For the sake of keeping us all together and making new friends in the pet blogosphere I have started talking about my favorite pet blogs once a week. This week’s Pet Blog of the Week is Lab Tails.

Lab Tails is about the lives of FIVE Labrador Retrievers: Ridge, Pinot, Elsie, Baxter and Kenya. They are all great friends and seem to have so much fun playing together, sharing sticks and toys, cuddling on the dog hammock, etc.

Lab Tails is written by the labs’ human Mom. She says her blog is about “observations about and lessons learned from three (no, make that four) (now it’s FIVE) Labrador Retrievers.”

These five playful labs have a HUGE plot of fenced in yard to play in. They seem to be spoiled (just like we are - this is now Benson and Gibson typing this up - we stole the laptop while she wasn’t looking). Their human Mom bought them dog hammocks (raised beds) that we are just dying to try out! They are so cool and keep dogs off the ground!

These labs always have so much fun retrieving (check out this post of a triple-threat retrieve). Some (or one of?) them are bred so they can keep up the family name (how important for a strapping retriever!).

This is one of our favorite pictures of the Lab Tails’ dogs:

If you are looking for some entertainment and fun, we encourage you to check out Lab Tails. It’s one of our new favorites!

Wags,

Benson and Gibson

This poem was given t0 me by the owner of Russell Rescue and Multiple Breed Rescue at Crazy W Farm in Elyria, Ohio. It’s source is anonymous.

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Once I was a lonely dog just looking for a home. I had no place to go, no one to call my own. I wandered up and down the streets in rain, in heat, in snow. I ate whatever I could find, I was always on the go.

My skin would itch, my feet were sore, and my body ached with pain. No one stopped to give me a pat or gently say my name. I never saw a loving glance, I was always on the run. For people thought that hurting me was really lots of fun.

Then one day I heard a voice so gentle, kind and sweet, with arms so soft that reached down to me and took me off my feet. “No one again will hurt you,” was whispered in my ear. “You’ll have a home to call your own where you will know no fear.”

“You will be dry, you will be warm, you’ll have enough to eat. And rest assured that when you sleep, your dreams will all be sweet.” I was afraid, I must admit, I’ve lived so long in fear. I can’t remember the last time when I let a human come so near.

As she tended to my wounds and bathed and brushed my fur, she told me about this “rescue group” and what it meant to her.

She said, “we are a circle, a line that never ends.. In the center of it, there is you protected by new friends. All around you are the ones that check the pounds, and those who share their homes with you after you’ve been found.”

“All the other folks are searching near and far, to find the perfect home for you, where you can be a star.” She said, “there is a family, they are waiting very patiently, and pretty soon we’ll find them, just you wait and see.”

“And then they’ll join our circle, they’ll help to make it grow, so there’ll be room for more like you who have no place to go.”

I waited very patiently. They days, they came and went. Today is the day, I kept on thinking, my family will be sent. Then just when I began to think it wasn’t meant to be, there were people standing there gazing down at me.

“I could tell they felt it, too, for a special dog like you.”

Now every night I say a prayer to all the Gods that be. Thank you for the life I live and all you’ve given me. But most of all, protect the dogs in the pounds and in the streets. And send a Rescue Person to them to lift them off their feet.

Every year the American Kennel Club comes out with a list of the Most Popular Purebred Dogs (based on 50 major U.S. cities).  It’s funny to me how the breeds in here run the gamut, but I wonder why so many of the breeds that I know and love get left out.

The big headline this year was that, bringing up the rear end at Number 10, the Bulldog once again made the Top Ten list (after a 75-year abscence). As usual the Labrador Retriever topped the list followed by the Yorkshire Terrier, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Beagle and Boxer.

The Dachshund comes in at Number 7; easy to see why so many people prefer these precious pooches if you check out the funny photos at Dogster’s Dog Blog.

The rest of the list holds Poodles and Shih Tzus coming in before the English Bulldog.

The AKC’s list is based on registrations trends, so who knows how many pups from those purebred litters actually get sold directly to families (whimper).  Plus, they don’t count really popular mixed breeds like the Golden-Doodle and Puggle.

Personally, I think rescue dogs and strays make a pretty darn good sweetie, too. (Check out Dogs’ Aye View for some fresh rescue perspective.)

 I would also like to see Bassett Hounds, Blood Hounds and Pit Bulls make a comeback (numbers 31, 43 and 58, respectively) !

Share with me; give your perspective on what your favorite breeds are.

As a Cleveland, Ohio native I like to keep abreast of animal welfare issues locally and regionally.

A friend of mine who owns/runs the Ohio chapter of Russell Rescue Inc. and her own Multiple Breed Rescue recently informed me that Ohio is the second-largest purveyor of puppy mills in the country.

Although sickened I was not surprised.

