LORI’S CORNER: Sandman + Hollywood
Every Sunday, we offer a free Pit bull walking class at the Coliseum from 9:30 – 11:30. Notice that I didn’t use the word training? It’s really not about training the dogs to sit, stay and down, which are really just tricks in the dogs’ minds. We emphasis socialization, deal with common challenges that many of us pit bull owners experience such as dog aggression, as well as offer support for students who are struggling with their dogs, perhaps even contemplating taking the dogs to the shelter or worse. Sometimes, our class is the last stop for a dog before an owner just gives up! There are often 30+ dogs in the class, there is no sign up, you can drop in or drop out, there are always new students and lots of new puppies any given week. Many of the puppies, grow up in our class like Queenie, JJ, Pretty, Big Boy, and now Handsome and Ripley.
Sunday was a really special day, Hollywood, a very famous bully who has won numerous prizes at the Atomic Dogg shows, made a grand appearance for our photo shoot with rapper Sandman Negus and his crew. Hollywood is so dog aggressive that he has to be wheeled into the park in a customized crate on wheels. I doubt anyone reading this story has ever seen something so tricked out as his “chariot”, with the metallic bronze paint job to the custom rims. Hollywood came into the park in style.
Sandman posed for some photos with Hollywood as well as some of the other class members’ dogs. These photos will be used in our 2011 calendar as well as our dog clinic flyers. Sandman has also agreed to help us put out a special message against dog fighting and protecting our breed, the American Pit bull Terrier, composing a special song about pit bulls.
DDR SPAY NEUTER PROGRAM – PETSMART Charities Quarterly Article
Media Alert: DDR is being featured in PETSMART Charities Quarterly Newsletter for Winter 2010. Here is your first hand peek at the newsletter!
How One Agency is Putting a New “Targeted” Spay/Neuter Grant to Use
⇨Agency: Downtown Dog Rescue
⇨Location: Compton, Calif.
⇨Targets: Pit bull terriers; low-income
and homeless dog owners
PetSmart Charities® last fall announced its newest grant guidelines and, within weeks, received more than 450 applications from animal-welfare groups across the country. As this application-review process begins to wrap up, a handful of agencies have already received funding and are putting their grant dollars to work.
One such agency is Downtown Dog Rescue in Compton, Calif. The agency received one of the first grants from PetSmart Charities under the new grant guidelines announced in September. The group plans to increase mobile spay/neuter clinics in Compton, Calif. from four per year to 16, providing about 700 sterilizations for the pets of low-income residents.
PetSmart Charities invited animal-welfare organizations to apply for targeted spay/neuter programs, which include efforts to sterilize owned pets by concentrating on an identified local need or problem. Downtown Dog Rescue will use the grant funds to spay/neuter dogs, primarily pit bull terriers, owned by low-income residents in Compton. Dog owners will be able to receive free spay/neuter surgery at the 16 mobile clinics. “Our goal is not to turn anyone away,” said
Lori Weise, founder. “We work closely with Los Angeles County Animal Control to identify and persuade people to bring their pets in. No one had ever done anything in Compton before, and now there’s a definite improvement. People are getting the idea that if they have a dog, they go to the clinics.”
Downtown Dog Rescue will collaborate with three mobile clinics to provide the spay/neuter services, and also will receive matching funds from the County of Los Angeles Animal Services spay/neuter fund. The use of this targeted spay/neuter grant funding is expected to reduce unaltered and stray dogs – notably pit bull terriers which, in the target area, are disproportionately surrendered to or impounded by local shelters and animal-control agencies.
Downtown Dog Rescue was selected as a grant recipient because of its well-developed collaboration with other key members in the community and its ability to provide baseline data on intakes from the targeted area and updated progress reports.
“We know we can’t be all things to everyone,” continued Weise. “But choosing a targeted area is a good way to see results. The park where we hold the mobile clinics lets us know that they see the benefits – there are no longer packs of dogs scaring kids. We are so appreciative of PetSmart Charities for helping […]
BE IN THE KNOW: COCOA MULCH found harmful to pets! Theobromine alert!
Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don’t have a pet, let your pet owning friends and family know about the potential harm regarding the use of this theobromine-containing product.
