Raven Asks for Help After Encountering a Porcupine
I’ve heard about at least seven dog versus porcupine cases this year so far. One unlucky customer’s dog has had two porcupine encounters this year so far – the first one required a trip the University and a $700 surgery.
Last week, when I took Phoebe in for her shots, I urged a walk in client to go ahead of me at the vet clinic, when they arrived with a dog literally BLANKETED in quills, including inside his mouth, nose and ears. They were still working on him – under sedation – when we left.
Apparently even the birds in Canada are having a hard time of it this year – this Raven actually came to a person and seemed to ask for help after a porcupine encounter.
By the way, if your dog encounters a porcupine, and there are just a few quills to deal with, you can usually remove them yourself. Get some rubber gloves, a pair of needle-nose pliers and someone to help you hold your dog. You may need to cover his eyes at first so he doesn’t see the pliers coming.
Stay calm and talk to him softly. Next, grasp each quill near the point of entry and pull straight out. Your pooch will probably pull back, making it easy to remove the quills. Try not to break any of them. Once you’re done removing the quills, apply a topical antiseptic to the affected area.
If the quills are in the eyes, the mouth, the ears or there are an excessive amount of them, a trip to the vet is in order.
Walmart Fires Employee for Confronting Customer Who Left Dog in Hot Car
If you’ve ever read this blog before, you know how much hatred I have (and I’m sure all of you feel the same way) for morons who live their dogs inside hot cars while they “run in to do some shopping just for a minute”.
Carla Cheney, a former pharmacy technician at Walmart in Kemptville, Ontario, feels the same way, so when she saw a man leaving his Newfoundland dog inside of his pickup truck in the parking lot of the Walmart where she worked, Cheney felt compelled to do something about it, and confronted him on his asshattery.
“I said he should not be leaving his dog in the car. The man said it was none of my business.”
Cheney says that this sort of thing is nothing new – in fact, she says that Kemptville Walmart customers leave pets inside their vehicles almost every day, no matter how hot the weather. Less than a week before the incident that got her fired, Cheney, a dog owner herself, witnessed another customer leaving her dog inside of her car, on a scorching hot day.
“I was pretty upset and I said to my manager, ‘What do I do?’ He said it was none of our business and went into the store.”
Cheney disagreed, and phoned the police herself. They responded to the call, and reprimanded the woman for leaving her dog inside the car (I hope ‘reprimand’ is secret cop code for ‘slapped the moron upside the head with a baton’).
When Cheney confronted the owner of the Newfoundland Dog, she had not yet started her shift, and was still wearing her street clothing. Despite acting as a ‘civilian’, and on her own time, Cheney was called into her Manager’s office on the day of the encounter, and told she was being terminated for being ‘rude to a customer’. She was then escorted out of the store by security, which she said was ‘humiliating’.
Walmart Kemptville seems to have a history of terminating employees who speak up on behalf of animals. Sean Dhaliwal, another former employee of the same store, was fired after he confronted a customer who left a dog inside a hot car. Dhaliwal had already given his two week’s notice, but was told not to come back to the store to finish out his shifts.
Walmart Canada issued a statement saying,
“there are guidelines in place for associates to follow when it comes to identifying dangers, including pets in danger.”
Apparently, those guidelines are something along the lines of “shut up and go clean the bathrooms, wage slave”.
Cheney has now retained a lawyer, and plans to contest her firing.
Read more here on Cheney’s firing.
Coccidia in Puppies and Kittens – Treatment and Prevention
Almost every dog breeder I know has encountered the nasty organism known as Coccidia at one time or another. Purchasing dogs from another breeder is often the most common route of infection, and always makes for a wonderful ‘bonus’ gift (“Oh look, the new puppy just sprayed explosive diarrhea all over the wall!” is a cry too commonly heard just after you let the little darling out of their crate for the first time). For all types of dogs, Coccidia can be picked up in a myriad of ways, in particular from dog parks or show sites – any place where your dogs can encounter cysts shed by other infected dogs.