Use Calming Treats for Your Dogs this Halloween

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you have a dog, like I do, who stresses over strange situations, loud noises or strangers, you may want to try calming treats for him or her. Let me give you my experience with our wonderful Truman.

Truman is a medium-sized dog, about 30 pounds. She is mixed with Am Staff and possibly Yellow Lab, but her personality is all Am Staff. It is her job to protect her family. When visitors come that she doesn’t know well enough, she stress barks at them. She is scared of them, but nonetheless stress barks. She also stresses out over thunderstorms. Trying to figure out how to calm her down, just about caused me to go bald pulling my hair out.

Until we tried calming treats, that is. It was just about magical how well these things worked! Just as the guests were arriving the first time, we gave her one. Within ten minutes, she was quite and came to visit with us. Still no touching of the strangers were allowed, but she settled down with us. That was miraculous!

We had to give her another one within 2 hours, but that also worked like a charm. In our neck of the woods, Halloween brings with it lots of noise. She will be getting calming treats through out the evening, I can assure you.

These treats haven’t worked for everyone. It seems they either work like magic or they don’t work at all. For us, I will no longer be without them! And they are worth a try for you if you have a dog that stresses over strangers, loud noises, thunderstorms, whatever.

Click on one of these to try them for yourself.
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Getting the Pets Ready for Halloween

October 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s October, so we start thinking Halloween around the Center. No, I promise you we don’t dress up all the dogs. What we do is give all the pets extra treats in honor of the holiday. But, some of us do enjoy dressing up our own pets. They go trick or treating with the children or grandchildren. They participate in the Halloween parties and generally enjoy themselves as we do for the holiday.

Most pets like to be with their humans and do the things their humans do. So in honor of that fact, you might consider Human and Dog Matching Costumes this Halloween. With the big Great Dane, he certainly enjoyed the extra attention he got when I dressed him up and he joined us for a Halloween party.

If you are not into matching costumes, how about just dog costumes? Here are my favorite dog costumes. One of our volunteers dresses her twin beagles every year just to photograph them. Once the pictures are over, the dogs get the costumes off pretty quick. She then recycles the costume into different craft projects. By the way, that photo becomes her hilarious Christmas card every year! Now, that’s my idea of good use of one event!

Happy Halloween everybody.

 

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Spay and Neuter Is Important

September 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I can’t stress this enough, spay and neuter all you pets, both male and female. It home again to me this week. An inquiry came in about Cormac, one of our large hound mix dogs. It sounded wonderful. Someone who was used to and wanted a large dog. Her previous canine companion had been a Great Dane that she had for 9 years.

To me, this sounded like a great possibility. But, Cormac is not yet neutered. After several emails, finding out that this may be a good adopter for Cormac, she asked me to not have him neutered. She said it took the life out of male dogs.

Rest assured, that is not true. What it does is to take the fight out of them. Male dogs that have been neutered are still greatly full of life, still active and lively. They just no longer think they have to fight with every other male dog.

Having seen the number of unwanted puppies, just in my own neck of the woods, I want no dog to be responsible for bringing any more unwanted puppies into this world. Intact males (as the unneutered are called) will search out females. The scent of a female in heat can carry many miles. And a male will travel those miles to find her.

I know many people believe if you don’t want puppies, either have your female spayed or keep her indoors during her season. For some, there are good reasons to not spay a female right away. If she is sick, has been abused, might be too underweight for the surgery it’s best to hold off. When dealing with strays it’s often hard to tell if she has been spayed or not.  Therefore, you wait to find out if she does come into season or not.

I’ll get off my preacher’s stand now. But, I will remind you, male dogs are just as responsible for unwanted litters as female dogs. So get your males neutered!

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Meet Brockton: A German Shepherd with a Past

September 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I want to introduce you to Brockton. He is a German Shepherd Dog with an incredible past. He first came to my attention because of a call from our vet. A kind woman found him in desperate condition wandering the streets. Our vet was her 5th try to find someone to take care of him.

I found out later that BuckHawk Center was his last hope, literally. She was prepared to pay for euthanasia for him if they couldn’t help. But, help they did. They called me. And I had a place for him.

