Woof!

Fresca, a 1-year-old pitbull terrier, had never been in Tiffany's.

This was very different from memories of being tied to a soda machine at a New York City firehouse, and abandoned.  Fortunately, she was brought to Adopt-A-Dog, the Greenwich, CT shelter, and now here she is in Greenwich, at a benefit for Adopt-A-Dog. At Tiffany’s!

Fresca really liked Adopt-A-Dog volunteer Sara Halm, 17.

Wagging her tail, and giving kisses, she was quite a hit. There were dog cookies, and people cookies shaped like dog cookies.

During the benefit, photographer Bob Capazzo shot pictures of dogs in a Tiffany box.  I’ll bet the dogs were more precious than the jewels that had usually come in these boxes.

Lisa Janklow, from Stamford, center, tries to get the attention of her 2 dogs, Tatsu, 8, a cairn terrier, and K.C. a mixed breed adopted from Petfinder. Behind Lisa, is Adopt-A-Dog volunteer Franchesca Biondo keeps K.C. from springing, and photograher Bob Capazzo catches the moment.

Allyson Halm, the president of Adopt-A-Dog said that in spite of rain, the benefit was very successful.  She is also looking forward for the Adopt-A-Dog’s 22nd Annual Puttin’ on the Dog Show on October 18, 2009, at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park, Greenwich, CT. The fun dog show and festival will also showcase many of shelter’s adoptable dogs and cats.  This is a wonderful event, my favorite of all the year.

Also coming up is the 13th Annual Berner Parade on October 10th, 1:00 – 3:00 PM at St. Stephen’s Church in Ridgefield, CT.  This is a group of  Bernese  mountain dog lovers.  The event is described under “fall walk” on their website.  They will meet at St. Stephens for a group photograph and join together for the blessing of the animals, then stroll down Ridgefield’s lovely Main Street.  Sounds like fun.  I will be there if you can’t make it, so check the blog!

I learned about healthy food for pets when I had a wonderful dog named Trouble who had seizures.  Between the healthy dog food, dinner which I cooked for her, and getting her acupuncture and Chinese herbs, she lived until 13 – when the original vet thought that she would live only a few years.  Now my animal family have the best and healthiest I can afford, and are all very healthy.  Here is a story from the Hearst newspapers about a new store in Newtown CT offering natural and organic food. Here is the link: Your Health Pet.

Trouble was often sick, but always good.

Bon appetite!

A coyote munches on discarded fast food garbage on the side of Brown House Road in Old Greenwich, in 2004. Photograph/Bob Luckey/Greenwich Time

It’s about time to cool off about coyotes.  They live here too.  We are the ones who cut down trees, building large houses, paring down on the coyotes’ hunting grounds. We are the ones who bring them closer to homes and closer to our cats and dogs.

And they are not responsible for every single lost dog, cat, or ferret whose face stares out from a flier stapled to a nearby pole. “Lost Dog. Lost Cat.” Suzanne Carlin, the Greenwich Animal Control officer, says she has had more sightings of foxes than coyotes in the last 3 months. And cars kill more cats and small animals that do coyotes, she added.  “Coyotes get blamed for everything,” she said.

It is time for us to adjust, said Carlin. Don’t let your dogs out at dusk or dawn.  Don’t leave dogs out unattended for long periods at a time.  Turn the lights on, and look if anything is there, before you let the dogs out in the dark.  And remember electric fences will keep your dogs in, but will not stop the coyotes. Be vigilant.

She also suggests to be careful of your bird feeders.  The feeders attract birds, who attract cats, and small animals.  That’s what coyotes like, is quick,  easy prey.  And if your little dog or cat is nosing near the feeder, the coyote might be interested.

Allyson Halm, president of Adopt-A-Dog, and formally of the Greenwich Animal Control, has always believed that we should let the coyotes alone.

“Coyotes are not going away and we can co-exist. However, pet owners must be aware of the risks of letting small dogs out alone and allowing cats to roam. As a society we must accept our wildlife, share the land and treat these creatures with respect.”

Paco Sosa, a 20-year-old dachshund, believed to be New York City's oldest dog.

