E-mail to the No-Kill shelter who was going to kill my dog.

Yet again, this is shelter who was going to kill my lovely boy party because of temperament testing. I decided to write them about Party in the hopes that they might change their mind about killing adoptable animals on the basis of temperament testing, which is set up for dogs to fail. According to the test Party was positive for rough play, food aggression and possession aggression. He has neither.

And what is almost worst is that dogs who actually have these issues can be rehabilitated and become perfectly loving dogs too.

Anyway here is the letter:

Hello,

This is Amanda Dickie, you redeemed a dog to me last November he was a young rotti named Party. I just wanted to let you know that he is the sweetest dog out there. And despite what your tests may have indicated, he does not have possession aggression or food aggression. He met my mother for the first time on the ride home and was eating chips out of her hand the whole way back.

When we arrived home we had him sitting and waiting for his food, once or twice he jumped the gun and started eating before he had permission and my 54 year old mother was able to pull him back off his food with no protest. After he got settled here everyone approaches him while eating and he is fine. My mother and I regularly take his food dish from him while he is eating and he is just fine with waiting for us to give it back.

He is learning to take treats gently from people and whenever he is to rough we always take them back and try again until he gets it right. He has never growled, snapped or bitten anyone since leaving your shelter. We also have four cats, who occasionally eat out of his bowl and he will sit back and wait for them to finish. He is patience and still waiting for the day they all accept him.

There is a constant flow of new and strange people in and out of our house and party is excited and happy to meet everyone of them. He no longer jumps on people when they come to the door, and is happy when strangers approach him even when he is tied on outside the home. He also loves small children and is extra gentle around them.


He regularly brings his toys over to people to play and even if he's gone off in a corner to play alone will give up any toy when asked. Everyone at one point or another has had to take toy pieces out of his mouth. Our older and smaller dog is able to take any toy he is playing with and she occasionally eats out of his dish and he waits until she leaves to resume eating. Party and Claire (our older dog) share a water dish and he is usually left waiting for her to finish before he drinks. However, at times when he is drinking she will push her way in and they will both drink together. They eat and get treats next to eat other, Party is always last but he waits patiently and never tries to take hers away.

The more comfortable cats have begun drinking out of the water bowl while Party is drinking or sniffing them. And even when the tense cats hiss or swat at him he remains calm. He doesn't even bark when people come into the house.

He hates having his nails cut and teeth brushed but he remains calm during the whole ordeal. Even when I accidentally quick him.

This dog is one of the kindest, gentlest and friendliest dogs I have ever met. We do things to him that would have my older lovely girl seeing red. Kids pull his tail, blow in his ears and pull on his cheeks nothing bothers him.

We just wanted to pass along this message in the hopes that you might reconsider using temperament testing as it is an unfair system that sets perfectly adoptable friendly loving dogs up for failure.

Thank you,
Sincerely Amanda
506-849-3950
With Love, Amanda Dickie
"As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together."
- Isaac Bashevis Singer,Writer, Nobel laureate (1904-1991)


I just get so fustrated every time I think that they were going to kill him because he was "dangerous", "aggressive", etc. When he is the sweetest boy I have ever met. GRRR

Obama abandons shelter dogs

As some of you may have heard, Obama has back tracked on his promise to adopt from a shelter and has sadly gone to a breeder. I took some time to write him a letter and would suggest if this or anything else upsets or disappoints you that maybe you take the time to write one too.

I just wanted to let you know how disappointed I am that you went out and bought a dog from a breeder. There are plenty of hypo-allergenic dogs literally dieing for good homes across your country and you've signed their death warrant. Sir, you may only be one man, and one family providing a single home for your new dog and closing a single door for the other dogs in need, but with your example being broadcast globally your actions have far greater effects.

As the president people across this earth look up to you, and will likely be following your example. You had a real shot to make a difference, but instead you have let us down. Thanks to your example finding loving homes for homeless dogs across this country just got a lot harder.

Sincerely disappointed,
Amanda Dickie

p.s. Although the specific breed you are inquiring about may not be as common as abandoned pitbulls or labs, you are the president and any dog fitting your specifications would have been reserved, held and adopted into your loving home within seconds. So please do not try to blame this on it being to difficult, because for if finding a homeless dog in America is to hard for our president, then we are in deep economic trouble sir.

My own advice, how I rarely follow

I am so sick and tired of always giving 100% of relationships. I want some take with my gives damn it.

I don't write songs

Chorus:
Fuck you, and all of the things you do.
Fuck you, and everything about you.
Fuck you, Cause you know that I wanted to./I've wanted to.

Everyday have you running through my veins.
Because you know its you that i'll keep on running to.
Cannot seem to get you out of my brain.

The way you move, there is just something about you.
But fuck all that shit you put me through.
Cause I don't have time for you.

Or these games you love to play,
just cut the shit and say what you really mean
Oh, yeah I wishyou could just man up and say what the fuck you feel.

And when we said, our goodbyes
You know I thought of kissing you,
I planned it out but didn't occcur
Its for the best because I need to be rid of you

W.I.P.

