9-21-11
Adventure!
Ken calls me at 12:15 yesterday and tells me he has a dog. A golden retriever pup. He explains that she was all tied up at Costco and without water and that after waiting some time, he was told to go ahead and take this dog to the shelter so that the owners could get her there. The only real problem was that he had to get to class.
I left work and met Ken in between and took the pup off his hands. She wasn’t young. She was small. Definitely a lot of golden in her, but clearly mixed with a smaller breed. Her spay scar was older and her teeth made her look less than puppy like.
She was a total sweetie. She had on a newish harness and a little bag attached to it with her poop bags. She was clearly owned by a woman. I took her over to Carson shelter since she was found in Hawthorne. I went in and had to endure the urging of the people in the waiting area to just go home and keep her. It was upsetting, actually. I felt like a bad person for bringing her to the shelter, when in reality, I just wanted her to find her owner.
We scanned her for a chip and found nothing. She had no form of id on her at all. The lady behind the counter was nice, but very business like. She explained that yes, they could take her and she would go through the process. I could take her home and bring in flyers saying I had found her. She also explained that if I had her for 2 weeks, even if I was still looking for her owner, by law the dog would be mine. I was already feeling guilty, so I gathered the pup and headed home.
I had not thought this through.
I walked in the house with her and was immediately greeted by Monarch, who was yelling at me for something unrelated. It was at this point he realized that I was accompanied by a small dog. He was pissed.
Monarch is a pretty large cat. I didn’t realize that he was holding back on his size. In his anger, he doubled in size, and I am not just talking about his fur standing on end. He was able to make himself look like a giant menace. It was pretty awesome, really. Amusing, also, especially when coupled with the low growl he was projecting in the direction of this poor, scared pup. He also was not about to back down. I tried to shoo him away. Nothing worked. I realized I needed to get the dog out of this house before a swat landed on her nose or behind that would result in way more problems.
During this little dance, Luna was at the door, looking in. She looked hurt. Not physically, but she looked at me with this sadness as if to say, “Have I been replaced, mom?” The pup went up to the screen to see what Luna was all about. Luna was very sweet, but the pup immediately started barking her little head off at Luna, who looked confused now.
I needed to get the L dogs inside and the pup outside.
Thankfully, Luna shocked the hell out of me. I told her to sit and stay and she did. You could tell it was taking every bit of will power to do so as I guided the pup out the back porch. She never lunged at the pup! I told Luna to go inside, which she did happily. Yay!
Lycos was another story. She came from where she had been and bee lined to the pup. Fuck. Lycos has decided that now that she is old and frail, she can use her selective hearing. She wasn’t listening to any of my commands, and I actually had to pull her away from her glare. I wasn’t worried about Lycos hurting the pup so much as the pup hurting my old, idiot dog. I managed to shoved Lycos in the house and was able to get the door closed with no more issues. Phew!
I let the little dog wander off leash so she could potty and get water. I started to go in the house when Luna could obviously no longer contain her excitement about the visitor. She bounded up to the pup who was pissed. There was a minor scuffle, but nothing serious. This may have been because I quickly grabbed Luna and tossed her in the house.
I still needed to go get the boys, so I went inside. The pup started barking. Crap. My dogs started barking. Crap. I had to end up putting my dogs in the boys’ room and spoke to the pup from my bedroom, reassuring her that I was in fact still there. This helped all around.
This dog would not be boarding at Casa de Brenan.
Once Ken got home, he took the pup back to Carson.
This is where Ken had his adventure.
The same people were in the waiting area, and clearly recognized the pup. They asked him rather sternly why it was that this dog was back. Ken explained that this is where the owners would probably come looking for her. These people turned out to be from animal rescue groups. They started telling Ken how they are there every day to get any new adoptable animals so that they are not left at a high kill shelter.
They tried to out logic the wrong person.
