Petsmart Grand Opening

This was a very big weekend - Friday was the 2008 Turtle Derby at work to benefit the Children's Center (our lab's turtle, "Neuro Ned" came in 2nd in his heat, but didn't get to go to the finals); Saturday we went climbing again after literally YEARS of not doing so (awesome, but I'm very sore now); and today was a Petsmart Grand Opening in Abingdon. There were giveaways (we snagged some on Saturday after climbing, along with some good opening-day deals on the staples - dog food, cat food, cat litter). In addition, Luna's House was there both days for an adoptathon. What's great about Petsmart is that they don't sell cats, but do have a cat area...for rescues to put their animals in. They generally work with one rescue (makes life easier) for each store and Luna's House won the right to have our cats/kittens featured at this Petsmart. They have such awesome cages (which I forgot to get a picture of) with plenty of room to roam and lots of cubbies for the kittens to play in. It also features an easy-to-clean surface that they put fluffy beds on.

Above, you see the greeter for the Opening Day festivities - the Petsmart dog. He was a hit with the kids, but the dogs HATED him...they all went ballistic when this guy roamed around. Guess they've never seen a dog that big.

This sad-looking gal is Margot, who was my charge for the day (when we are well-staffed, we pair people with particular animals so that you can be the go-to "expert" for people interested in that particular pet). And yes, she has two ears...she's just one of those dogs that has 1 floppy ear and 1 erect one. She is very shy, about 3 years old, and luckily had an adoption pending on her. She actually left early in the afternoon for a "home visit", which is the last chance for a rescue's trained volunteer to take a look around the home to be sure it is a good place for that pet. By then, the adoption application had already been approved and any other dogs may or may not have met him/her (any dogs the family has must meet the potential adoptee before everything is finalized, to prevent any fights or returns b/c they don't get along).


We had about 4-5 dogs at this event and plenty of cats. We did well - enough kittens were adopted that we had to have someone bring in new ones from foster homes. In addition, a couple other dogs were in Margot's position with an adoption pending a home visit. Timmy (above) is a pit-lab mix who was a typical ball-of-fire play-play-play puppy. He found great amusement tearing up that piece of rope and trying to get everyone he met to pay attention to him. He did finally zonk out in the afternoon and then we pushed him around in a cart with a balloon tied to it. He and another dog, Darcy (puggle mix), both had serious inquiries with applications by the end of the day. They're getting neutered/spayed tomorrow and then, fingers-crossed, they can go to a forever-home after their 5-day recoup time. Pretty good event!

Daphne

Well, I am returning Daphne to Luna's House tonight. I realize that I am no longer able to foster her and it is better for her to be with someone who has more time and space to take care of her. If you are interested in adopting her, please contact Luna's House directly. At least she was able to enjoy some of the lovely weather we had last week before I had to give her up - she very much enjoyed being outside.

I Don't Get It

Poor Starsky. He's been with us for about 5-6 months now, but there are still so many normal dog-concepts he just doesn't understand. Like tennis balls. Originally, he simply had no interest in them. He sees Shelby playing with them, though, and has started trying to take them from her - big mistake. Luckily, Shelby gives a warning nip before she'd fully bite him. So, we got him a bright pink ball of his own (Shelby has claimed the 3-4 yellow ones). He stared at it for a good 5 minutes, sniffed it, and then attempted to eat it. Oh well, we'll keep working on that.


Yesterday, he about gave me a heart attack. I've been working on a final paper for class, and decided to take a break and bring the dogs outside to visit the neighbors. Starsky loves our neighbor's English bulldog, Cleavus, and they started racing back and forth across the lawn. Cleavus kept sliming him (bulldogs are big droolers) and we were all having a good laugh...until we heard SNAP and Starsky kept running. He'd broken the leash and was headed, of course, straight toward the main road outside our development. We ran after him, trying not to get so close that he would run further toward traffic, and called his name. Literally two feet from the road (and CARS!) he turned and came back toward us b/c he spotted Cleavus (we'd brought him along to try to convince Starsky to turn back to us). He ran right up to Cleavus and I was able to grab the remnants of his leash to wrap around my hand. That was certainly more than enough excitement for one day...and now we need to buy yet another leash.