SAINTS

it doesn’t matter who you are, how you dress, or how hard you try to do the right thing….someone is just not going to get it.

twice this week i have been called “sir” by sales clerks…yes both times i was wearing a mans shirt…..but i am sorry…they are way easier to move/work in, easier to launder and have way more useful pockets then feminine and stylish, pretty womans shirts. (plus because of the roomy statregically placed pockets you can wear a tank underneath and forego the stupid bra.)

i have a houseful of VERY unhappy dogs…griffin and sammy want out of my bedroom…reggie just wants out to run around and scream. jesse hates the office, esther, bibi and harold are refusing to even enter the big dog room without me and are laying around outside ready to leap to their feet and the gate the second i show my face.

yoshi thinks the house sucks, doris while more resigned is not all that happy either..big bud wants back into the bedroom, perdy wants her yoga mat back and al is pissed off at the new dogs hanging around his room.

angel believe it or not is doing the best of everyone..all she cares is that not only am i in here but i might be eating some food.

bonita has arrived…she is doing ok except for yelling at me to go get her mom. i did bring her over to the main part of the house…she was looking too interested in the height of the fence to leave unsupervised for long. when push came to shove..her mom could not sign the surrender papers..i sent her home to think about it because if bonita is staying i need those forms signed. if she cannot sign them by tomorrow, it means that bonita does not need to be here and bonita may get her wish to go home again.

i do personally think in the end she will adjust and do just fine here, but if her home cannot give her up then she should be home and not here giving me shit. and literally that is what she is doing…sitting right next to me and staring me right in the eye and yelling at me to get off my ass and go find her missing mom.

she is a very funny dog!

i left a message for laura..i am hoping to suck her in to coming and staying with all of the unhappy ones while i put the barn guys and mp building to bed.

someone should tell them they are all freaking homeless and beggers cannot be choosers. AND i am way smarter than all of them put together and i have decided these shift arounds are going to make their lives significantly better!

you can do this big or little…it can be global or in your own backyard….(or bedroom)
you can try to move mountains…or you can just try to shift dogs.

sammy and griffin and reggie and i have survived the first full 24 hours together in my room…it has not been easy. reggie screams, naturally…he is quite happy in there but his natural vocalizations…happy, mad, it doesn’t matter are always in screams.

sammy and griffin spend the entire daylight hours trying to get back into the kitchen and computer area…min pins on a mission, they are determined to go where no dog has willingly chosen to go live before..out of the bedroom and back the other part of the house.

night time is different…sammy likes sleeping curled up tight against me…and griffin is happy that i brought along his bed and blankets to burrow deeply within.

daphne however is not so happy that the tiniest and most vicious of of the toothless dogs has tried to take over her space. now she has to try to figure out a way past both jerry and sammy to get to me….it is making bedtime for her even more challenging.

because we were short staffed yesterday..we did not get to the rest of the dog shifting…i was just too tired to deal with everyone’s emotional upset because OM freaking G…someone got moved 10 or 20 whole feet from where they lived before.

we are trying to create here a better world for them all…not for me mind you because i end up with all of the noisy, screaming, chaos causing rabble rousers in my bedroom….what fun.

here is the final plan…
jesse is moving to the office..sorry jess but your bad ass-ed-ness makes it too hard to even out bodies more fairly around here…the big dog room is not just for 3.

the big dog room will now/soon hold..al, andy, bibi, harold, and esther (and maybe bonita who arrives this afternoon)…all dogs who are nice and fairly polite…all dogs who really would like to come and go outside on their own.

my bedroom will hold…sammy, griffin, reggie, daphne, joey, peluchi, prudence, lola, jerry, suzy, chica and caspar…all busy, bossy and sometimes little assholes.

the computer room will house the quiet and frail…merry, angel (not quiet or frail, but blind), lil big bud, pixie, max, mandy, larry, molly and maude, (not always quiet either but both really freaking old,) yoshi and doris.
the entrance still belongs to phoebe as does the mp room to lucky and dusty.
and the kitchen will now be the domaine of both squirt and perdy until we can get squirt slowly accepting to a move over to the big dog room.

these are good moves…it puts the chaotic together…the frail apart..it gets the bigger incontinents closer to an outside door, and it gets perdy more room with still the empty laundry area to segregate when we have to move dogs in and out.

jesse is the only one who will have reason to really bitch too much about where he ended up but if he was nicer and not such a jerk…he would be still over in the house and not in the office so it is his own freaking fault.

i will tell you tho that the dogs do not agree with my almost perfect plan to make their world a little bit better…more equal in numbers, more suited to each of their needs.

and this is why even i hesitate to try to change the whole world out there because it is so very difficult and emotionally draining on everyone just to be shifting dogs around here a mere 10 or 20 feet.

