What happened to Michael Vick's dogs ...

Vick's Dogs: The Good News Out of The Bad Newz Kennels

In the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, the article by Jim Gorant

"Since being rescued 20 months ago from the dogfighting ring financed by Michael Vick, all but a few of the abused pit bulls have been recovering in sanctuary, foster care and adoptive homes. Now even the most traumatized of them can have a happy new year."

>>> Read the entire article on the Sports Illustrated website

Be sure to look at the photo gallery for some wonderful photos of these dogs!

Rescue Transports - 2008

Here's a little movie I made of some of the photos I've taken of some of our passengers this past year. Most of the photos were taken in Spartanburg, SC, Charlotte, and Salisbury, NC along our regular transport route. Most of those dogs came from Greenville and Newberry, SC. Other photos are of dogs we've pulled from Gaston County, NC and York County, SC and transported to adoptive homes, foster homes, and other rescues.

This is just a small sampling of our transports. We remember every one with a smile, one or two with great sadness.

I present this movie in honor of all transporters, especially my friend and mentor Mari, and our passengers, and in memory of Jasmine, a beautiful, sweet border collie. She was pregnant when we transported her. We found out later that neither she nor her pups survived the delivery.

The Holiday Express Transport

Today our group of transporters moved 45 dogs from shelters in South Carolina to rescues and forever homes from Virginia to Connecticut.

Aside from a 10 minute delay along I-85 at the North/South Carolina state line, everything went pretty well. Bailey the puppy whined a little, but seemed to quiet down when I talked to her or shoved her kibble through the holes in the crate!

Tomorrow the transport may be delayed because of bad weather as they head north. Pray for the safety and comfort of all our drivers and passengers.


Mari and Oslo


The van from Charleston, SC met us in Salisbury, NC to drop off some animals heading north on our transport. I would LOVE to have a van like that for transport! We could fit a lot of crates in there!


Newberry Animal Control transferring animals to us in Spartanburg, SC

My Passengers:

Sunny

Bailey

Missy

Farmer

Brownie

The Chesterfield "Ewoks"

Sunday, Dec 14th, 10 puppies were pulled from a high-kill shelter in Chesterfield, SC. They were supposed to go on transport up North. Everything changed Monday morning when two of the puppies were diagnosed with Parvo. This is their story and why they need your help.

Read their story: http://www.chesterfieldewoks.blogspot.com/

Sadly, the little girl succumbed to parvo on Thursday night. In the meantime, the vet bills incurred trying to save her are astronomical. Her brother is thankfully doing well.

Beloved pets and people remembered

Love Lights, held last night at Camp Bark in Waxhaw, NC, was a beautiful and special event where we honored and remembered our cherished loved ones. Luminarias were lit in honor or memory of a special person or pet for a small donation to a local rescue group.

It was a crisp winter evening, but we were warmed by the memories of our loved pets and friends. The luminarias made a warm glow down the winding driveway and along the path to the pond and memory garden at Camp Bark.

I placed candles on the stone memorializing my special dog, Floyd who passed in 1995. She was a special dog, I loved my "little woofer".

Christmas pictures with the dogs

Every year my rescue group holds a Holiday Pet Photo fundraising event. The last two years were hosted by Camp Bark in Waxhaw, NC. One of our volunteers is a professional photographer and he sets up his lights, backdrop, etc, and takes photos of pets and their families. It's a lot of fun, sometimes a bit chaotic, always a good event for our group.

Jim and I took our girls Noir and Casey, and also little Smokey our foster dog. I thought I'd share some of the pictures with you. :-)



Smokey


Jim, Edie, Casey & Noir




Smokey with his foster mom, dad, and aunts




Casey and Noir trying hard to "stay"!

Ralphie's been adopted into the perfect home

Ralphie had been malnourished and was living outside with no shelter or medical care, so he was wormy, underweight, and intact. While at the hospital for his surgery, he was neutered and wormed. In foster care, his foster mom added Nussentials MORE to his food at every meal. Two weeks later when he returned to the hospital to have his stitches taken out he had gained 10 pounds and was healing well. The vet was surprised at his weight gain and said, "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!"

Today Ralphie moved to his new furever home. He has a big fenced yard and another dog named Ruby to be his buddy. He said goodbye to his rescuer/foster mom Tammy, then ran off to play in the yard with Ruby and his new mom and dad. Ralphie Tripod is going to have a great life!