For those who want to know (An incomplete history on Lalma)

I had this friend who's only social contact was me and my group of friends. She was bulimic, self mutalating, manipulative, told us a now believed fabricated story about another friend of ours sexual assaulting her (which we believed and she turned to me for help, so I had to sort all that out with him/keep him away from her etc. I nearly killed this friend of mine numerous times based on what she told us and convinced him to go along with.), she enjoyed drama creating it and having a fuss made about her, she enjoyed playing people off one another, she dated another friend of mine who when he told her she loved him she would say that was nice but she didn't care for him, she fucked with everyone going so far as to ask for my protractor while sitting in another friends lap in the student lounge and using it to gauge a line down her leg until I tackled her an pulled it away.

I received numerous suicide phone calls at all hours which I had to talk her out of, so far as to removing blades etc from her hands/body, she had a disagreement with my friend she was dating so to get her way she'd choke herself and when he tried to remove her hands from her throat when she turned purple she scratched his arm and dug her nails into her own neck. She told us her father abused her (which I actually believe), he is a local cop and we once had to go to her house to remove her from his custody. During this encounter he (a 6.4 foot large bulky man hulk) blocked the doorway, telling us to leave or we'd be charged for kidnapping. All the while she was standing behind him fighting for the door, crying "Amanda please help me!" ( a phrase she used a lot, because she knew the response it would get). She is a short, bulimic 15 year old at this time, he is holding her back with one hand while threatening us to leave. I refuse. We tell him we will leave when he lets her come with us, until he cools down. She's throwing herself at him and the door failing and sobbing for me to help her. He pushed her back into a wall, and opens the door a crack to come out and threat me. She slips out past him, grabs my shoulders and hides behind me, hands digging into my shoulders, I step forward to protect her as he comes out arms raised. He goes to walk around me to grab her, I side step him grabbing his out stretched arm away from her. Repeating he go inside, he gets angrier, looks as if he is ready to hit me and I ready to hit him back, my friend drew steps in and convinces him to allow us to talk to her alone. He hands him the car keys.

Eventually we get to take her with us, that night again she slashes her arms when I turned my back. Her parents take her back the next day. This goes on for months, until one day my Fiancee tells me he wants to see other people. Namely, he wants to see her. Apparently after he'd driven me home from a party when he went back she was there and wanted to talk to him about how her on again off again relationship with our mutual friend wasn't working and to discuss what was wrong with my relationship with him. This is the first time they've ever really talked, she mentions that she loves him. So he leaves me for her. Our entire friendship circle breaks apart, until a month later when she convinces him to throw a party to get the old gang back together, except without inviting me. All my old friends go to the party and become a group again, everyone now feels to awkward to talk to me.

She transfers to my ex's school. She shows up with a friend of mine to MY prom. My ex's prom is going on in the building next to this one, yet he is there alone and she is at my prom and dances with my date.

A year later I get an e-mail from her/that group of friends about how my ex-fiancee is hitting her. I try to ignore it. But she keeps asking for help, I call him and inform him to smarten the hell up and if he hurts her, I will beat him senseless. A few months later, she's sleeping with his drug dealer roommate. She eventually leaves him for the drug dealer. They have an on again off again thing. I run into him at a bar (never met before just heard about him), he informs me that he is supposed to hate me. Because the people he hangs out with want him too, that they tell him bad things about me and how awful I am. I walk away.

*This is the short version, I spared you the details.
I still get messages/calls from friends about her or about how they want to have a get together with her, my ex and me. Or about "why do you hate her?" etc. Although I do not hate her, I would just prefer she stay out of my life unless she needs my help with something. In which case, I simply want to help her fix whatever problem/issue it is and move onto our separate lives again.

Farm Sanctuary Internship

I arrive on the farm safe and sound the other day, orientation begins soon.

:excitement:

It is amazing here, most of my posts will be on LJ. I may compile all posts into a complete internship blog, who knows.

Four Paws Inc Dog Toy result in dog's tongue loss (Warning Photos Behind Cut)

This is a heartbreaking story about Chai, 10-year old lab mix, who sustained a severe injury from a product that the company Four Paws Inc, produces on Sunday, June 22, 2008. The toy I'm referencing is the pimple ball with bell. (Item #20227-001, UPC Code 0 4566320227 9).


While chewing on the toy, a vacuum was created and it effectively sucked his tongue into the hole in the ball, his likely occurred because there is not a second hole in the ball preventing the vacuum effect from happening.

The following is a link to an animal treatment clinic that has also documented the same injury to a Shepard mix.

www.logcabinanimalhospital.com/index.php/toy-ball-stuck-on-dogs-tongue/

Chai's Owner sent this information along with the reference to Petunia the french bulldog to Four Paws Inc, and it is their position that there just aren't enough instances to do anything about this. She told their Insurance company's case manager that was not a good enough excuse, It was inferred that Chai's value wasn't much and that his pain and suffering don't count as he is just a piece of property.


This should never happen to another animal again!
I'M CALLING FOR AN INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT OF ALL FOUR PAWS PRODUCTS UNTIL THIS PRODUCT IS RECALLED. We need your help, please take the time to make your voice heard.


Please copy/paste the following into the body of your email in support of this boycott and send it to the address below to let Allen Simon the CEO of four paws know your stand;



Mr. Allen Simon,

I am in support of a boycott of your company until you recall the product pimple ball with bell,
as it is designed is such a way that irreparable damage can be caused by its use.


hbirk@fourpaws.com

Chai's full story