Owner: SheltieTales URL:http://SheltieTales.com Join Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:18:22 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A blog about Shelties, especially rescued Shelties, and their people Site statistics:Click here
Sheltie Dreams 2007-12-05 13:24:48 Ahhh…it’s (much too) early on Thursday morning, December 5, in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. Yep, I’m on the road again. Flying to Australia might sound exciting, but it’s a loooong flight. On Monday evening, I flew to Los Angeles, where I had about an hour to walk over to another gate about 2 miles away (just kidding…it only seemed like it) for my Sydney flight. The flight to Sydney was not really painful, but it gets pretty crowded back in coach on a 14-hour ride. Happily, I lucked out and the middle seat next to me was empty, so I had a little bit of room to move around in. And, best of all, I was able to sleep on the flight!
Well, I needed the sleep, so that was good. But I dreamed of Isaac, whom readers of this blog know reached the end of his life less than two weeks ago. I really miss that beautiful boy! For the last many months, he wasn’t really actively interactive (you know what I mean!), but he was always happy to see me or Ba Read more:Dreams
The Right Foster Home vs. My Sanity 2007-12-02 13:36:03 We are working so hard and somewhat successfully to acquire wonderful foster homes so we can spread the hard work of caring for rescued Shelties and Collies across many people and many homes. So now, thanks primarily to the hard work of SRU’s Foster
Administrator, Shannon Tew, who is an ace organizer and asks excellent questions, delves deep and comprehensively evaluates foster homes, we have some great foster homes. (I need a photo of Shannon to share with everyone.)
The next step, which seems to be really hard, is to determine which of our rescues is a good fit for which of our foster homes. I’m not sure why but this seems to be a really difficult step to take. Well, I can identify some reasons for this. I’m reluctant to move the Shelties that haven’t yet been evaluated by our vet, given needed dentals, or haven’t yet received other medical work they might need. I think this artificial barrier of my own creation is something I’m holdin Read more:Right
, Sanity
Shelties and Sprinklers 2007-11-30 23:12:51 Cute video found on YouTube
Clearly this isn’t the Shelties and sprinklers video I enjoyed. I’ll have to work on this more and figure out how to get that video up here. This agility one is good too. - Barbara
This might be the sprinkler video…
Hey! Success!
Management Challenges 2007-11-29 08:34:42 Few readers of this blog will be surprised to learn that, as the saying goes, it takes a village to run a rescue group. Oh, sure, ‘way back when we rescued a half-dozen or so Shelties each year, things were simple. We fostered all of the rescues in our own home, we found and interviewed potential adopters, and we followed up on things as well as we could. But Sheltie Rescue of Utah has grown a lot since those days. Now, we rescue dozens of Shelties every year and have to rely on others to carry some of the burden. As the breadth and extent of the work has grown, Barbara finds herself spending the majority of her time either feeding and pottying the dogs or answering phone calls from potential adopters, fosters, SRU members, etc., leaving her little time to handle the increasingly large administrative issues associated with being Chair of the Board of Directors for a non-profit.
It’s not unusual for there to be anywhere from 15 to 20 Shelties in our rescue program at any gi Read more:Management
Window Blankets As Curtains and Solar to Run Them 2007-11-29 20:24:00 I know some of this is off topic but here it goes anyway…I’m almost obsessed with not paying more money to the local power company or fuel companies than necessary to be warm and comfortable (or cool and comfortable). This is a hot topic (pun intended) now that those cold winds are blowing around here and we have snow. I’m especially concerned with overpaying for basic needs because we spend so much money on veterinary care and I want to eliminate unnecessary expenses. I came across this product last year called a window blanket. They were terribly expensive so I moved on. But…I liked the concept and it’s really pretty simple - if only I knew how to sew. So last year I did things to create air layers between the windows and the room they were in by, for example, (you’re going to laugh) hanging sheers closest to the window and creating a second layer by hanging clear shower curtains. My idea was to create a heavy plastic but see-through barri Read more:Window
, Curtains
, Solar
If You Get Bitten Please Remove Your Ring! 2007-12-13 14:49:11 With many Shelties in the house we do have tiffs among the dogs every so often. Generally I’m on my feet when this happens and can do something to end it pretty quickly — like grab one or both dogs involved. This time I was on the bed — a waterbed at that — and two little girls, Evie and Star, had gotten irritated with each other and were fighting. Their fight was located primarily on my chest. So not only did I want to stop the fight and separate them but I also wanted to protect my face. Being on the bed was a much more vulnerable position and I ended up with some bite marks on my hands a couple of which had broken the skin and bled a bit. Nothing big. One finger had gotten a couple of punctures but again — nothing big. I washed up, used peroxide, and then neosporin but…I didn’t take off my ring.
