Is a dog bite ever justified?

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Years ago, we moved house at a very inopportune time.

I had a brand new litter on the ground, just a few days old, and there was no pushing ahead our moving date. So, I packed up the dam and her puppies, and put them into the ground floor bathroom of the new house, safely tucked into the bathtub, complete with a heating pad and loads of bedding. On the door, I put a LARGE, hand lettered sign that said “Dog inside – DO NOT OPEN DOOR!!!!!”.

You can probably imagine what happened.

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Mystery Pit Bull Saves Woman, Might Now Lose Life

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Kalena Mallon with Faith, the dog who saved her life

 

Like everyone , I am a sucker for stories of heroic dogs who save the lives of their people. Even more amazing are those mystery dogs who seem to appear out of nowhere, just in the nick of time…

But not all heroic dog stories have happy endings – not if you live, like I do, in a province or state with BSL (breed specific legislation).

 

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Updated Dog Heatstroke Survival Guide

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Peanut Butter keeps cool in his wading pool

The other afternoon, we had Hanna out with us beside the pool. I guess we didn’t quite realize how hot it was, because within fifteen or so minutes, she was panting heavily. Luckily, we were able to bring Hanna partway into the pool and cool her off quite easily, but this could just as easily have been a serious situation.

Heat Stroke is a killer of all breeds, not just brachycephalics, and this summer’s extraordinarily hot, muggy conditions are conducive to faster, more serious cases than even the most diligent of us might be used to.

With that in mind, here’s an updated guide to heatstroke in dogs – how to recognize it, and how to treat it. Print it out, and have it in a handy place, because if heatstroke strikes, you do not want to have to go on the internet to look for an info sheet.

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Guinness is Good For… Your Dogs?

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My Grandmother used to give her dogs a rather unique breakfast. Every day started with a dish of steel cut oatmeal, two raw eggs (including the shells) and a pint of Guinness Stout. When asked why, she’d always tell us that “everyone knows Guinness is good for you”.

Turns out that there might be scientific proof for that after all.

 

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Killing them with kindness

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Imagine you have an overcrowded animal shelter. Some media attention and publicity could probably help with that, right?

In a nice twist of fate,  let’s say that your local television station agrees to come down to your shelter to help you publicize the fact that you’re overcrowded.

If you’re that shelter, do you:

a) use the media time to try and show off some of your adoptable pets

-or-

b) Kill an animal on live television, and then tell the public it’s ‘their fault’ you had to kill him.

If you picked B, you must work for Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, who just did exactly that live on ABC Affiliate KVIA.

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