Over the weekend, the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. The dogs loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog (Calypso) decided the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn’t acting lethargic in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her morning walk . Half way through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company’s web site, this product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.
Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey’s, and they claim that “It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won’t eat it.”
*The SNOPES SITE has the following information: COCOA MULCH
FRIDAY SHOUT OUTS – Giving Thanks!
This week of thanks are full of dogs!!!!!! Get ready to see all of them on future WHERE ARE THEY NOW blog entries because these canine wonders have been adopted recently! YAY!!!!!!!
Opal
Red Stripe
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Riley (formerly Precious)
Roda (formerly Roja)
Roja (now Roda!), Precious (now Riley! to our own DDR star, Debbie Fan! YAY!), Red Stripe and Opal would now like to do a big group THANK YOU to one of our most favorite and dear sponsors!
Lori and the DDR canine family would like to thank
Nancy and Scott Kline of
Animals Matter and L.A. Dog Company
(manufacturers of luxury pet accessories).
They are guardians to three pit bulls
and two of them are from DDR!
Nancy and Scott donate Canidae dog food
to DDR kennel dogs every month!
This generous gift is extra special
because we know they aren’t
getting any type of free or great discounts
for their purchases.
Want to see the sweetest picture of CLANCY? Click HERE and you’ll see the true extent of their commitment and generosity to Downtown Dog Rescue. We are truly lucky […]
DEB’S DOG OF THE WEEK: Building a Relationship: Edwina
Last month I had the pleasure of attending dog behavior seminars from two very different experts in the field. While their methodologies are different, I found a similarity in their thoughts about RELATIONSHIP. What sort of relationship do you have with your dog and could this be one of the reasons your dog exhibits certain behaviors? Good or Bad? Obviously the bad behaviors are the ones that cause trouble and get dogs turned into shelters or euthanized. Most pet dog/human relationships are centered on lots of love and affection and not as much leadership and guidance. We tend to treat them like innocent children when often their behavior is more like unruly teenagers. This sort of relationship might be fine for some people and dogs out there, but for those dogs that have been or will potentially end up in the shelter for behavior problems, they need a clear relationship built on human leadership and trust FIRST, before love and affection. Without this, they might start making their own “bad” decisions because there isn’t a leader to look up to. Mostly, we get this backwards when we bring a new dog home because we make emotional decisions based on our image of the dog behind a cage. It’s natural that all we want to do is hug and kiss the dog. But believe me, if you can hold off on the love and affection and be a leader first, your dog is going to be much happier in the long run and you will have a long lasting relationship!
Edwina is a dog that exemplifies the idea of relationship. Lori spotlighted her in one of her first blog posts. Edwina faces a challenge to a new adopter because of her leash aggression, but if you set up the right relationship in the beginning, she will understand and respond immediately. I like Edwina because she reminds me a lot of my dog Josie. Super smart, loves to play with other dogs, but on a leash her emotions take control and she’d rather react first and ask questions later. It’s taken me two years to figure out Josie and my relationship issues (sounds like an episode of Dr. Phil) but once I understood, she understood almost instantly and she’s a happier dog because of it. Luckily, with Edwina you won’t have to wait two years to figure out your relationship. She’s had the benefit of having Lori as a leader and that can easily be transferred to other people. Please don’t let all this talk about relationship scare you away from Edwina, while she might not be the right dog for a new dog owner, […]
DDR DOG SPOTLIGHT: CHARLIE!
It was Charlie’s lucky day when our president found him wandering the streets of North Hollywood and he gladly got into her car. Even if he had an owner, how good of an owner could he have had considering he was filthy dirty, too thin, fly strikes on both ears and full of fleas. He looked as if he had been attacked by a dog, perhaps while he was wandering the streets, looking for something to eat. He is now at her vet’s office in a dog run, much better than the street but definitely not a home. Charlie is at least 10 years old and he is a “hard ten” meaning we suspect that he was a backyard dog who really had no life at all. With just a couple of days of eating and relaxing, he seems years younger.
This boy is a real long shot in terms of finding a forever home so we are also looking for a forever foster home. If you would like to adopt a senior dog but perhaps you are concerned with the possible medical expenses associated with caring for an older dog, call us, we can work something out. We want Charlie’s last years to truly be his golden years! 