Ken pointed out that if these groups (reps from 2 other groups showed up in the 20 minutes Ken was there) were there every day, getting all the new animals that are very adoptable, it was no wonder that Carson has a high kill rate. They don’t have any adoptable animals left! They told Ken that the animals get killed in 5 days. A person at the shelter said that this was not actually 100% true. In fact, they will hold some animals indefinitely. Ken told these groups that although it is nice that they are “saving” animals, they are not making it easy for normal people to come down to a shelter to get an animal that will mostly likely fit their household. Instead, people will have to go to animal rescue groups, pay more than what they would have at the shelter, and go through a lot more red tape before they can take home an animal. This is in fact, making the process less appealing and it is why the standard person is less likely to adopt these days.
The group reps were not happy with Ken.
This experience piggy backed on the recent visit to Petsmart. They had some dogs for adoption. I was smitten with one until I noticed how much the fees were to take that dog home. $400. No joke. What the fuck? Look, I appreciate how much it costs to help these critters, but $400 to take home this dog? Once again, I could go find a dog at the shelter and go home with her for $120. Sometimes even less. It came across less like a non-profit organization, and more like a monopoly for the best dogs.
Luna came from a backyard breeder. I recognize that it would have been better to go to a shelter, but I wanted a specific breed of pup. Lycos came from the Carson animal shelter. Ken and I happened to go in to the shelter on our first look for a dog, and her litter had just been dropped off. We lucked out and got to take home our Lycos. I hope for every person going into a shelter to find their new best friend. I just would hope that the shelters and rescue groups would figure out better ways to work together to make sure that not only are the animals are helped, but also that people trying to adopt have an easier time with it.
Please know, not all rescue groups are like this. Many really do go above and beyond to help both critters and people come together. I was just frustrated that the groups represented at Carson shelter yesterday. I hope they understand that the stats for Carson shelter might not be as bad if they were to work with them more.
Actually, what would be awesome is if the county would allow rescue groups to help fix up these shelters. The shelter in Pedro is really nice compared to Carson. I know Carson is doing some construction, but it would be nice if the animals in the shelter had nicer accommodations and that when people went there they would feel like they were not in some kind of prison camp.
Of course, what it comes down to is there are good rescue groups and bad ones, just as there are good shelters and bad ones. I know that there are people out there really trying to make sure animals are treated well and get good homes. I am not as impressed with groups that just seem to be shoving it down your throat that this animal will die unless you pay enormous amounts of money to take them home. It just sucks.
I have adopted from TLC. They were quite cool. It was some time ago now, but they were awesome. I obviously have dealt with Carson and Pedro, both with good results.
Bottom line, people mean well. They just don’t always go about it correctly.
Ok, on to less controversial topics.
I forgot my pedometer today. I actually forgot to have it on yesterday afternoon, too, which annoys me. I had changed from work clothes and didn’t put it on my shorts. Crud. Not that it is a huge deal, but I am liking the keeping track of my steps. It makes me feel more accomplished.
I want to take my weight today. I am afraid I have hit my first plateau. I expected it, but I need to push through this. Tomorrow, I will be walking a lot more since Dax and I will go to Centinella Pet and Feed during Bobby’s practice. Either that or up to Dollar Tree. Both are a good hike, so that will be fun.
I know I should not be annoyed, but I am just going to put it out there so I can move on. When I posted the picture of the pup on Facebook, I was amused that people accused me of stealing someone’s dog. I know they meant well, and were mostly just fucking with me. What I did not appreciate was that Greg commented. He never comments on any of my stuff. His first comment was actually cute. It said they should just let dogs in Costco. What I didn’t like was his subsequent comments:
BTW - Dogs can go an hour without water - how hot was it? It sounds like Costco/Cops were just being dicks to me. I would be SO PISSED if someone took my dog.
RE: Water - I would also like to point out that this was in front of Costco... so 800+ people an hour were walking past the dog... so if he/she ended up really needing something, it's not like it was all alone... plenty of people would have provided water for it if it looked hot.