Big mistake. Take off your ring if your ring finger gets bruised. Talks on the phone the next day with a nursing help center co Read more:Please
Days in the snow 2007-12-13 13:55:15 After joyfully reading Julene’s blog “A Day Off” I started to think about when I would play in the snow with my sheltie Maggie. We got her when I was about 2 years old. My mom rescued her from an abusive family in Iowa and she remained with us until shortly after we moved to Utah and just months shy of my 16th birthday.
Anyway, on to my story.
Maggie always loved to be outside with us kids no matter the weather. In the summer she would chase us around the yard, run under the swings as we swung in the air, and she would play soccer with us. In the winter my dad would shovel paths through the yard so that Maggie could run through the snow with out falling in because there are few winters in Iowa that we have light snows. In clearing these paths my dad would make one very LARGE pile of snow. Well, one year I was playing outside with Maggie, running around the yard, throwing snowballs at her (which she would catch), and just having the kind of fun only a youn
A day off? 2007-12-09 23:24:50 Today is my day off. “Oh, how nice! You get a day off” you say? Yes, it is! My day off was prepared for ahead of time. I carefully planned ahead due to the impending doom and gloom forecast by the weather man. The Pineapple express was well on it’s way to colliding with sub tropical moisture and cold air from Canada resulting in the inevitable copious amounts of juicy snow.Â
My morning started with the realization that I was lacking something which guides my get out of bed time and the dogs bark trigger to get me up should I be reluctant to do so. What was I lacking? The very thing persuading me to stay put. The lack of noise from traffic. I knew it had been snowing during the night.  The dogs have an internal clock apparently which despite every plan to the contrary, yanks me from the warm envelope of my covers most mornings. When I looked outside, I knew my morning pains/er plans had changed. The lack of noise was due to a glowing, g
Life's little turns 2007-12-05 18:48:22
In an effort to participate in this “blog?”, I shall press forward and blurt out my musings as it were. I have apparently lost track of how the world has progressed without my help and that disconcerts me somewhat. I know these things happen, progress that is, but I’m a year closer to my oncoming insanity and I far prefer my little
“world”. My “world” by the way only really need contain simple things like, house, bed, food, transportation, heat and lights, water, cable tv, and my pets…lots and lots of pets. Which brings me to the subject at hand.
I have found that more of my old kids are passing away and being replaced by rescued dogs. I could easily gone down that trail with the horses by the way, but, an annoying horse means a dangerous horse and they are bigger than me, so I have limited my horse obsession to the “ponies on hand”. The dogs on the other hand are a different story. I used to think that the proverbial Read more:turns
Christmas Puppies? 2007-12-22 14:28:34 It’s that time of year again - in fact, it started several weeks ago: Christmas
, the largest of the gift-giving events in the western world. Ah, the love, the joy, the sharing…the gifts!
Unfortunately, far too many people think that it’s OK to surprise their kids, their spouses, or others with a brand new, cute-as-a-button, adorable puppy (or kitten)! That might actually be appropriate under some conditions: the kids are already known to be responsible and familiar with pet care and to sincerely want a pet and the spouse is not grudgingly, reluctantly tolerant of the idea but actively enthusiastic about it, too. Regrettably, that situation is the exception and not the rule
Much too often, the result is excitement when the puppy is “unwrapped”, quickly yielding to more excitement at other gifts or Mom’s frustration when new puppy pees on the clean carpet. Later (mere weeks later), the puppy is relegated to the laundry room or the garage where he,
Dogs Who Come In "Sets" 2007-12-21 22:53:10 Today, we took in a pair of new rescue Shelties who were released to us together by their family with the request that we place them together. This isn’t the first time this has happened and we’re sure that it won’t be the last.
Rather a long time ago, we rescued a brother and sister who hadn’t even been named (we named them Riff-Raff and Magenta after characters in one of our favorite movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show). We tried to place them together, but they were too much of a handful and we ended up placing them to separate families. Later, we rescued Baby and Samantha, who lived together (but were not genetically related). The relinquishing family asked if we could place them together, but it turned out that great homes were found for them individually.
A bit further down the line, we rescued Teddy and Maggie, who were brother and sister, and again we tried to place them together but were unable to do so. A bit more recently, we rescued two puppy mill
Don't Lose Your Data! 2007-12-19 20:12:15 Sheltie Rescue of Utah has a lot of data. We have to keep track of all of the information on the Sheltie Rescue of Utah primary web site about rescued Shelties, including those already placed as well as those looking for a home. We have a web store, the Sheltie Rescue Mall, with all of the customized code that requires in addition to all of our inventory data. And, of course, there’s this blog, with all of the customized code we’ve borrowed and built, as well as the postings and comments. If we lost any of that data, it would be very, very inconvenient (maybe “catastrophic” is going a bit far…).