Yes, they told me he was in bad condition, but I didn’t really know how bad at first. I met him almost a week after that call. As I write this, it’s been just a month since his first rescue. I encourage you to see the before and after pictures of this guy and see for yourself how much improved he is after 4 weeks. Just imagine what he will look like in 3 months! A magnificent stunning man definitely worth the rescue.

His full story is available at Meet Brockton: A German Shepherd with a Future. Please take a few minutes and check it out. There’s plenty more to read about his story and his condition.

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Twink & Scooter Get Adopted Together

August 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Here is Scooter

We are thrilled to announce that both Twink and Scooter have been adopted. And great as that news is, it’s even better that they went to their new home together. These two charming dogs joined BuckHawk Center together, stayed together like pals the whole time they were here and are now pals in their own new home.

Both Twink and Scooter are smaller dogs than we usually rescue and adopt out, but we do occasionally have smaller dogs here at BuckHawk. We are just as thrilled to see them go to their forever homes as we are the larger dogs.

We know they are going to be happy. They were adopted by one of our own volunteers and a board member to boot. So we get to see them on a regular

Here is Twink

basis and see the happy smiles and contented darlings. That is always so gratifying for a rescue to see. It’s another one of those great success stories.

More news is going on at BuckHawk Center, and we thought we would use this time to also fill you in on that. New fencing has finally gone up. It took us awhile to get it done due to weather, financial considerations and coordinating timing of the volunteers who could help out. But, it’s done! Hurray and about time.

And finally, we want to tell you about our latest rescue. Brockton’s full story will be coming in the next installment, including pictures of this charming young man. Right now, we want you to know that he is a serious case of neglect that we are working to slowly bring him back to good health. Already he is showing great improvement but he has a long way to go. In the meantime, he is getting lots of TLC along with good nutrition and the proper care.

So while we say goodbye to Twink and Scooter (although we see them frequently) we also welcome Brockton.

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Charming Heinz Has His Forever Home

July 22, 2012 By 1 Comment

Yes, Heinz is a charmer and now he is happily charming his own family. He is one of our Black and Tan Coonhound mixes, one of the litter that joined BuckHawk. The great fun part is the family that he now calls his own.

It was a great email that started the whole adoption process off. Of course, they were initially interested in Heinz’s big brother, Cormac. Now, don’t get me wrong, Cormac is a great charmer, too. But he’s huge! The mother in the family informed me of the family make up: 3 children ages 7, 6 and 5. Immediately, I sent back a warning. Just the size of Cormac could be a problem with those children. I suggested they look at the other two of the litter and they fell for Heinz.

Many emails later and a very nice phone call later, we arranged to meet about halfway in between on a Saturday morning. The kids were 2 boys as the oldest and a little girl. Don’t you know, Heinz couldn’t have behaved better for this wonderful family. He gave doggie kisses all around and accepted the love and attention with wonderful grace. When the paperwork was completed and final goodbyes said, he climbed in to the car and sat wonderfully on the floor at the little girl’s feet.

After an adoption, it’s one of the things that await eagerly. How are things going? The next day an email arrived. Holding my breath, I opened to read: He’s the greatest dog in the world! We all love him. But, there’s just a bit more to this story.

The two boys were the ones most excited to have a canine best friend, but it seems the girl was the one that Heinz took to. After much begging, the parents relented and allowed him to sleep in the little girl’s room. The next morning, they discovered the two curled up together in bed. In other words, Heinz had his love.

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Unique BuckHawk Fundraiser

July 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Yep, you probably see this title and say, more fundraisers! You want my money again. This fundraiser is different. Quite different!

Our dear friends at A Well Dressed Bullet have some up with a way to raise funds for us making use of their unique talent. Rick makes bullet cufflinks for us and Kathy sells them on their Etsy shop, just for us. They both donate their time and supplies. These two wonderful people earn nothing for doing this. These cufflinks are their best sellers usually, so that’s what they chose to offer as a fundraiser for the BuckHawk Center.

If you have any interest in something unique to give as a gift, or to give to yourself, you really want to check out A Well Dressed Bullet and their Etsy shop, Bulletcufflinks. If you want to consider supporting BuckHawk Center with a purchase, be sure to include these bullet cufflinks. But, don’t stop there. A Well Dressed Bullet has many different types of bullet fashion accessories.