when i was doing the barn bedtime routine, i was looking at all of our guys…some of them “rescued” which means someone, somewhere “saved” them and then dumped them on us to take care of for the rest of their lives…some of them owner surrenders, or purchased from broker or auction..not cared about before…mostly all… soon to be part of the food chain anyway.

taking owner surrenders, buying from brokers or auctions are not great things in some parts of the BC rescue world.

so tonight i thought about amos…lice ridden. uncared for, unhappy and chained…and i think about where he is now….i did not do a bad thing.
and i looked at emily and joy and knew i did right by them too.
as i herded the classy chicks in…i saw how beautiful and healthy they had become and i am glad i brought them all home.
and finally i watched all the bunnies…amber, stretched out on her side with her nose pressed into stevie…bob and ray, while still alone, perfectly content in their not so perfect(by my standard) homes…and finally the big brown betty meat bunnies…tossing their toys all around, trying to rip their mini stainless steel buckets off the fence…and just having some young bunny fun in there tonight…i did ok by them too.

all of these animals have stretched us to the max…all of them have taken their toll…but all of them are alive and well tonight….all of them found a much nicer world.

there are so many issues out there in the giant big world of rescue, brokers, owner surrenders,BYB’s, puppy millers, pet stores selling lives. the animals always come from some human stupidity or greed somewhere..they don’t all come nice and ethically washed clean from an acceptable source like a shelter or pound. they don’t all get that chance to even get there. sometimes they just go on to more shitty homes or to slaughter houses somewhere.
but, it really is just about the individual animals…not where they come from, not who or what their lives supported or paid for….just individual animals living a crappy life…facing an even crappier death who’s only out is to somehow get lucky and find something kinder.

not many of these animals have very good luck….especially when rescue says helping them is wrong.

i am finally not conflicted inside about them anymore…they have a very good life here….i did ok by them all….and really that is my job…not to change the whole world (…hey…i would if the whole world would let me!!!!)…but just make it better for the ones who i stumble across every now and then…doesn’t matter who, doesn’t matter where..it just matters that i stop and help when i can.

saints annual wishes for whiskers fundraiser
is sept 18th at the pitt meadows golf course. this is our big fundraiser for the year..it has to cover all of the accumulated vet bills from the past several months and hold us til december when the xmas donations start coming in.

our current vet bills are more than $20,000..no one said senior and special needs animal rescue was cheap or easy. every new animal coming in requires a couple of thousand dollars just to repair all of the neglected vet care for their 14 or 15 years of life…then there is the maintenence vet costs to keep them feeling well…most of our guys never do get adopted…we are it for them. our cats range in age from 16-22 years of age..our dogs from 9-19..our horses from late 20’s to 34…

the majority of our animals come from other shelters, animal controls and rescues…they are not adoptable so where do they go?

here. if we have the room and the financial resources to care for them.

the fundraiser is in a couple of weeks….we have sold 25 tickets…this is not good.

there are a lot of politics in rescue..almost as many as there are animals needing help.

bottom line, we do help them…but we cannot do it alone.

the tickets are $60 each or $400 for a table of 8.

if you and some of your friends/family can come..please do…for those who have never had a chance to see what we do, this is a good opportunity. for those who have…see what we are up to this year.
for those that have sent animals here..help us to continue to look after them and others that may need to come in the future.

this is for the animals..this fundraiser is to pay for their medical care only…we have got to clear those vet bills….the bills that make sick animals well…that make dying animals feel comfortable for whatever time they have left…the bills that give them a decent quality of life that they so richly deserve.

come on out and give us a helping hand in caring for the ones who have few if any options other than saints.

it will be a good night for all of them if you can.

tickets are available on our website www.saintsrescue.ca go to the events page, you can purchase on line.

“begging” is a regular part of SAINTS’ life and the animals and volunteers are REALLY REALLY good at it

Edited to add: Voting is now open

Notice something different on the blog? There’s a new bright blue button on the right hand side that is suggesting that you VOTE NOW.
I am happy to say that SAINTS has been entered in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project. It starts tomorrow at 9am and runs until October 31st, 2010.
You can vote once a day everyday. They give your 10 votes per day but you can’t give more than one vote to one project each day. We have been entered in the $25,000 category and I’m sure will have some good competition. The Project runs Canada-wide and is open to people, businesses and non-profits.

How to vote:
Well, I made up this simple little webpage to help people like Carol figure out how to vote.
When you have logged in one time, in the future you can just click on the “Vote Now’ button on the right side of the blog and it will take you directly to our page.
Please please please, pass this on to your friends and family. There is a facebook event created so please invite your FB friends and spread the word. Also on our Pepsi page, there will be links available on how to share the event via facebook and Twitter.

here is a link to the video we had to supply for the contest.
And just because i like to share photos of my guys here are three photos that Sheena took while she was out at SAINTS with them.