Fuck you, Greg. Look, I would be pissed, too, if someone took my dog. I also would not have taken my dog to Costco and left her outside like that. Plus, it sounds like the cops would have called animal control had Ken not taken the dog himself.
In addition to this, fuck you, Greg. Just because 800 people pass something that isn’t right doesn’t mean someone will do the right thing. We have seen so many stories about how bystanders don’t do a damn thing because they assume someone else would. How come in the hour Ken was there, not one fucking person helped this dog?
Oh yes, and fuck you, Greg. Do you really fucking think I don’t know how much water a fucking dog needs? Don’t you remember I have owned dogs just about my whole fucking life? You have had one fucking dog. It doesn’t make you a fucking expert. He chose to criticize me on something when he had no need to. The guy doesn’t wish me a happy birthday despite FB reminding the world, he doesn’t wish me condolences when my brother died, but he goes ahead and essentially tells me I am a fucking idiot about dogs? I repeat; FUCK YOU, GREG.
I just signed up for the Health and Wellness contest at work. From Sept 26th through Nov 20th, it will count how many cardio miles we do. If we do 100 miles in the 8 weeks, we get a shirt. The winners get a $20 gift card to Sports Chalet. Winning building gets Subway Lunch. Neat! I figure with my current average of about 7K steps a day, I will have 190 something miles by the end of 8 weeks. Yay! So I figure I can enter to keep up on this. Really, it is perfect timing for me. It will push me to do more. I will kick ass, peeps!
Diabetes class tonight. It is about nutrition tonight. Should be interesting. My dad gave me the name of this supplement that Dr. Oz talked about, and I will be able to find out how much bullshit that guy is selling. It will also be good to hear information on foods that I should probably avoid. Yes, I know that the internet has all the info out there, but sometimes it is nice to hear it from a person.
I was testing my blood sugar yesterday to see exactly how much exercise affects it. It was fascinating. I was at 89 and I did my weight training. When I was done, I tested it again and it was down to 76. That is an amazing change, especially since the exercise itself didn’t take that long. It was tough, but wow! It means this whole exercise thing rules.
I also had read that eating a handful of almonds after every meal can reduce blood sugar as much as 10 points. I can assure you, I am going to get some almonds.
As much as I hate no internet at home right now, it has allowed me to walk away from the Zynga games. I was already getting frustrated with them, but I had already invested so much time in them. Now, I can walk away and not do them. Besides, the time spent on those at home should be spent using the Wii to work out or playing with the kids. No internet is like a game patch!
Crud, I didn’t realize it is almost 8:30 and I have not checked my voice mail yet. What the hell have I been doing all morning? Oh yeah, this.
The boss is out all next week. YAY! And not just out, he is out of the country. It is a great week for this since it is report time, so I don’t have him breathing down my neck. Plus, Thursday I am playing hooky since LAUSD has the day off so Ken and I are taking the boys to Disneyland in the morning (lots walking! Woo hoo!). It is going to be a good week.
As much as I love Tivo and can’t imagine a television without it now, I think that apps and the net are changing the way I watch television even more. I just downloaded the CW app so I can watch 90210 on pAdme. It means I don’t have to only watch it when I can squeeze in time at home. I can watch it on my lunch break (read-at my desk when no one is checking on me). Plus, I can download most shows these days on either the network site or Hulu. It is a pretty amazing time.
My hair isn’t pissing me off today. This is the first time in some time. I have it dark dark brown again, and it has recovered from the dye job quite well.
The other big issue with no net is my picture uploading is behind. This is frustrating since it is harder to organize things like my dailies with Bobby when I have to do something like 2 weeks worth. Ken is calling them again today. He is demanding a $30 a day for the inconvenience. It has been 7 days so far. I will be ok with that credit.
Ok, I have taken up 5 pages this morning. Surely I have other things to do.
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