Charlie is up-to-date with routine shots, house trained and spayed/neutered.
Call 818-407-4145 or e-mail friendsfa@aol.com
SOUTH LA SHELTER RESCUE ME SPOTLIGHT: 12 PUPPIES LATER, MOMMA TASHA FACES DEATH
Let’s give Mama Tasha a happy ending
12 PUPPIES LATER, MOMMA TASHA FACES DEATH
SHE PROTECTED THEM, SHE NURSED THEM. SHE’S SO LONELY WITHOUT THEM.
NEVER KNOWN A TOY. NEVER KNOWN KINDNESS.
BUT SHE CAN LEARN!!!!!!! LOOK AT THIS SILLY SMILE.
We’ve visited with momma Tasha (A1085553, 3 years old, came in to the shelter on January 8th with 12 puppies, 3 died since that time, ON ALERT AND HAS PERHAPS THROUGH THIS WEEKEND ONLY!!!) a few times — enough to see a transformation. Always hungry after feeding her big brood, she would gobble the soft food and treats that we brought her. Thinking of her puppies she would bark at the cage door. But, yesterday, alone, left behind after all the little ones were transferred, she was pleading rather than barking. She licked the food from our fingers. She gently nibbled the chicken that we held out for her. And she wagged her tail!!!!!!!! Yes, this girl who has no hope now sees us as her friends and welcomed the attention, the petting — something she had never known before.
I have a soft spot for the momma dogs and the shelter has given her a little extra time because the RVT’s say she is a “nice dog. She let us treat her babies (they were sick) and was fine with that.”) But, Tasha is on alert and has only a couple of days. If you can help her — and she really needs a foster to shower her with love — call the South L.A. shelter at (213) 485-0117 or (213) 485-0119 And please let us know. We are so worried — yet hopeful that this girl can finally have some happiness and keep that smile on her face always.
Many thanks, Andrea […]
ACTIVATE: Angel’s Battle for Justice – Animal Cruelty Case
RIP
ANGEL
August 31, 2009 – September 11, 2009
August 31, 2009 – September 11, 2009
(rescue birth date)
ANIMAL CRUELTY CASE ARRAIGNMENT UPDATE FOR ANGEL
Update on Arraignment 3/5/10
Here is what happened in court today!
The defendant entered a not guilty plea to the charge. A 995 motion to dismiss the charges was filed by the defendant’s attorney, but the judge did not rule on this motion.
A pre-trial date was set for Monday, March 22nd at 8:30 a.m. at the Compton Courthouse, Department O. We had press coverage from Fox News (channel 11) live from the courthouse. We hope they will be running the story on the 10 p.m. news tonight. The Daily Breeze is also expected to run a story on Angel in their newspaper next week.
Again, we thank all the wonderful supporters who come out and make a stand for Angel, and for all of the abused animals! You are making a difference, and we ask for everyone’s continued support at these hearings. We will be back on March 22nd for the pre-trial hearing.
WE HOPE YOU WILL JOIN US FOR JUSTICE!
Thank you.
Take Me Home Rescue
The Preliminary Hearing was held on February 19, 2010
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ANGEL’S RESCUE JOURNEY
BACKGROUND FROM THE TAKE ME HOME website
*please note, some of the following photos are graphic and disturbing,
the links to these photos are highlighted in red*
ANGEL
Rescued from the Carson Shelter, Los Angeles, CA on August 31, 2009
Rescued from the Carson Shelter, Los Angeles, CA on August 31, 2009
September 1, 2009 – The volunteers of Take Me Home get hundreds of emails each day regarding dogs in need in the shelter system, but yesterday, we received an email with a photo attached that stopped us cold. It was a Craig’s list posting from a kind woman who was at the shelter and she was shocked at the sight of this emaciated dog, thank God this woman took a picture, and posted the dog…
PHOTO OF ANGEL IN CARSON SHELTER
Take Me Home jumped into action as soon as we saw the picture and spoke to the shelter, who told us the dog was to be put to sleep by the end of the day. A loving TMH volunteer rushed to the Carson shelter and rescued this sweet dog, and named her Angel. Angel was rushed to our veterinary hospital, a complete medical evaluation was done, […]
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