Pet Auto Safety

This was taken on our road trip from Texas to Kansas this holiday.

Check out Dougie in his Bergan dog car harness! His mom thanked us for sending this to her and she says she really likes it. It fits Dougie very well and he seems comfortable in it. Dougie’s mom apologized for the not being able to see the Bergan dog car harness very well in the photo. She has a two door car so getting a picture of him in the back seat at a good angle was difficult. I think the photo looks great! What do you think? Do you have a photo of your dog wearing a dog car harness? Share it with us. Share your pet travel stories and your dog car harness review too!

Visit our American Dog Blog for several Christmas dog videos including videos from a cute Yorkie name Dexter, a dog being wrapped as a Christmas present, and dogs decorating a Christmas Tree.

Click HERE to visit the American Dog Blog post on Christmas Eve.

Click HERE to visit the American Dog Blog post on Christmas day.

Have a Merry Doggy Christmas!!!

We were recently invited to join this new website for animal rescue. It is called www.PetCommando.com. And I have just had the wonderful opportunity to speak to the Pet Commando himself.

Louis Pollaro is the Pet Commando and he works with a team of other dog lovers including Jana Arnold and Damir Perge of Madman Interactive (producers of Pet Commando), Robert Lucian the groomer, and Dale Butler who provides discounted veterinary service for rescued animals.

When I had spoken to Louis Pollaro, he and some other team members had just rescued a lost dog who was wandering and heading towards the highway. The dog was nervous and kept running away from him and the others. But eventually Robert was able to entice the dog with Chicken McNuggets. A home was found for him almost immediately after his rescue. Perhaps this will be on the next Pet Commando episode.

Louis Pollaro has been rescuing animals for years. He is also a professional videographer. But it wasn’t until recently that he combined his talents and made episode 1 on Cleo the cat. Louis’ aim for making the video wasn’t to gain publicity, but to inspire others to rescue animals. Instead of driving by that poor dog wandering the streets and hoping someone else rescues him before he gets hit by a car, stop and do something. Instead of ignoring the sick or injured cat, take a moment to get him help. Our society does too much looking away and hoping someone else takes care of it. Is it really too much trouble to help a dog or cat and be a little late to work? I don’t think so and neither does Louis.

Most of the pets that Louis has owned over the years have been rescues. This includes his co-star Yoshi. Yoshi is an adorable and well-mannered Shih-Tzu who sometimes accompanies him on his missions. Louis also told me about his Poodle, Babette, who he had from when he was a teenager to adulthood (Babette lived to be 18). Babette was not a rescue but she was the runt of the litter and had to be bottle fed in order to survive.

As Babette got older, she also gradually lost her sight. Louis had rescued a cat sometime during Babette’s lifetime and the two became inseparable. This cat, by the way, was rescued and was first named Pandora – that is until Louis discovered she was a he and changed his name to Winston. Louis told me about a time when Babette had accidentally gotten outside. She could have wandered off and been lost or killed. But Winston somehow sensed the danger and kept Babette in the yard. Aren’t animals amazing! Just imagine poor Babette’s fate if Louis hadn’t stopped to rescue a cat.

It is obvious that Louis loves animals. If you love animals too, join the Pet Commando and take a stand in helping homeless and/or neglected animals. You too can be a Pet Commando. Do you have to be a videographer too? No. Do you have to have a team of vets and groomers? No. Do you have to keep the animal you rescue? No, but you should be responsible for getting him to a rescue group or a good home. To be a Pet Commando, all you have to do is stop and do the right thing.

Below is episode 3 of the Pet Commando. To view episode 1 and 2 and any future videos, be sure to check out the Pet Commando website. Sign up and be a member too! I did.

Sephi (Persephone) 4-1-2001 to 11-2-2011

Sorry, I’m not up for writing a post today. I had to let Sephi go on Wednesday. The treatment that she was given Monday evening only helped for half a day. And even then, she still wasn’t doing all that well on that half day. By Wednesday morning, she looked absolutely miserable. It was time to say goodbye.

I really loved Sephi. I remember when I got Sephi that it was right around an ugly divorce. She was my constant companion and comfort during that time. As a puppy, she needed a lot of care and this helped to keep me from falling into utter misery.  Her cute little puppy antics helped me to.

Then about one year later I had the opportunity to work for a company in Kansas. They even offered to move me there. Well, I couldn’t fly, I said, because I wanted to take my dog Sephi. So we drove and my company put me and Sephi up at the Marriott in downtown Kansas City for two weeks while I found a place to live.

While I got to know everyone at my new job, they got to know me and they got to know about Sephi. I had photos of her at work and I talked about her a lot. Some people even got to meet her.

