all the other volunteers! And all this a week into the fire disaster. It was incredibly moving to see this amount of support for the community’s animals, pets and livestock alike.

It’s Thanksgiving, and if there is one thing in all this darkness that I am grateful for, it’s how amazingly generous, kind, and helpful the people in my community are being to each other right now.