All Things Dog

*All Things Dog is the title I've finally settled on for this blog feature, the recap of dog news for the week.

In the Getaway section of yesterday's Trib, was an article about the growing population of animals at local rescue shelters due to the economic downturn. Every week, there's a notice somewhere, announcing the need of shelters for more foster homes, supplies and volunteers. Some of those in last week's paper are: St. Francis Animal Rescue who needs people with experience in grant writing, public relations and marketing; Hillsborough County Animal Services needs reserve part time animal control officers, as well as volunteers to help with animals; the Humane Society of Pinellas County and the Humane Society of Tampa Bay have need for all financial and volunteer support. Those two agencies also offer temporary help to people who are having trouble feeding their animals and HSPC offers temporary shelter for animals of people who are suffering hardship.

Also in yesterday's paper was an article by the Los Angeles Times that may or may not pertain to Floridians, but I couldn't resist pointing it out. It referred to an organization called Potcake Place, which takes in homeless puppies in the Caribbean islands, gets them veterinary care and tries to arrange transportation to the Americas. The dogs are called potcakes because they are fed by locals from the caked remains in the bottom of pots. The pups are described as medium sized shepherd mixes, hardy and good natured with a perpetual grin on their faces. The article does point out the growing problem of homeless pets in the U.S and questions the wisdom of adding to it with potcakes, but don't look to me to deny a potcake's need.

And this tidbit comes from an encounter my husband had at the dogpark. A fellow dog lover told him about an online dating service called Date My Pet. It allows you to set up play dates for your pet or human dates with pet lovers. Please, do not email me if you use this site and the relationship ends in human or dog divorce!

Today a shelter dog made the front page of the Tribune. Remy, a lab mix was adopted several months ago from the Manatee Humane Society by the Steele family. Natalee Steele has a debilitating disease and Remy has become the child's guardian, which has resulted in an improvement in Natalee's health. The Steele's have witnessed firsthand the uncanny sensitivity of canines and the positive affect they have on us emotionally and physically.

MSNBC ran a story about some of Michael Vick's dogs and their rehabilitation story.

Marion County Animal Center will euthanize 80 dogs due to an outbreak of distemper and parvo. The shelter will be shut down temporarily, so drop offs and adoptions have been halted until further notice.