OK, those of you who regularly back up your computer data, raise your hands. Hmmm…1, 2, 3, a few more…not all that many of you, are there! In fact, my guess is that a goodly proportion of computer users out there don’t have a clue how to back up their data, much less have the resources to actually do it. That’s been a problem in our house
Funding for Sheltie Rescue 2007-12-19 19:34:04 I hope that our readers are not too disillusioned with me for interjecting a little bit of commercialism into this blog, but it’s one way that we can raise money to help us continue operating Sheltie Rescue
of Utah.
One of the avenues we’ve found is something called Pay Per Post, a company that permits us to actually get paid to blog! This particular blog entry is exceptional in that it does not directly address the primary topic of this blog at all, but discusses a particular fundraising mechanism. In (almost?) all other cases, I will blog only about directly related topics and include specific links and keywords when there is a decent fundraising opportunity involved (e.g., $10 or more).
The nice thing about Pay Per Post is that it sometimes provides opportunities to earn $25, $50, or even more than $100 (VERY RARE) for a single posting. If you have a blog of your own, I’d encourage you to click on the link above and investigate what this website has to offer. You Read more:Funding
Losing Isaac 2007-12-19 12:53:42 There are so many aspects to loss. In this area I’m not very good at knowing what I’m feeling let alone expressing it or sharing it with others. My grief is pretty well buried, at least for now. But losing Isaac
means so many things to me in my day-to-day life. Towards the end, I spent my time only in rooms that Isaac was in so we could be together. He could only barely drag himself onto his feet on a good day so we didn’t move around the house too much. He only dragged himself to his feet if I tried to quickly run off and use the bathroom only to discover that he was so motivated to find me that I couldn’t pee and get back fast enough for him. Otherwise, Jim and I were always there to help him to his feet and guide him to wherever he wanted to go.
Until the end he wanted to eat his meals where everyone (all the dogs) ate — in the food room (which used to be our dining room). He insisted on standing to eat. I started finding ways to elevate his f
Traveling With Pets 2007-12-18 15:29:51 Barbara and I don’t travel much with our dogs. Most of our travel, because of my job, tends to be international or long-distance domestic, and taking one or more dogs would be difficult and expensive. In the past, though, when we had the time to actually drive somewhere within a few hundred miles to go camping, or to a dog show, or to visit friends, we always took our dogs with us. But, man, it’s getting harder and harder to find hotels that will accept pets. I know part of the problem is irresponsible pet owners who let their pets trash the hotel room, but it’s awfully frustrating to those of us who play by the rules.
I read several years ago about a cultural exchange program in which a bunch of French people were hosted in the USA for a few weeks, traveling around the country. When they were leaving to go back to France, they were interviewed by some television station and asked what they thought of America. One woman’s response struck me; she said “You Read more:Traveling
Hair, hair, pet hair everywhair 2007-12-18 15:13:33 Do you have a pet? Of course you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog. And, if you have a pet, you have pet hair. Frankly, I’ve completely forgotten what it’s like to eat a meal without Sheltie hair in it Sad, but true!
As one of the principal foster homes for Sheltie Rescue of Utah, we almost always have between 8 and 20 dogs in the house. (No, I’m not kidding…up to 20 dogs in the house…sleeping in our bedroom!) It’s absolutely impossible to keep anything in the house free of dog hair. (Having a long-haired cat as well doesn’t really help much in this regard.)
We’re always searching for a good vacuum cleaner to help us keep up with the hair. We’ve probably tried at least four or five brands and multiple models of some of those brands. A good site for comparison shopping is awfully helpful, and I just today learned about Wize, a review and comparison web site that allows you to get opinions about all sorts of products a
Dealing With The Loss Of A Pet 2007-12-18 14:54:01 Losing a pet is a terrible thing emotionally. Our dogs and cats are parts of our lives and our families. When they reach the ends of their lives, whether because of disease or simply old age, we suffer their absence. As most of you can appreciate, we in rescue go through this far, far too much. Over the years, Barbara and I have had to deal with the deaths of eight of our own dogs and cats, plus at least 17 rescues who were with us at the end.
Everybody deals with loss and grief in their own ways, and we’ve found an approach that works for us. Every pet who has died while in our care is cremated - individually, not in a group of several dogs and/or cats - and we keep their ashes on shelves in our home. We have a very nice wall unit built into one end of our family room and several of the shelves are fully occupied by Pet Urns.