Everybody Hurts by REM

When your day is long and the night
The night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life
Well hang on
Don’t let yourself go, ‘cause everybody cries
and everybody hurts, sometimes …
Sometimes everything is wrong,
Now it’s time to sing along
When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you’ve had too much of this life
Well hang on
‘Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts
Don’t throw your hand, oh no
Don’t throw your hand
If you feel like you’re alone
no, no, no, you’re not alone
If you’re on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you’ve had too much
of this life, to hang on
Well everybody hurts,
sometimes, everybody cries,
And everybody hurts …
sometimes
But everybody hurts sometimes
So hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on,
hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts
You’re not alone

quicky news…unlucky lucky is in the midst of a lupus or pemphigus flare up…her poor not so little nose is a bloody blistered mess. she is on both oral and topical meds to help her clear up from this again. she is also still on her other meds for the pneumonia and sees the vet again on saturday.

we are starting the dog shift arounds…the 2 little min pins are in my room on a trial…reggie is in the big dog room but i will move him over to my room tonight. if all goes well with this…we will start with the other moves tomorrow.

water delivery today (as we speak)..shavings delivery next week…and now i better go get those soggy barn guys to bed..it has been raining ALL day!

Well I finally got my pics off my camera and let me tell you they were NOT worth the hours and hours of aggravation! But here they are enjoy.

Sunday was a mixed happy and sad day.

I arrived just as Bailey’s new mom was picking him up

HAPPY: Bailey’s new sibling waits in the car and Bailey’s new mom straps him in his special doggy seat belt. No crate for this lucky boy.(Brenda looked so happy I thought she was going to hug Bailey’s new mom for JOY!)

ah, cutie!!!

HAPPY: Sheila and Leila were also there to take Scrappy and Lotus home

SAD: I visited Quiet’s now empty coop …

While I was pondering Quiet’s life & death I looked over … and geezus murphy look at how FAT the classy chickens are starting to get

But then she stood up at it wasn’t so bad,  it was mosly FEATHERS!! YEAH.

Speaking of “tail feathers”

Just in case you really wanted to feel sorry for our Lucky girl. Just look at the sad state of her poor hairless tail! Dusty was being very supportive and non-judgemental of her … of course it helps that she is BLIND!

Here is the conversation they had after Lucky’s unlucky morning …

 ”Ok don’t look. Close your eyes …”

“Ok but I am blind … so I can’t see anything. What happened?”

“Oh doG! I have RAT tail”

“What is a Rat?”

“I don’t know. But its bad, really bad. Carol said so”

While Lucky was understandably being unsocial …

Herman was snacking on blueberries and looking quite social (perhaps a little overweight) and Giddeon was also being very social (perhaps a little under weight still).

I tried desperately to get a nice pic of the three cows together … unfortunately they foiled my plan over and over

first, joy quickly moves her head to block emily from the shot. Next, Pecy turns and MOOOooons the camera!

Look how defiant  they look! Oh well, at least Ellie Mae was being cooperative and content in her Sunday mud hole

Griffin was being very very CUTE .. and Daphne just refused to be left behind anywhere … awe yes you are still the cutest of the land–but I think you may need anail trim those things look like a weapon (hint nicole)

I FINALLY got a pic of Tiko and Tasha together and the lighting sucked! oh well. Can you tell them apart?

nope not there, i bet you can’t

But this is TASHA and this is TIKO (i think hehe)

When I went into the house I thought I was walking into an Indian palace. All of the precious saints were perched on their own little pillows.

Prudence and joey were on yellow pillows (doesn’t pru look really long and weird in this shot? lol she kinda looks like a Japanese anime monster)

Sammy and Lil’ Big Bud (who was looking GREAT on Sunday) were on orange pillows

Max and Mandy were looking especially pathetic

Now I want to talk adoption with you ..

Ruby is a young healthy cat.  She needs a home. She likes to sleep with the bunnies … so I think someone who adopts her should also adopt a few bunnies too (hint, hint Tammy)

Speaking of ADOPTION!!

Please PICK ME, Pixie!          NO pick me, PERDY!
 

yeah perdy is less than thrilled with sharing her private “laundry” suite with three felines.