Ralphie's rescuer/foster mom Tammy


Ralphie with his new mom and new buddy Ruby

Smokey's night out

Sunday evening there was a special charity event at the biggest mall in Charlotte, South Park Mall. It's called the "Evening of Giving". They close the mall at 5 then re-open at 6 and you have to have a ticket to get in. Charities sell the tickets for $10 and we keep $7 of it, the rest goes to the mall's charities, so it's all a donation. The stores offer special prices, there's food for everyone to eat, and music to enjoy, and lots of raffle drawings. I took my foster puppy Smokey up to show him off. Everybody loved him, he's such a great little puppy, very friendly and yet calm. So here's a photo someone took of us - the famous team of Smokey and Skinny!! LOL

Update on Ralphie

Ralphie's been in his foster home for a full day now and what a day it's been. He's doing incredibly well and has far exceeded our expectations.


By lunchtime he was going up & down the stairs off the back deck to the fenced yard. He does this by himself. He plays with the two resident dogs but has bonded with one in particular; Thelma Lou (a Corgi/mix). Ralphie loves her and follows her around.


This evening when he was put in his ex-pen he just couldn't settle down.......until Thelma Lou was put in there with him. Now they're both sleeping; Ralphie on his giant pillow and Thelma Lou on her blanket. All is well.

Ralphie is discharged

Ralphie was able to come home today. The vet and was amazed. Remember the first photos of Ralphie's leg with the open wound where you could see the bone and the horrible x-ray? That happened 3-4 weeks ago! It would appear someone else hit this boy and they too didn't stop to help him. Because he received no care when that injury happened, it started to heal incorrectly and by the time he received care it was just too late. The ends of the bone had already started to die.

So the woman who hit him the other day can take solace in that she didn't cause this horrible injury. However, she's not off the hook. She too wasn't willing to help him in any way. Morally, that's just wrong. Some would say morally bankrupt.

Because of the previous injury he's had a head start on learning to walk on 3 legs. At his foster home, he was carried out of the car and they had to coax him to move around. Then he got his bearings, laid down and rolled around in the grass. He walked/hopped around a bit, watched the cats and when he saw another dog he wagged his tail.

In the house an ex-pen was set up for him.



You'll see it's got a large dog cushion in it which should be comfortable for his stump. It was covered up with a super soft blanket. That too should feel good while he's healing. It was obvious he'd never been indoors before; he refused to go inside the house. So Ralphie was carried inside and put into his pen. It's happened before with rescue dogs who've never had a bed; they don't know what to do with it. Here's Ralphie, half on & half off his bed.



That's a chew bone which I don't think he ever saw before. He treasured it and laid his head down on the bone. An hour or so later his foster mom reported that he not only chewed it but ate the whole thing then got up on his new bed to lay down. First milestone: Ralphie figured out what a bed is!

Ralphie's story

A volunteer rescuer was driving one day and saw a dog beginning to cross the road in front of her. She stopped, but another car came from the other direction and hit him. The woman driving the other car wasn't going to stop, but our volunteer made her stop.

The woman said she was late for work, at a vet's office! What luck, our volunteer thought - she can take the dog to work. "Oh no, I can't do that," she said and drove off. Didn't even stay to help our volunteer get the 50 pound black lab into her SUV. Fortunately some men were working on a house nearby and they help lift the dog into the car.

Off she went to Indian Land Animal Hospital. The dog, now nicknamed "Ralphie", was given pain meds and made comfortable. His wound was dressed and the leg stabilized. Because it was shorter than the other leg, the vet said the bone had probably broken and slid past itself. Surgery would be required to put a plate in the leg, or it might have to be amputated.

Ralphie was stabilized and made comfortable for the night, while our volunteers made a plan to move him the next morning to The Pet Hospital in Bessemer City, NC for surgery.

Ralphie waited patiently for the results of his x-rays. It wasn't good news. Apparently he had been hit by a car a month earlier and the same leg was broken and not treated. The leg couldn't be saved.

Ralphie's leg was amputated on November 18th. He did well in surgery.

Renni, a pekinese, is free of allergies and skin problems

My girl Renni is a 10 yrs-old Pekingese. She has been the joy of my life for all these years. Not so pleasant has been her skin condition for the past 8. She was prescribed numerous different pills, topical, medicated shampoos, special foods and injections. Blood and skin tests have been done numerous times, trying to find-out what was wrong with her skin. Nothing ever helped for more than a week or two. She lived in a great discomfort, itching, scratching and biting herself. Along with that Renni developed an allergy 5 yrs ago which progressively turned into a severe condition. For which she was prescribed meds on the top of the meds that she was taking for the skin.

I went in search of the best Vet in Florida who specialized in Infectious Disease. I found one 600 miles away, who comes to that location once a month. We traveled to that particular office to see "THE DOC". He prescribed some different meds, a change in her diet and allergy shots to be given at home under strict regiment. That was 2 months before I started hearing amazing stories about other dogs taking PET RESTORE, and their health improvements. It took me a couple of days to figure-out how to give it to her, because she was refusing it.