Paco Sosa, a New Yorker, is now 20.  It is like a human having a 140th birthday, that’s if you go with the 1/7 years theory.  Amazing, but here he is. The Animal Medical Center in NYC threw him a birthday party complete with a special doggie birthday cake from Pupcake Dog Bakery, in Caldwell, NJ.

Paco enjoys his birthday cake from Pupcake Dog Bakery, the main ingredient of which, is peanut butter.

Paco Sosa is a patient at the Animal Medical Center, going for weekly rehab sessions.

The red- and white-haired dachshund, who suffers from arthritis and some disc degeneration, goes  for regular rehabilitation and physical therapy sessions at to the AMC to keep his legs limber.  “Before he started coming here a little more than a year ago, he had some difficulty walking and his back legs were stiff,” said Renee Shumway, the rehabilitation practitioner who works with Paco at the AMC and said his therapy consists mostly of massage, reiki, and special exercises that focus on balance, such as walking on rails.  Reiki, a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing, is administered by “laying on hands” to tap into an unseen “life force energy”.

His owner, filmmaker and venture capitalist Bernadine Santistevan, says the key to Paco’s longevity is a low-protein diet with organic poultry or fish, plenty of exercise , and “lots and lots of love”.

“Despite his advanced age, Paco still loves to go for 30-minute walks every day in the park, ” she said.

Another dachshund named Chanel previously held the record as the world’s oldest pooches at 21, according to the AMC, until her death on August 31 of natural causes at her owners’ home in suburban Port Jefferson Station, on Long Island.

An amazing story – from the Animal Medical Center in New York City.  Is there anyone out there who knows a dog over 20 years?  Let me know.

Montana must be heavenly for these wild horses.

This undated picture provided by the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center on Friday, Aug. 28, 2009 shows a full harem grazing together at the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range south of Billings, Mont. Beginning next week federal officials plan to thin by more than a third a wild horse herd that roams a mountain range along the Montana-Wyoming border. (AP Photos/Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center, Matt Dillon)

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Federal officials say they will complete a wild horse roundup along the Montana-Wyoming border within the next few days.

As of Monday night, Bureau of Land Management contractors had gathered 131 wild horses as part of the agency’s effort to reduce the size of the herd in the Pryor Mountain National Wild Horse Range.

Critics say the roundup threatens to ruin the genetics of a herd descended from animals brought to North America by Spanish conquistadors.

About 70 of the range’s 190 adult horses will be offered for adoption. The remainder will be released, with most mares receiving a fertility control injection.

The captured horses are being held at BLM’s Britton Springs corrals north of Lovell, Wyo. The adoption is scheduled for Sept. 26.

This undated picture provided by the Pryor Mountain Wil Mustang Center on Friday, Aug. 28, 2009 shows two young bachelor stallions playing together at the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range.

This undated picture provided by the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center on Friday, Aug. 28, 2009 shows a stallion watching our for his harem while his mares graze at the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range.

A very happy golden retriever enjoys a drink at Greenwich's polo fields.

While Greenwich Polo Club brings visions of beautiful women with extravagant hats, champagne, gourmet lunch, and of course, the polo game.  Well, here in Greenwich, CT, dogs are also welcome to the polo grounds at Conyers Farm.  And they seem to enjoy the afternoon.

Roger Black holds his son Nathaniel, 8 months, to meet Homer, an old English sheepdog, 12-years-old, belonging to Holly Mignogna, left, from Pound Ridge, NY.

Dakota, a 8-year-old, pomeranian sits with her owner, Tara O'Gorman, from Sommers, NY, while they watch the polo games.

Caroline Hutton, from Westport, brought Tilly, her 10-year-old rescue toy poodle, to the polo fields.

McBofferding, named after a beer, a 9-year-old Old English sheep dog likes to go the polo games at Greenwich polo fields. He belongs to Bob and Karen Lammie, from North Stamford, CT.

I wonder if he likes the beer too.

George Clooney, a chocolate labrador retriever enjoys his water and watching the polo matches with owner Christopher Conigliaro, from Bedford, NY. at the Conyers Farm polo fields.

Yes, he was named after the actor. (Looks a bit like him, huh?)

George Clooney arrives at the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures awards gala in New York in this Jan. 15, 2008 (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, file)

Well…maybe.