Tiger woods has reclaimed his dryer-top bed and Webster simply goes whereever  he pleases

 

Ok it is bedtime … night all

I am under here … find your own spot

barn bedtime put me in a foul mood…there is nothing more difficult, (and dangerous,) than many thousands of pounds of enthusiastic but utterly stupid, uncooperative and hungry barn beasts between you and your never ending and almost fruitless search for their friggin missing food bowls.

hey who ya calling a 1,000 lbs of stupidity?

i had to choke back the enraged and frustrated screams for them to get the F#%$! out of my freaking way!!!!!.
from that point on..the bad mood was sunk in..everywhere i went i could have cheerfully strangled some uncooperative animal…lets start with those classy chicks who object to going to bed and make me keep hitting my head on the chicken coops cross beams.

the only kind and compassionate and totally respectful thing i did tonight was at the very end and i almost didn’t do it either cuz i was in a bad mood.

when i went to feed chewie (and remove the two empty bowls from his pen)….there was this beat up old rat just coming up from below in the trees. he looked like shit…most of his hair was missing and he had bite wounds all over his sides.
he stopped a few feet away from me and just stared at me…not sure what he should do.

i walked past him and told him he looked like shit.
when i came back out to the barn yard…he was still there, looking totally out to lunch. but at least this time, he decided he should try to scurry off to the trees. he went several feet and then sat there looking at me.

i saw frodo sneaking up on him from behind so i stopped and thought it about it for a minute and tried to decide. there are too many rats around here…which is why the males are fighting. he obviously had gotten kicked out of all the prime rat living areas. frodo is supposed to kill rats but he usually doesn’t. anyway..tonight it looked like he was going to..i was still trying to decide if i should interfer when frodo rushed up behind him….

and sniffed that rat’s butt. the rat took off right past me and under the gate to the hay/shaving area. frodo stopped to take a pee right where that rat had been sitting. whatever..apparently he sucks at rat hunting..he is supposed to kill them not sniff their ass and then pee where they were sitting.

i left him to his weird cat/rat ritual thing and went up to close off the feed shed..somewhat glad i did not have to decide between saving the rat or letting him be killed.
while i was waiting for frodo to come back up and join me for the final walk out of the barn area…i saw that freaking shitty looking rat sitting next to the water barrel.

i went over to have a closer look…his wounds looked ugly and sore…his freaking eyes were all bleary…illness?…old age?..defeat? cuz life just totally sucked big time for him?

bloody bastard.

i got him a scoop of feed and a bowl of water and set them out close to him…he just watched me…when i moved away, he had something to eat.

i grabbed frodo and totally disgusted with my sappiness, we went to put the mp building to bed.

hmph! ALL rats are smelly and shitty looking. My “sniff & pee” act was just to SHOW you how I truly feel about them … such lowly fithy vermin

someone will probably be picking at me about copy write laws again (like phil collins gives a shit that some crazy woman from some senior leaky animal sanctuary has found not only personal meaning in a song he produced, but wants to share that song and lyrics with you so you can sing it in your head or get all soft and sappy and think about the saints animals when you hear the song on the radio like i do….)
anyway…i like this song and i wanted to share it with you because this is EXACTLY how i feel inside me when i think about my saints animal friends.

PHIL COLLINS – True Colors lyrics

And I’ll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow

if i can stand the thought of both griffin and sammy moving over to mine and the big dog room (which now only has 2 big dogs left in there..al and jesse.)
i have enough highly reactive little toads over there…but i want to calm down the computer area so i can move doris and yoshi back over here.
doris’s skin is getting bad again and i think she would do better in the house, under my feet, so i can easily bath her whenever i want…like in the late evenings when i have some extra time. and yoshi just keeps getting more and more social…he is actually almost ready now to join everyone else on the group field and barn excursions and i think he will like that a lot. he also is wanting more time with hanging around with humans now.

i think doris and yoshi and molly and mandy and max and larry and maude and esther are a good computer room personality mix..if the two min pin hornets move off to a different area. andy, bibi and harold prefer the kitchen anyway.

it all depends on what happens if i let those min pins loose in my room…i will try them on my days off and see how much trouble those little buggers get in to.

i think bonita is coming this week…she is the last dog on the coming in list….she has been waiting for almost 8 weeks. i think she will do ok here… i just have to decide which area is best for her…if she can do ok with jesse..i do prefer that area for her. with bailey re-homed, the gate is now open between those two rooms which is plenty of space IF the bed guys would spread themselves out better between those rooms.

and now that scrappy the invading dog punisher has moved on to greener pastures…i am wondering how those cats would react to a little 3 pound butterfly chi joining their ranks. it would be nice not to have to worry about pixie slipping out a door unseen and she might like it better back there…anyway i am thinking on that too.

slowly the numbers here are becoming more managable here again….for every three or four that goes out..only one or two are getting back in. and this is again giving us back options of where each of the animals would be happiest living.

i am also thinking that blind barney might do ok in the back cat rooms over here…he is pretty social and he likes frequent cuddling sessions which he is more likely to get over here living with me…we will see..first we need him to be loose in the medical room to see how he does with a little more room.

decisions, decisions, decisions…always trying to make things as safe and good as they can be for all of our crippled crew.