Two weeks after taking PET RESTORE the improvement of her skin and fur was so drastic, that I stopped the injections first. Week later after increasing improvements I stopped the pills and that horse shampoo with bad smell. Renni's skin is so healthy now-2 months on PET RESTORE. I do not remember it like that ever. She grew hair on spots that were so abused from biting that I still can't believe it is possible. She is FREE of allergy. She has not been taking anything but Restore for 2 months. I'm so grateful that this product gave her and me normal life again after many years of suffering. No more meds and injections - I can tell she is happy!

Silva A.
Florida

Smokey's improved health

Dramatic turn around in health of puppies pulled from shelter

My husband and I foster puppies and work to find them loving adoptive homes. Usually they are in poor health when they come to us and we immediately start adding Nussentials’ MORE! to their food.

We recently pulled 2 puppies from a local shelter on their last day before being euthanized. We named them Smokey and Bandit. They had been at the shelter for over a month. They are the sweetest pups on earth, but were very malnourished and wormy. We started shaking 1/2 tsp of MORE onto their dry food, and got them to the vet to be wormed. Smokey’s coat was very dull and very thin around his neck, down his back, and in spots on his legs. A test for demodex, a non-contagious form of mange, was negative. The vet felt his sparse coat was the result of poor nourishment.

He visited the vet again a week later, and in one week he had gained 4.2 pounds, in spite of being treated for worms! Amazing! His coat was still poor but she expected it would improve in a month or two.

The next day, our first order of PET RESTORE! arrived and we started adding it to his food. That day we took a photo to document his thin coat. Eight days later, he has gained another 3 pounds, and his coat is now shiny and thick. The photos below show Smokey before and 8 days later after using Nussentials’ MORE! and PET RESTORE!

BEFORE: Dull, thin coat, fur missing around neck, on back and legs

AFTER: Soft, silky, shiny, thick coat

And now appearing in the puppy crate

Well, as I said in the last post's comments, Bob the pitiful pittie puppy was adopted over the weekend so never got to come live with us. Instead, this afternoon we picked up two, yes, TWO, puppies from the York County shelter that had to be out by 5PM today.

They are approx 10 weeks old, male, beagle and who knows what mixes. Cute as all get out, of course, and very sweet. Love to be held and play. Here they are: Smokey and the Bandit!






Bandit has a white line on his forehead and a white dot on his nose just like Molly did. Smokey looks like his toes were dipped in white paint. This is going to be interesting!

>>> Smokey and Bandit's petfinder page

Molly moves on...

Wow, that was fast! in the 4 days I had Molly listed on Petfinder, she got 650 hits, and several great applications were received for her. Yesterday Jim and I took her to meet a man in Lake Wylie, SC, and tomorrow he's going to pick her up and take her to her forever home. He's retired and his wife is retiring next week. She has been begging for a dog for a while, so this will be a little surprise for her. Should make her retirement very interesting!
I'm flying out to Colorado for the weekend, so I won't be here to see her off. All her things are packed - vet records, a few days' worth of food, her first hearguard and frontline. Jim will add in a few of her favorite toys.

As always, I'll miss her. She's so adorable! But I know she is going to a good home and will want for nothing. We'll check in with her in a few weeks and see how she's doing. Till then we'll wonder how she's doing, if she's behaving, and if she likes her new home.

On Monday, Bob will move into the puppy crate. He's a little pitty puppy that was neglected and left for dead, rescued near death by my friend Cindy 3 weeks ago. She hovered over him, giving him IV fluids for a whole weekend. Now he's doing great. Jim and I went over to see him last night. He loves to be held and sat in Jim's lap for a long time. He's on Petfinder as "Cowboy Bob", dressed in a cowboy outfit with a hat and everything. TOO CUTE!

>>> Bob's" Petfinder Page

Good Golly, Miss Molly!

Here she is, our new foster puppy, Molly! She's a trip. Very cute, loves to play. We think she's only 6-8 weeks old, and she weighs 6.0 pounds. Loves to play. Has the prettiest blue eyes. Cried every few hours all night to go outside. :-) She's smart, I think we have a puppy einstein on our hands!

Here comes Trouble!

You knew we couldn't go puppy-less for long! Tomorrow we're taking in a puppy that, of course, was dumped by the side of the road in Rock Hill, SC. Who could do that to an 8 week old puppy?
Well, anyway, the people that found her nicknamed her Trouble. We'll probably re-name her so's not to give her a bad reputation. She's a black lab mix with a white dot on her nose, a white streak on her head, white chest and white paws. Sounds adorable, and I'm sure she is!

