Happy Hound!

Things are looking up for our "Hunt Club Hounds." Duchess and Ramey still remain hospitalized, but we hope to have them out soon. Sapphire went to a wonderful foster home where she has her own room complete with blankets and bones. Reckon is also safe in a foster home and both Ranger and Rascal are with me, enjoying some serious backyard time.

The photo is of Ranger and something about it made me grin. Maybe it's because he looks like any normal hound, checking out the world. Maybe it's because it looks like he just peeked into the frame to see what was going on. Or maybe it's just because he is alive and happy on a beautiful spring day.

More hound info and donation information at: http://www.firstgiving.com/helpingthehounds

Helping the Hounds

What I'm really hoping is that one day we'll look at this "before" picture and be amazed at how far this momma hound has come. That's what I'm hanging onto.


Ramey, pictured at left with me and the vet in charge of the regional blood bank, lost all of her 2-week old puppies in the Fairfax Hunt fire and has third degree burns all over her head and other parts of her body. She has a huge amount of fluid build up and had to have plasma transfusions to replace proteins lost through the wounds. Nonetheless, she is patient, tolerant, quiet and stoic. In short, totally opposite of the screaming, writhing mess I would become in her condition!

Lost Dog Rescue has committed to helping all 6 of the hounds made available to us and we have already placed four into foster homes. Ramey and Duchess are the more seriously injured and have a bit of a long road to recovery.

I am most excited about Duchess' progress because the day of the fire she struggled for every breath and cried in pain. I thought she had no chance at all. Yesterday when I visited her, however, she was sitting up, eating cheez whiz and giving kisses. What a wonderful surprise!

Pallet Kitties and Burned Hounds

Today was quite a day in animal rescue. Apart from the usual assortment of animal tasks at hand today, two surprises lay in wait.

First, a volunteer called to say that while moving pallets at the Lowe's store where she works, a worker discovered a litter of tiny kittens and a mother who fled the scene. It was sheer luck that the kittens were discovered before the pallets were lifted high in the air and dropped in another location, but there was a problem at hand. The babies were far too tiny to be away from mom, but she was too scared to reappear. The staff at Lowes rallied to the cause and installed kitties in a cardboard box near a heater and sent someone out for kitten milk and a bottle. The Lost Dog & Cat Rescue "machinery" went into motion and by noon a trap was set at the store to capture Momma Cat and a foster was lined up to take the kittens and even bottle-feed around the clock if necessary.

The good news is that the trap worked its magic (kitten-scented towels drew momma cat in) and the little family is reunited and safe in an LDCRF foster home. In another 8 weeks or so, they'll be on our website looking for homes. Maybe we will name them Hammer, Nail, Wrench and Screwdriver!

On a much more subdued note, the second surprise today involved a tragic fire at a Leesburg area hunt club. Our vet alerted us to the fact that there were a number of injured dogs en route to their office and that some of them would need rescue placement. I agreed to make a trip out there to see if we could help and it will surely be a long time before I forget that scene.

Some of the dogs have 3rd degree burns on nearly half of their bodies. Some were having trouble breathing due to smoke inhalation. A few were in much better shape than the others.

On behalf of Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation, I committed to taking at least 3 of the dogs and possibly two more depending on their prognosis as of tomorrow. Some of the dogs were wagging their tails in spite of the burns and all were so patient with the staff smearing salves on their bodies, injecting them with pain meds and examing their injuries.

I am eager to get the hounds out of the hospital and into homes where they can be lovingly rehabilitated and start looking for loving, forever homes.