Imagine a bullet necklace and earrings for that special lady in your life. How about a bullet belt buckle? Even bullet guitar knobs and cabinet/drawer knobs. These people have an incredible talent that is well worth checking out.

So think about who would love to receive a pair of bullet cufflinks, or other bullet accessory. Then shop with confidence at either Bulletcufflinks on Etsy or A Well Dressed Bullet.

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RIP Our Friend the Great Dane

June 25, 2012 By 4 Comments

We have to give you a sad report today. Earlier, we had to say goodbye to that beautiful and wonderful canine companion, Montana. He lived a great life here at BuckHawk Center. He was our official greeter. No person could cross the threshold without giving him a little scratch behind the ears. He was the leader among all dogs, everyone learned to bow before this majestic friend.

But, our dear friend was old. He was at least 12 years old. We weren’t exactly sure of his age when we first met. At 12 years old, Montana was a very old man. That age is very old for many large dogs, even older for a Great Dane. When he laid his head down for the final time, I knew he would suffer no more.

So many times during his life here, adopters wanted to take him home with them. It was a reaction I understood well. It would be hard to find as loving and loyal a friend as Montana. He won over more than his fair share of wary humans.

The BuckHawk Center just doesn’t seem the same without him. It probably never will. Montana was a part of my life even as the mechanics of setting up the Center were just beginning. The story of how we met can be found at Furever After Tails. And more about what life is like with a Great Dane can be found at Great Dane: A Gentle Giant.

If you want to know about this fabulous friend, I wrote up a page about a day in his life. It is one of those articles that I will read over and over again, just to enjoy the memories of life with him.

Saying goodbye to such a good friend is hard to do. We miss him, terribly. But, we know he is happy, without a pain or twinge or struggle anymore. We know he continues to watch over the Center and bring good luck to all the deserving dogs who are looking for their own home.

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A Day in the Life Page

June 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Being honored with awards is a wonderful thing and the page A Day in the Life of an Animal Rescuer has won the Purple Star Award from the Squidoo Platform. That is a true honor, but another honor has come our way through this page. That of being ranked within the top 500 pages on that platform. Squidoo.com hosts literally millions of pages about almost every topic you can imagine. So to be ranked among the top 500, number 475 to exact is quite an honor.

The rank comes about due to a very complicated formula and I won’t even begin to tell you that I understand all the factors and values that go into that formula. I will only tell you, that this page doesn’t fall into some of the standard factors that I know of. So the honor seems to be doubly valuable. It is to me, anyway.

I wrote this page because I was challenged to tell the story of a day in the life of an animal rescuer. Our friend and supporter, Mandee, threw down that gauntlet to me. When I picked it up, I had no idea how hard it would really be.

Dealing with the headaches, the heartaches, the wild highs and terrible lows is something that I just seem to have to do to get through each day. But to write it down, to tell the world of Internet readers a day in my life was entirely different.

Read for yourself what it’s really like to have A Day in the Life of an Animal Rescuer. Then be sure to leave a comment, let me know if you enjoyed or hated following me around for a day.

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Meet Scooter – An Adoptable Darling

May 28, 2012 By 1 Comment

This is charming Scooter. He’s about two years old, a mix of Min-Pin and probably some kind of Terrier or Heeler. He’s a small guy, about 25 pounds, but a bundle of stocky charm.

Scooter is a bit shy with people he doesn’t know, but he’s a real lover with those he knows. His favorite position is curled up next to me in a chair. He’s quite well-behaved, happy to come to me when I call him and very happy to get a little attention, or more!

Scooter has a true buddy here at the BuckHawk Center. A young female named Twink. They are constant companions. It’s our hope that they can stay together and go to a wonderful home that is happy to have two special darlings join their lives.

Both Scooter and Twink are house-trained, leash-trained, current on their shots and fixed. So they are ready to go to that loving home. Please contact us with your interest in this beautiful and delightful friends. Use the Contact Us form, or email me at buckhawkcenter@gmail.com.

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