opening my eyes to the wonderful and tragic world of dog rescue

this is a picture of patsy smiling and showing off how clean and white her teeth are.  she is a small american staffordshire terrier, who is very sweet, well behaved.....with all the love in the world to give. this picture doesn't do this girl justice, as she is an absolute beauty.

since adopting gus, much of my free time has been spent at the barking lot, the rescue that saved him.  owner, stacy, nursed gus through parvo, and a handful of other ailments.  the love i feel for gus has made me totally and completely indebted to stacy and her mission.  even though i am just a core volunteer and spend up to 25 hours a week there, i have an official title.  i am the barking fee supervisor. i think that translates into accounts supervisor in normal business speak.  given that it has been a long time since a real job, excluding internships, this stability and work like environment is beneficial.  ofcourse i could go back to serving at bars and restaurants, but that wouldn't help me on my path to the kind of career that i want, and it would certainly not be as fun or fulfilling as saving dogs.

sometimes at the barking lot i feel like a superhero.  when a normally balanced dog acts out, even just once.  he becomes food aggressive and bites his friend over a treat or bowl of kibble.  i insert myself into the situation, pull the dogs apart, clean up their injuries, and tell them that it is okay. that they won't be put to sleep because of one mistake, because of one bite, because they are part pitbull.  i give them a kiss, a bath, and good scratch.  sure enough, they are over the situation.  anyone who has broken up a dog fight, (and who doesn't become hysterical) will notice that the moment the fight is over, a calm comes over the dogs as they realize 1. fighting really sucks, 2. ouch now i have an owie, 3. what was i fighting for.....  dogs live in the moment, as soon as someone stops the fight and demands calm submissive behavior from the dogs, the frantic energy of the fight is gone.  it is pretty amazing, and i have seen stacy do it several times.  despite my lack of experience with dogs growing up, i think i am learning these techniques quickly.

i used to be afraid of large dogs.  i think i was bit through a fence when i was little, near my abuelita's house.  it wasn't hard, but it gave me a scare and became a lasting memory.  it has been so beneficial to work at the barking lot because i am aware of changes in my perceptions of our big dogs.  some dogs we have had since i started volunteering up to a year ago and i used to think they were so big.  just like when you return to your old elementary school, a place that once seemed so big, and is now miniature.  the fear of the big dogs has shrunk in my mind and now it takes an impressively large dog for me to notice their size. 

gus would really like a friend.  i can tell. next time pickle and i are considering getting a bigger dog.  we love labs and golden, but are also considering pittie breeds.  i would love to have a calm, sweet, pittie, that could serve as a ambassador for the breed and illustrate how good they could be with the right family.  ultimately, we will decide as a family, and gus will get his say too.  of the many great things about working at the barking lot, i love the ability to watch the dogs and see their behaviors, whose alpha, dominate, submissive, who is calm, energetic, who listens, who is distracted, who is food motivated....exc.  essentially, i get the pick of the liter. (hahha pun)

well that is all for now, have a dog gone good day!

my sister got an awesome camera, canon rebel.  and here are some pictures, the two of the ornaments i took, and the one of gus i just thought was too cute to not include.  it was a great holiday season and my family completed a 1000 piece puzzle together, aren't we cool!

you will be so glad you read this.....my dog's caloric intake

i should absolutely be focused on my mountains of accounting (sorry financial reporting, s.e.c. rules and such) and statistics homework, but i would hate to neglect my blog and my many avid readers.  lol

anyway, i have been concerned with how much and what gus eats since, well ... since day one when we got him.  sometimes i think he is looking a little chubby.  so i wanted to figure out how many calories he eats a day vs. how many calories he should be eating.

resting energy requirements or rer

the rer is the basic amount of energy that a dog would use in a day while remaining at rest. the formula to calculate rer for animals between 2 and 45 kg (5 - 99 pounds) is:

rer in kcal/day = 30(body weight in kilograms) + 70

so gus weighs about 22lbs or

1 pound = 0.45359237 kilograms

 22(.45359237)= 9.98

rer=30(9.98) +70

rer= about 370 calories

(the hard part was finding out the calories in his food)  because we mix honest kitchen and canidae.

so i deduced that we should be feeding him about 420-480, depending on how active his day was. and that is about what he does eat, not counting the cat poop he eats when i am not looking. gross huh...what is with dogs and cat poop?

but now if he gets fatter, i am going to say to him 'gus, that cat poop is really going to your thighs.'

here is gus a few days after we got him.  he is about twice as big now, but just as cute.

cell phone cameras, who do they think they are?

wow, i'm impressed.  uno took these pictures with her phone. here is a panoramic of the lake i live near, and at the right edge gus walking with me.  and here i am right after giving gus a treat for coming when i called him.  he has finally learned rollover and what a proud parent i am.

little gus gus, light of my life

feb. 26th pickle and i adopted a puppy. 4 months old, he started life a bit rough with parvo, uri, sarcoptic mange, and giardia. thank goodness for stacy, bruce and dawn at the barking lot foundation who saved him from being put to sleep at the la county shelter. stacy, had him running in her pack, in no time. i am so happy that there are people like her and that she was willing to take a chance on me and pickle, (who have never taken care of dog ourselves). we love him to pieces. he was potty trained after 2 days in our apt. and to be fair the 2nd day was pouring rain outside. he already knows sit. he loves his toy frog and stealing his cousin jack's toys. his favorite snack is peanut butter and those chicken jerky strips make his belly hurt (no more of those).

pickle and i gave him his first bath since we've had him the other day and he took it very well, he liked the bath, but the blow dryer noise scared him a little. after the doggy street festival were pickle and i volunteered, gus demonstrated some barking and growling that he had learned from the big dogs. pickle and me were not impressed (even though it is kinda funny). but he is still learning. we discovered a baseball field near our apt and gus loves going there to chase the ball and frisbee.

i feel like a whole world has opened up to me, full of dog lovers, dog stories, dog stores, dog food, dog toys, dog everything. it is very fun. but most of all i love when he comes up and licks my face and lays down in my lap. my social life is pretty much down to zero, because i only want to be with him, and only want to go places he can go. sorry friends, mommyhood is rough.