Sephi and I have had a lot of good happy times since then. She is an aloof kind of dog. She loved to play but she didn’t demand a lot of attention. When I would come home, she let me pat her on the head then she went back to do whatever it was she was doing. She was the same with strangers. She barked viciously at a knock on the door or a ring of the doorbell. But once I opened the door and greeted the person, she let down her guard. Sometimes she would let them pet her and sometimes she would just walk away and pretend they were never there. Although Sephi wasn’t too concerned about being petted, she always liked to be in the same room as I. She didn’t, however, like it when I got on the couch or the bed with her. She would always get down if I joined her. I don’t think it was because she felt I was the alpha and she was giving me my space, I think it was because she just didn’t like it when I moved around and disturbed her sleep.  :0)

When it comes to the alpha-thing, Sephi had to be the alpha with other dogs. But she always accepted me as the alpha. She was very well-mannered and very well behaved. She learned quickly, although she wasn’t very smart in figuring things out for herself. Example, I put a dog biscuit at the bottom of her toy box. She could not figure out how to get it out and quickly gave up. Sephi was food-driven, but not that food-driven.  :0)

There are a million other good things and memories I could share about Sephi. But I don’t want to make this blog too long and bore you. Suffice it to say that I loved Sephi very very much and I will miss her terribly.

Read this nice poem about dogs and heaven that this friend of mine sent me. The poem is on my other blog, American Dog Blog.

Persephone (Sephi) 2001-?

Lately have been posting on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Well, today is Tuesday but I just don’t have it in my heart to write a pet safety article, product review, or pet travel destination article. Today I am going to be selfish and write about my dog Sephi.

Sephi, short for Persephone, is a ten-year-old Chow/Shepherd/Labrador/Border Collie mix. And she is not doing very well right now. I took her to the vet yesterday because she was suddenly not eating and too weak and dizzy to move around. The vet suspected vestibular disease which has a variety of causes including an ear infection, cancer in the inner ear, or just some neurological problem that some older dogs tend to get for no medically known reason.

But after some blood tests, the vet found even more trouble. Her red blood cell count was extremely low. He recommended that I take her to an emergency clinic right away. I took Sephi to the closest clinic about 45 miles away. They ran more tests and provided some treatment which may help Sephi feel comfortable for a short time. The vet said that there could only be three reasons why Sephi’s red blood count was so low - bone marrow disease, cancer, or an auto-immune disease. None of these have simple treatments and none of them guarantee success. At Sephi’s age, her chances at any one of them is pretty low.

So I am faced with a very difficult decision. I have three choices. I can spend thousands of dollars running tests and hoping treatments work, I can put Sephi to sleep now, or I can try to make her as comfortable as possible until it is obvious that putting her to sleep is the right decision. Some people say you should do whatever it takes, spend whatever it takes, and do everything you can to help your dog get better. Other people don’t think it is a good idea to put themselves into serious debt for something that may or may not help. This is a difficult decision to make and I won’t begrudge anyone who chooses one way or the other.

I want to spend whatever it takes but the reality is that I don’t have whatever it takes. And there is the very real possibility that treatments won’t work or at best will only extend Sephi’s life for a couple of months. If I hope for the best and do whatever it takes to give Sephi a couple more month, am I really doing it for Sephi’s benefit or my own?

The first thing I would need to do is subject Sephi to a bunch of tests which will cost hundreds of dollars and she would have to spend most of her time in a strange place around strange people. Sephi is not at all comfortable in strange places and prefers to stay at home. It is likely that making her go through all this will stress Sephi out and make her illness progress faster.

If I do the tests and find that Sephi has bone marrow disease, then the only chance for possible success is to get a blood transfusion every few days or possibly weeks. It really depends on how fast her red blood cells are being depleted. This process is almost a thousand dollars each time. If Sephi has cancer, she will have to be subject to cancer treatment which probably won’t make her feel very good. And again, the chance for success is very small depending on the extent of the cancer. If Sephi has an auto-immune disease, then she will need to be put on steroid treatment which will suppress her immune system. This will make her very susceptible to any other kind of sickness. Even something as small as a skin infection can get out of control and turn deadly. Even then, the steroid treatment is not guaranteed to work for long.

Considering the extent of Sephi’s symptoms and behavior, the chance of her being recovered from any of these three things is extremely low. And treatment for any of these three carry risks and side affects which will likely make Sephi very uncomfortable. And all this is on top of the vestibular disease problem which may or may not correct itself. Do I try anyway and hope for the best? Or do I let her go to keep her from suffering? I wish she could tell me what she wants. And I wish I could explain her options to her so could understand what is happening to her.

When we were at the veterinary hospital last night, Sephi sort of helped me make the decision. She showed interest in the things going on around her and and perked up her ears when I said the words “cookie” or “outside”. So I have done one test and some treatment which seemed to help a little bit. She has some medications which will hopefully make her more comfortable. And in order to avoid the stress of being in a strange place, I took her home last night. Depending on how she does, I can take her in form more tests and more treatments later and only a little bit at a time so that she doesn’t have to spend days in strange company.

I will keep you posted on how things go. Please pray for my girl and hope that her last days are good ones.

No words, just whining.

Maya does this for at leat the first 15 minutes of every trip! And see how much she moves around? She is wearing a dog car harness for safety but it allows her some ability to move around. Imagin what she would be like in the car without her dog car harness.

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