Thursday, December 9, 2010

eNewsletter from Planned Pethood - December 10, 2010

Please remember Planned Pethood during this holiday season. We need your help to continue the work we do the rest of 2010 and into 2011.

You can sponsor a snowflake in honor of or as a gift to someone special. Your donation will go directly to helping the dogs and cats of northwest Ohio enjoy the greatest gift of all, another chance at life!

Thank you for all you do to help us to help them! Donate Now!

Toledo's "Pit bull" Laws Repealed- New Ordinance Enacted

Toledo City Council voted to repeal the (Toledo Municipal Code) TMC 505.14 regarding the dog breed known as "pit bull" and "pit bull mixes". To replace these laws, Council enacted Ordinance 389.10 to create TMC 1706 regarding the ownership of all dogs regardless of the breed.

This ordinance goes beyond beyond those of the Ohio Revised code for any dog within the Toledo city limits. These laws cover items like barking, tethering dogs outside, leaving a dog alone and how a dog is defined as a public threat to safety. The ordinance also outlines penalties, broken down into different levels of threat. You can read the Toledo ORD 389.10 by clicking here.

Many thanks to those citizens serving on the Dog Warden Advisory Committee for crafting this important law. Thank you to the citizens who worked without end to see justice be served to the canines and their owners in our community.

3rd Annual Rescue Reunion

Winters in Ohio are cold, snowy, and LONG!!! Not the kind of weather you want to excercise with your dog. So, we have decided to move our 3rd Annual Dog Rescue Reunion from October as usual, to the beginning of 2011.

January 23, 2011 from noon to 4pm

We hope this will give you something to look forward to during the dark, deary days soon to come. It will still be held at a doggie day care facility so the dogs can play, while we enjoy each others company and eat.

Bark Ave Dog Day Care Inc.
4641 West Bancroft Street
Toledo, OH 43615-3945


Tiny Fred

Tiny Fred's story isn't all that unusual.

Someone has a cat that had kittens. They feel the kittens are a pain in the neck so they start handing them out to anyone (even if they can't care for the cat) at the first chance.

Fred and his litter mates were ripped from their mother at the tender age of 4 weeks old. Kittens and Puppies should stay withtheir mothers until at least 8 weeks.

Tiny kittens and puppies taken from their mother too soon miss out on essential nutrition from nursing and vital socialization from each other. Dogs can become very unbalanced and dangerous if separated too early.

Our volunteers often bottle feed and care for these tiny darlings until they are ready to be spay/neutered and then placed for adoption.

Planned Pethood also gets litters of kittens and puppies that are already weaned from their mother and only require a foster home for a short time.

Who Doesn't Love Puppy Kisses?

Our dog program is in desperate need of puppy fosters.
Several of our volunteers regularly search sites such as Craigslist and the area newspapers for people giving away puppies. They contact the owners and offer to take all of the puppies, and then Planned Pethood will spay/neuter all of the pets in their house, at no charge, in order to prevent more litters. Sometimes, we are contacted by the owners who request our help. Our involvement may prevent the puppies from landing in the wrong hands with bad intentions, and assures that they will be vetted and spayed/neutered before adoption.
The owners are usually anxious to rid their home of the youngsters and will surrender them as young as 5 weeks old. Our volunteers know the importance of keeping the litter together in the same home. This allows the puppies to learn socialization skills so that they become loving, well-adjusted adult dogs. There are some things that can only be taught in the dog world.
Without puppy-ready foster homes, we have had to turn away the needy litters. Fostering several puppies at a time, or even a whole litter, is not as difficult as it seems. Having more than one puppy assures that they have each other to stay entertained, and settle in easier for bedtime. Usually young puppies sleep the majority of the time, and their awake time can be spent getting puppy kisses. We have several volunteers who have been doing this for a long time and would be happy to offer their guidance. One of our foster homes even has a specially designed puppy room.
Do you have room for the makers of the Fountain of Youth? Puppy breath, mmmmmmm.

And we need people for litters of kittens too. Or just one dog or cat.

Visit our website to read about fostering and to complete an application to foster in your home by clicking here.

Good Bye Vienna

Vienna's first Heartworm treatment was as usual, tough on her. Her foster family felt helpless watching her suffer in pain knowing that there was nothing they could do for her. Vienna had a severe reaction to her second treatment. She experienced trouble breathing, foaming at the mouth and seizure activity. Her quick-acting foster family rushed her back to the vet's office for treatment.
Unfortunately, Vienna never recovered and she passed away shortly after being returned to the vet's office. All of the volunteers are very saddended by the news and her foster family is taking it extremely hard.
We feel it necessary to point out that Heartworm disease is completely preventable. A one-time a month pill, year round, at a cost of about $6 a month for Vienna is all it would have taken. Are your dogs protected? One mosquito bite is all it takes. Mosquitoes CAN travel inside houses, so even indoor dogs should be given preventative.