Wayne Pacelle, CEO of The Humane Society of the United States mentioned in his blog, A Humane Nation last November that Ohio is an “enclave”for puppy mills.  And heart4animals.com mentions that its been over 30 years since an actual amendment to the Federal Animal Welfare Act imposed standards on wholesale breeders. That leaves the door wide open for so-called “dog farmers” to continue the horrid and repeated abuse and neglect of dogs in mills.

Last fall I encountered one of these puppy mills and also found a separate mill dog chained to a garbage heap. Albeit a small one, the mill was for purebred German Shepherds. It was located in “apple country” across the street from an orchard that my sister and I sought out for fresh-from-the-tree apples. We were nostalgic about the apple orchard; it was a favorite Sunday activity when we were kids.

We were having a great time until we became disillusioned at the site of a massive garbage heap in the middle of the orchard. We immediately dumped the apples. The heap had been burned and was filled with old food cans, beer bottles, various metal scraps, burned pumpkins, trash, and paraphernalia that we couldn’t identify.

Our dogs, who were running free, sniffed around and were grossed out so they did a perimeter check. They would normally greet any other person or dog with open paws and wagging tails. When they first sniffed out poor Ruby (as her nametag suggested) on the heap, however, they came back around to us with tails between legs and droopy drawers faces. 

Against my better judgment I approached the dog. She seemed friendly enough and was itching for me to come to her. I was horrified to find her chafed and bloody neck from the choker chain confining her. Her ribs were poking out of her body. She was whimpering. I got the choker off her neck and it was like she hadn’t run free in years. She politely thanked me then took off running through the rows of trees panting away, ears blowing in the wind.

We asked the orchard owners and employees about the dog and they said they didn’t know what we were talking about and it must be a stray. Yeah right.

I immediately called the local chapter of the Animal Protective League (APL). In the meantime my sister and I repeatedly went back to try to take Ruby. We left TONS of food all over the place for her. She just wouldn’t come to us though.

The APL couldn’t get an officer out until two days later. I imagine they were quite busy with similar complaints and they are greatly understaffed in Ohio. The owner wouldn’t call the officer back at first.  The officer just went out there after a couple more days and the orchard owner denied having the dog. The officer persisted and the owner said it was his dog but that he had let her go months ago.

Let her go? More like chained her to the garbage in the middle of the orchard to die of starvation and hypothermia.

We found out the next day after the APL had made an effort to capture Ruby that the owner went out into the orchard and shot and killed her. Ruby, undoubtedly a product of one of the many surrounding mills, had just found freedom again. And he killed her rather than dealing with the consequences. He even showed the officer her body.

As for the German Shepherd “breeder” across the street? We lodged complaints with multiple local animal welfare agencies and groups and no one could do a thing. They are so understaffed and the problem is so rampant here that it’s hard to make a dent in the issue. Those shepherds were chained to a cement pad in the backyard, males separated from females. They howled when a car drove up. They paced around their cages. They had no water and no food. They looked pathetic. It w as obvious that they were either inbred or being used for breeding again and again and again. Why a person would buy a dog from there I cannot understand. Most likely those pups went to pet stores.

I think many animal fanatics subscribe to the theory that pet shops and puppy mills are close buddies. When one buys a pet from a pet shop, or even shops for pet supplies there they are (hopefully unknowingly) contributing to a heartless underground industry that forces dogs to spend their entire lives in small cages on cold cement floors. They are underfed and under-watered and are constantly bred to support “consumer demand” for puppies according to www.StopPuppyMills.com.

Do not be fooled by breeders and websites claiming the best of the best and showing green, lush surroundings and healthy looking animals. It’s usually quite another story if you go directly to a breeder after most of the dogs have been taken. Animals who don’t get adopted are sent to pet stores, left to die, or sometimes even sold to the black market trade for medical laboratory testing (which I will be writing an entirely separate post about soon).

And according to the Humane Society of the United States, websites “allow puppy millers to cut out the middlemen by selling directly to consumers. Not only is this more profitable, but in most states it allows the puppy mill to avoid being inspected by government agencies.”

There are tons of shelters and breed rescue groups that have dogs waiting for adoption. Contact the Humane Society of the United States Companion Animals staff at 202.452.1100 for help finding one. Or visit www.PuppyBuyersGuide.com for help finding a breeder who isn’t running a puppy mill.

If you live locally in Northern Ohio and want to support a local rescue organization, visit www.crazywfarm.com for Russell Rescue Inc. (for the cutest Jack Russell Terriers), and Multiple Breed Rescue, a shelter for all types of breeds. The shelter is clean with tons of open space, and the dogs are very well taken care of.

For more information on the Humane Society’s puppy mill undercover investigation efforts, visit Pacelle’s A Humane Nation, one of my favorite blogs.

Go to www.StopPuppyMills.com to sign a pledge to spread the word about deadly mills. Word-of-mouth is the best and most proven form of advertising and the more signatures the better.

One last thing – never stop at Miller Orchard in Amherst, Ohio for apples, cider or pumpkins.