Rescue Journal

practicality

Carol · Sep. 19, 2007

remember last week when i said that parts of rescue were heartlessly cold and hard practicality. well i was wrong, it isn't heartless because the struggles to get thru it hurt but it can be cold and hard.

i am making a new rule, no more private cremations. i have gotten into a bad habit lately of requesting a select few private cremations...bill, tom, romeo, michael and wilbur...no more for anyone. firstly we cannot afford it, we need that money for the living and secondly, how dare i today send betty off for a group cremation when i didn't send wilbur.

in carol's heart, there are animals who bury themselves deeper than others. but saints is not about me or my heart or anyone elses except theirs. and their hearts are all equal. and if we can only afford group cremations for the whole, then we can only afford group cremations for the select few too. i have been doing a not right thing and i apologise.

we are in a shavings crises...apparently the mills have all shut down and we ruined our last 1/4 of our shavings with not taking care of that tarping issue. i went into town to pick up bales of shavings, 20 cost a bit more than $200...ok, that was another bad thing on my part not to be on top of those shavings and keeping them dry...now with the shut down, shavings are going to be in short supply. i had to go to three different places just to get the 20 bales.

i sent an email to the jagdterrier club in the states to see if they had a picture of a wirehaired because i am pretty sure clyde is a pure bred and i wanted some more breed history to understand him better. well....yes he is a PB jagdterrier and the breed club recommended euthanization due to his various issues. apparently like pit bulls any kind of aggression is quickly culled out in these dogs due to their powerful jaws and their breeding to be prey driven, blood tracking, brave little gladiators.

that gave me food for thought. but....like pit bulls, i don't euth on what if's or not perfects or need some extra "i don't know what the hell you need"....practical? maybe, maybe not...i guess it depends of what practicality means to you.

to me it means taking care of business...meeting the goals of saints, meeting our obligations to the animals in our care, all of them, the easy and the not so easy as best we possibly can and with equality too. if we are not euth'ing chicklet for being a little psycho, then clyde's somewhat hopefully temporary twistedness ought to be relatively safe...for now. maybe clyde will one day prove to be too great a risk but he hasn't proven that to me yet....sigh, he has come close on occasion tho.

Comments

wendy

you can wet it down and then it fluffs up to a soft soft bedding(suggests it on package)

Carol

i just don't see those hard little pellets as soft and comfy padding for old arthritic legs holding up 1000 pound bodies.

wendy

forgot to add...when i worked at the Huntingdon heights by the sumas boarder they used the pellet bedding; now pet stores put it in a tiny bag and charge 9.99. Is safe for all critters.

Rae

Trust Clyde to be something unusual, fromn the research I had done I figured that's what he was. Thanks for giving poor little Clyde a chance even when he's a total jerk. I realize there will probably be a time that you have to make a decsion concerning him and keeping everyone else safe and I respect that. Until then he gets too dump food bowls, run in the yard and sleep curled up with you at night, that's quality and that's what matters.
P.S We use wood pellets at the Shelter for our cat litter and it's awesome, but it does say right on the bags it's for horses?

Erika

Hi Carol
We just switched to the pellets at our co-op barn and they do work well. You do need to get them wet first to fluff them up, but they go a long way. My horse Jeffree is a really messy boy; we use far less of the pellets than when we used shavings.
I am so sorry to hear about all of your recent losses,
Erika

wendy

have you tried the pellet bedding yet? that is what we use ever since the shavings went like this last time and have never gone back; way less waste and work. Just pull out the poo and pee spots. Its much like clumping cat litter. We dont wet it down first; they step on the pellets breaking them up.