Rescue Journal

crappy day

Carol  ·  Aug. 13, 2007

the only good thing was muffin moved into a permanent foster home.

clyde should be called...clod. little mr. freak out can knock over full food and water bowls, pull blankets off of shelves and beds when he thinks he should run away quick. he pisses on everything in sight, snarls over the food bowl ( altho his food guarding is probably not his fault but could be a side effect of the phenobarb) and he jumped up to poop on my bed. he is an endearing little bugger. he goes in for his neuter tomorrow, that ought to be fun and then we will start over with him. like....life as he knew it, however that was...is now life at saints, so get over it.

well... phoebe finally did it. we got our first noise complaint. luckily our neighbor came to me and not the city. he said he can handle the periodic noise of the dogs, but one of them who shrilly barks constantly is driving him insane. yeah, it drives me nutz too. i put the citronella bark collar back on her, she was quiet for like an hour and then she was right back at it again. this is a huge issue. if one neighbor is annoyed, you can bet others are too.

soooo...what to do? first of all, i am reinstating the no one comes to saints before 9 am rule and everyone is permanently gone by 5 pm...that should help with her over excited, people coming and going frenzy. and i am seriously considering de-barking her. she is not adoptable with her biting issues. she is putting the rest of the animals at risk with her continuous shrieking every time someone moves or she wants to go somewhere or someone even farts. whatever it is that phoebe needs to be calm and settled, is not here yet here is where she is and that is not likely to change.

i abhor de-barking but phoebe has to live here and she is driving the neighbors (and me) crazy and she is not going risk the other animals wellbeing because she simply cannot shut up. so i am thinking about it. and if i do it, i will feel like shit. but i will do it anyway if i can't find another answer to this.

Comments

Cheryl

if for the safety of the rest of SAINTS Phoebe has to be debarked so be it. It isn't the end of the world. I know a couple of dogs that had to be debarked also because they were sanctuary animals and causing to much of a ruckos that threatened the sanctuary to continue.They both happily harf harf around thinking they are barking. They got their vocal cords scratched but it is important that they don't bark until the scarring settles and that just might be too hard to keep Phoebe quiet for...

Some vets won't even debark anymore but I know yours will understand its importance. I think your neighbor's have been very understanding so one has to act upon the complaint. Sorry though for Phoebe as she is such a character.

Emma

Maybe Jenny Two can be de-meowed at the same time. She is still yowling loudly and it's sleep disturbing. I'm exhausted. Either she goes on valium or I do. The squirt bottle is useless on her, unless i get a bigger one! FYI Nudge pooed twice yesterday on 2cc of lactulose x 2 a day and 2cc of salmon oil.................

Carol

spray bottles won't work unless i am here every time she barks and i am not here all the time and even when i am here, i don't have a free hand for hauling around a bottle unless i don't do anything else which requires two free hands, so that won't work here either.
clomicalm takes 4-6 weeks to even start to work if it will work...too long before really big trouble hits saints.
i have started her on elavil last night but is a permanently drugged phoebe better than a permanently silent phoebe? i don't know, we shall have to see.

i have said before that ethics are fluid because when the rest are in danger of losing their home because of one dog's issues then.. what you never will do, you will do to keep them all safe. i have euth'd dogs in the past for killing or maiming other animals and i have euth'd them for seriously biting humans. i try not to do it but i will if i have to because sometimes there really isn't any other choice or option. some i can try to manage like ben but it is not ideal...he is lonely, he is isolated most of the time and i feel bad for him. right now it is better than death for him i think, but maybe one day it won't be.

it appears the same is true of de-barking. she is going to have to be quiet, now, not next week. i will do my best to make her be quiet in any way i can, including using the drugs. but if i can't do it that way, and i can't send her out of here since there really is no where else for her in this world...then it will be surgically done because i won't kill her over this, that i know i will never do, altho, if she keeps biting people and attacking the little dogs, i can't say i won't eventually kill her for that. maybe the drugs will help that too.

Diane

Hi Carol: Sorry to hear about the neighborly complaint. My daughter has two dogs and they are very high strung, young dogs who bark a lot too. She finally used the bark collar but that didn't work so she hired a dog trainer to come into her house for an hour or two to deal with them. The trainer suggested spraying water in their face when they barked, with a spray bottle. It has worked for them and she cannot believe the change in them. It might be a bit hard trying to jump over all your animals to get at Phoebe and it is just something I thought may work for you. Now, as soon as one of them takes the bottle out they stop barking without being sprayed!

Are you still in need of Kuranda beds? If so, what size?

Love reading your blogs! Diane