School Kids Raise Money for Frenchie With Cancer
Sigmund Frog is a school counselor at Patton Elementary school in Austin, Texas. Unlike most school counselors, Sigmund works for a rather unusual pay scale — belly rubs and cookies.
Sigmund – better known as ‘Sig’ – is a brindle French Bulldog belonging to school counselor Kathy Moore. Moore discovered that kids related to her better when she brought Sig along to counseling sessions, and he’s been accompanying her to school ever since. Now, it would be unthinkable for kids to not see Sig along side Linda. In fact, some of them feel he’s a bigger part of their counseling than Moore is.
“The dog makes us happy because it, like, snuggles with us,” Spencer says.
“Good boy, Siggie,” says a student.
“Sig especially has a way of knowing when a child is really in need, and he will zero in on them,” Moore continues.
When Sigmund was diagnosed with cancer – a disease that can be prohibitively expensive to treat in dogs – the kids of Patton Elementary school insisting on helping to pay for his chemo treatments. Owner Moore was initially reluctant to accept their help, but finally relented —
“It gives the kids a stake in Sigmund getting well,” Moore says.
“I didn’t realize how important it was for them to feel like they were helping him,” Moore says.
Read the full article here.
It’s now four months later, and the kids at Patton Elementary are back at school – and so is Sigmund, his cancer almost beaten, and his chemo treatments almost over.
“We got great news that there were no reactive lymph nodes,” said Moore. “That means there are no indications of more cancer.”
A summer long chemotherapy program helped, but Sig’s liver reacted poorly to the drugs. So, doctors tried again with a new chemo regimen and the dog responded well. There are still a couple of sessions left, but things are looking up, and Sig’s counseling appointment book is filling up.
Read the full second story here.
The students at Patton have their counselor back — and best of all, they have Sig’s shoulder to cry on, and his ear to whisper in.
His first client of the new school year is a child named Destiny. Destiny Arriaga made her way to the counselor’s office with the aid of a cane. She is blind, and though children at Patton are supportive and helpful, making one’s way in a school full of sighted kids has its pitfalls. So, Destiny has regular visits with Moore, and more to the point, with Sig.
“I love him, said Destiny. “He snuggles with me.”
Moore watches child and dog delight in each other.
Here are the two KXAN videos of Sig’s story — the first from May, and the second just released. After the jump, as the videos start playing automatically.
Tula might possibly explode
Poor Tula — I’m afraid if she gets any bigger, she might just possibly explode. She’s always been a petite girl, at about 18 pounds, so it’s fairly shocking to see her go from her normal lithe, active self to this, in under two months.
And of course, what happens when way pregnant girls with big, big bellies lie on their backs?
Why they get stuck, of course.
Penelope continues to be about as unthrilled as it is possible for a dog to be about this entire experience. We caught her sending away for a copy of “Baby NOT on Board” the other night. I think she’s dropping us a hint.
Delilah thinks all the fuss is just borrr-ing, especially since her diet means she’s not getting any extra snackin’ time fall out (she’s rather voluptuous, I’m afraid). Tessa, of course, is so sick of anything to do with puppies or pregnancy that she’s decided the best approach to take is studious avoidance (read: extra naps).
Ten days and change to go for Tula, and two weeks and change for Penelope… the count down continues.
Penelope Eats a Muffin
Well, here we are coming up on week two of Penelope’s “I ain’t eatin’ that” hunger strike.
We had a “woo hoo” moment where she agreed to eat a leftover can of Prescription Diet A/D that I had sitting around from when Barb sent Bunny to live with us (she had her own “not eating that” phase during her pregnancy. Too bad it didn’t extend to electronics). Unfortunately, A/D isn’t ideal as a food for pregnant girls, and even if it was, Nell had decided by the next morning that she no longer liked that stinky food in can, and could she just have a glass of mineral water with lemon (no ice), puh-leeze?
Sigh, redux.
She ate some raw, de boned chicken here and there over the weekend, but not enough to make me confident she was getting enough nutrition, and raw boneless chicken on its own isn’t enough to sustain healthy growth in puppies.
Cait suggested a sort of dog food muffin that reminds me of the baked results you get from Essex Cottage Farms dog food mix. Since there are no suppliers of either or ECF food nearby (read: within a two hour drive), I decided to look for home made dog food muffin recipes.
The most common one I found was a fairly simple recipe in which you simply added a pound of ground chicken to a commercial corn meal muffin mix. Well, that sounded fairly promising – after all, Penelope was willing to eat those zuchinni banana muffins last week. I don’t like the idea of using a mix, however — I won’t bake for myself from a mix, so I certainly won’t do it for my dog, either. Too much sugar, too much hydrogenated oil, and too little control over the ingredients.
Instead, I used the following recipe of my own, which I feel is a healthier alternative, and which I’m calling —
Fussy Frenchie Meaty Muffins
Ingredients:
* 1/4 cup canola oil
* 2 tablespoons honey
* 2 large eggs
* 2/3 cup natural yogurt
* 1/2 cup yellow corn meal
* 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
* 1 tsp. baking soda
* 1/8 tsp. kosher salt
* 1 cored, pureed red apple, seeds removed
* 1/2 of a medium sized zucchini, grated
* 2 cups ground chicken (we ground necks, bone included, and boneless thigh meat)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray two medium sized cupcake or muffin trays
2. Stir together dry ingredients in large mixing bowl. Beat together wet ingredients except for apple, zucchini and chicken in separate bowl. Fold wet into dry using a wooden spoon. Don’t over mix. Add chicken, apple and zucchini.
3. Drop two tablespoons of batter into each muffin cup. Don’t over fill. Bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Makes roughly 24 – 36 muffins.
So far, so good — Penelope loved hers, Tula reacted to them like they were little golden chunks of doggie crack, and the rest of the dogs looked so sad that they each got a 1/4 muffin with their dinner.
These would probably make nice little bait treats, by the way — and they smell quite tasty.