This photo taken Aug. 25, 2009 shows Jodie Martin, of Buffalo, New York, unloading a dog from an Ohio shelter from the "Rescue Waggin'," a transportation service that takes animals from crowded shelters to uncrowded ones, at the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dogs arriving at an animal shelter is usually a sad story. But the mood is more like Christmas morning as staff at the Washington Animal Rescue League wait for the Rescue Waggin’ truck to open its doors.

The people and the animals have never met, but some greet like old friends. A basset shoots out to lick a face. Jodie Martin holds a small black puppy, one of the almost 40 dogs that she and the driver picked up that morning from two shelters in Ohio, and kisses it on the head before she hands it over.

“These are beautiful dogs,” said a staff member at the Washington, D.C., shelter.

The Rescue Waggin’ program of PetSmart Charities has moved more than 29,000 dogs since 2004 from communities with high euthanasia rates to shelters with high adoption rates. Their four trucks transport dogs from 53 shelters in 24 states, including a new route that serves Mississippi, Louisiana, southern Tennessee and Arkansas.

The pups travel in style: Specially designed trucks have air conditioning, piped-in music and video cameras so the dogs can be monitored in transit. The policy is not to transport animals more than 10 hours at a stretch, so the organization has just built a halfway kennel for overnight breaks to make longer trips a possibility.

When the dogs are led into their temporary home at the Washington Animal Rescue League, there’s a full service hospital, a behavior department and a beautiful cageless shelter facility where a soothing fountain cascades over glass ceilings that let in natural light.

“We work on their physical, mental and social rehabilitation and transition them to new homes,” says the league’s director, Dr.Gary Weitzman.

If you live in a big city with a shelter like this one, it might be hard to understand how different the situation is in communities where the pups come from.

Mark Southwick says that when he started volunteering at the Parke-Vermillion County, Indiana, Humane Society in 2004, the euthanasia rate was 56 percent, including many perfectly adoptable animals, because they simply did not have the resources to either keep them or find them homes.

“Our shelter is situated in a very rural setting — we are literally in the middle of a cornfield,” he says.

The shelter budget allows only enough paid staff to feed and clean. Volunteers like Southwick do all the adoption placement work. Volunteer efforts such as posting animals on Petfinder.com and transporting small groups of puppies to other shelters helped get the euthanasia rate down to 15-20 percent, Southwick says. Now, with Rescue Waggin’, it’s under 2 percent.

Moving animals in search of adoptive homes is not a new idea, but the scale of this program is unprecedented. Even a shelter like the Washington Animal Rescue League, which has long transported animals on its own, is enthusiastic about participating.

Weitzman says that it’s a big help not to have to bear all of the costs, and the Rescue Waggin’ trucks are state of the art. When he was on a committee to come up with guidelines for animal transportation, he says, “we found that we couldn’t do better. They’re really doing it right.”

The program also does more than move animals around, with support services to help shelters improve the situation closer to home.

“If all we did was transport, that would not be the answer,” said Marlene Walsh, director of Rescue Waggin’ operator Humane Strategies.

Southwick’s shelter has received grants from PetSmart Charities for facilities improvement and training to prevent illness. Most important, they are now able to offer low-cost spay and neuter services one day per week to the community and shelter animals.

For the shelters, the effects go far beyond the visible ones. “The thing that has changed so much is the more positive outlook,” Southwick says.

Now that they no longer euthanize so many animals, volunteering and donations are up and staff turnover is at an all-time low, with positive results for all the animals, whether they leave on the Rescue Waggin’ or not.

Says Southwick, “I see hope for these animals that I never saw before.”

This photo taken Aug. 25, 2009 shows Russell Fournier, left, and Jodie Martin, unloading dogs from an Ohio shelter from the "Rescue Waggin'," a transportation service that takes animals from crowded shelters to uncrowded ones, at the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

This photo taken Aug. 25, 2009 shows puppies from an Ohio shelter being unloaded from the "Rescue Waggin'," a transportation service that takes animals from crowded shelters to uncrowded ones, at the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

This photo taken Aug. 25, 2009 shows Elsie Ledsinger, with the Washington Animal Rescue League, being licked by a puppy from Ohio that was transported on the "Rescue Waggin'," a transportation service that takes animals from crowded shelters to uncrowded ones, at the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)