For a while, we tried using Photo pet urns, but they were too expensive and we realized that we didn’t actually use the photo slots anyway, so
Get Well Mom Your Evie-Girl Needs You! 2007-12-17 12:02:14 Evie’s Mom-to-be, Judi, had to go to Spokane to have heart surgery. Evie worried about her and wondered what she could do to help her Mom through her surgery and to get well fast so that Evie can go home and snuggle with her. Here is a photo of Evie pondering this problem and hoping that temporary Mom, Barbara, might help her out.
Then that smart little girl Evie came up with a great idea but it had to be a collaboration with Barbara. We worked hard and I think we finally got the message across…
Barbara…I don’t think Mom-Judi can see me and my message to her! She can’t see the heart we put on this message and she can’t read my name! How is she going to be sure that it’s me who needs her to get better? Have you read the user manual for this camera?
Okay, okay…let me see if I can help you out with this, Barbara. Is this paper facing the right way? How big is this anyway? Barbara, I don’t think this is an Evie-sized messa Read more:Needs
Saving Money For Rescue And Your Pets 2007-12-23 16:17:41 OK, OK, I know…”another commercial posting” - but it’s all for a good cause!
This posting is intended to let you know that a web site called CouponChef.com actually has coupons that we might use to save money for Sheltie Rescue
and that our readers might use when buying products for their pets. The home page for that site has coupons for the “old regulars” such as Target and Dell.
But, if you look on the left side of the page, you’ll find a link named Pet Supply. Clicking on that link will take you to a page where you can find links to Foster & Smith, PetCareRx, PetCo, and a couple of others. We here at Sheltie Rescue of Utah spend a lot of money at Foster & Smith, so even small-value coupons are appreciated.
If you know about this web site already, then you’re ahead of me but, if not, maybe it’ll be interesting. Happy shopping.
P.S., As you save money with the coupons you find on this site, consider donating a percenta Read more:Saving
, Money
On a slightly happier note… 2008-03-07 15:23:51 I thought it might be fun to show everybody a video that we took late in 2007 – of Tommy (our blind and deaf white Sheltie) and Jackson (a Corgi we rescued) playing. They played very nicely with each other, and Jackson figured out how to play with Tommy so he didn’t get scared or [...] Read more:happier
Sleep Gently Sweet Polly 2008-03-05 14:42:29 We miss you more than there are words to describe. I needed you to be in your crate at meal time to bark at me to remind me that I hadn’t given you your breakfast or dinner yet. I need you to be on the ottoman next to the bed each night. I need [...] Read more:Sleep
, Sweet
, Polly
The Pain of Another Loss… 2008-02-26 20:39:48 Last weekend, we became the rescuers and fosters of five puppy mill dogs! I’ll blog about that whole deal separately, but this post addresses the almost-instant sadness that derived from one of these rescues.
A small tri-color (almost bi-black, but she had small amounts of sable around her muzzle) Sheltie girl came to us in obviously [...]
Life without dogs 2008-02-23 16:35:54 I found this very appropriate note on Sheltie Nation and thought all dog owners could relate. Unfortunately the author is unknown, but for those that have multiple dogs, I’m sure you could have authored this. Jim and Barbara I especially thought of you.
Sarah (aka Bella’s mom).
If I Didn’t Have Dogs…
I could walk [...]
OK, It’s Officially Pouring! 2008-02-16 20:56:00 OMG! We have seventeen – that’s 17 – you know, a one followed by a seven — dogs in the house right now. Five new ones are puppy mill dogs, three with serious emotional issues and others with health issues (including one with a paw that looks like it was savaged by another dog). And [...]
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! 2008-02-14 19:27:24 I wasn’t very happy when groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Feb 2nd and declared 6 more weeks of winter. This has been a long, snowy winter. I’m glad that we won’t have another drought this summer, but I’m tired of shoveling and having to scrape my car off every other morning. Watching the [...]
When it rains… 2008-02-14 19:26:57 Well, we’re officially overwhelmed again. Last night, two older puppy-mill girls joined our program. These girls were rescued (along with something like 115 other dogs?) from a puppy mill in Missouri a couple of weeks ago. A number of groups around the country volunteered to take in some of the dogs. One of the wonderful [...] Read more:rains
Keeping Up With the Joneses 2008-02-10 22:31:32 We try very, very hard to ensure that every Sheltie in the area we cover (Utah, Idaho, parts of Nevada, parts of Wyoming, and elsewhere as needed) who is in need of a new home gets one. But it’s not easy. We’ve rescued Shelties from all of the following sources (and probably others that I [...]
An invitation… 2008-02-10 18:37:22 We would like to introduce you all to our newest critter…”Spider” the mini. Here’s the url
Make a slideshow - it’s easy!
or try this url
Not sure which one will get you there but, please go see.
Julene
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