Today was Jim's birthday. We had a nice dinner with friends, a quiet day, and this evening Helen invited the neighbors for cake and coffee. We love our neighborhood, and have made some great friends here, so it was good fun.

I also heard from Simon's mom, too!

"Here's some great news for you! He didn't cry Monday or last night at all. We took him out at 10:30 for his last walk and then put him in the crate and said good night. He was pooped for sure :-) We didn't hear a peep from him until morning. I came downstairs and he was standing up waiting for me and we went outside and took care of business. That was about 5:00 am. The early morning is when I do my devotion time, so he then cuddled up on the couch with me after breakfast and chewed on a bone while I read... of course then the kids get up and quiet time is over! He's done great during the days as well. There's been no accidents in his crate and only one in that puppy bed that you saw (such as it is with life... remember we said that we were fine if he messed up the carpet because it was old and coming up soon... so he pees on the NEW bed. Oh, well, that's what they make deodorizer for!) We are doing great! I will send pictures this weekend for sure :-) I can't thank you enough for taking such good care of him for us. He's a joy!"

It's so good to hear that he's doing well. He's destined for a wonderful life! :-)

Coming up - another happy/sad day

Tomorrow morning I'm helping Mari transport 5 puppies to a vet in York, SC, that are on their way to be transported to New York. We'll probably cover a few hundred miles.

Then I'll get home, play with our foster puppy Simon for a while, then Jim and I have the honor/pleasure/sad task of taking him to his new home. The good news is he's being adopted by a wonderful family. The sad news is that our time with him has reached an end.

He has been a wonderful house guest, sweet, funny, bouncy little puppy. Probably a Jack Russell/yellow lab mix. He's a little guy. Took to his crate and house training right away. Always tells us when he needs to go out. Loves to play with balls and stuffed toys, and most of all, loves to play with his Aunt Casey and Aunt Noir.

Tomorrow evening will be quiet. I know I'll cry tomorrow night and wonder if he is scared to be in a strange place where the mom and dad and aunts he's known are no longer there.

And soon there will be another need... another homeless, cast-off puppy will need our help. And the crate will come back into the dining room and we'll be smothered in puppy kisses again.
Here are some photos and a movie of Simon:

Sissy is my co-pilot

It was another large number of dogs and cats on the transport Saturday - 34 dogs and puppies, and 2 kittens.
My passengers were all really well behaved, sweet dogs. First in was Thumper, a 50 pound Australian Shepherd mix. He hopped right up and into his crate like he was ready for an adventure.

Next loaded was Aussie (Austin), a red merle Austrailian shepherd, who had just been neutered Friday. It was a delicate surgery because he was cryptorchid. His testicals never fell, and one was found attached to a kidney. Poor baby! We carefully lifted him into and out of the car. I walked him first and when he had a bowel movement he cried out in pain. I felt so terrible for him, to be just out of surgery and have to travel all day.

I also had two scruffy dogs, Holly and Mickey D. And then there was a little heart stealer named Sissy. She's a scruffy Jack Russell Terrier. I tethered her to the front seat and she curled up and went to sleep. I scratched her ears and petted her all the way to Charlotte, then Mari grabbed her for her lap for the leg to Salisbury.

Thumper

Aussie


Holly

Mickey D

tan puppy

Mari had two puppies who weren't getting along in the one crate, so I put one of them in my extra crate and the cutest little tan retriever mix rode with me to Salisbury.

I love driving transport. I can't imagine a time when I wouldn't jump at the chance to participate. Most of the people we meet are great, and I look forward to seeing them every time.

Thursday afternoon Mari and I drove to the horrible Gaston shelter again and pulled one dog and transported it to Huntersville. This is the shelter we swore we'd never go to again. BUT.... we knew we couldn't live with ourselves if we avoided the place to ease our minds, and left dogs there that could get out with our help. So we went. One of the shelter workers brought the dog out to our car. Then he handed me the leash and said, "Oh, by the way, she's aggressive to strangers. That's why her owner turned her in."

LOVELY. So here we stand, two 50+ year old women, with a 50 pound dog that needs to get up into the back of Mari's Ford Expedition. The dog was scared spitless. We weren't much better! But I finally steeled myself, talked to her in a low voice, and with my very best Dog Whisperer-style calm, assertive mindset, I slowly picked her up and put her in the crate. Then sighed a huge sigh of relief! She hadn't so much as looked at me. :-) Of course, I had pictured myself with a bite to the arm or neck. But she was a very good girl. She was nervous, sat in the crate all the way to Huntersville. She calmed down pretty quick once she got out of the car and went into a pen. She even wagged her tail before we left.

You just never know!

You can support rescue transports with a tax deductable donation to Animal Adoption League

Animal Adoption League is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Thank you!!