Choices

Sometimes when there's room at Toronto Animal Services South, they'll bring in dogs from other jurisdictions to try to get them adopted out in Toronto. Quite often these dogs are from Quebec but sometimes TAS will also select dogs from the U.S., usually from a high kill shelter in Ohio because the contacts, process and transport are established.

So how do you choose the dogs? There's only so much money. There's only so much space. You can't take them all. Do you choose the puppies because they will go quickly or do you leave them behind because you hope they'll stand an okay chance of being adopted even where they are? Do you choose the older dogs because they have no chance where they are or do you leave them behind because, well, they're older dogs and most people don't want them? Do you choose the black dogs because there's some prejudice against black dogs in the States and not so much here? Do you choose the purebreds or the mutts? Do you choose the big or small? Do you choose the shy or the outgoing?

It might seem like a feel good job to be able to do something like that, rescue dogs from elsewhere, but how good would it feel if you knew that in choosing one dog, the ones not chosen would likely die? How do you choose?

(click on images to enlarge)









These are ones that were chosen from the above and with help from Open Arms Rescue, they arrived in Toronto a couple of days ago:

Roman

Rollo

Raisin

Parker

Jayden

Godspeed to these five in finding their new homes and God help those left behind.

For adoption information on these and other dogs (and cats and other animals), please visit Toronto Animal Services.

Scenes from a dog park - 7

Is there such a thing as Thanksgiving Eve? There should be as a lot of people I know are celebrating the holiday with friends and family tonight, Sunday, the day before Thanksgiving proper up here in Canada.

It's a gorgeous day for Thanksgiving Eve. The sun is out in strength like it hasn't been for a while now. The air is cool and fresh. Leaves are starting to fall and right now they're at the point where they're still decorative on our sidewalks and yards and not yet the cause of more raking and bagging and disposing.

I brought Stella to the park behind Medieval Times by the CNE grounds this morning, something which I don't do very often anymore because we've been mostly leash walking these days. When Stella is off leash she just stands around or sniffs a few spots or grazes on grass - and that's not enough exercise and like most of us city folk, she needs her exercise.

The park used to be an unofficial off leash park and it's ideal for that. It's totally fenced in and except for a few weeks in August when the CNE turns it into a parking lot, only people with dogs ever use it. I say it used to be an unofficial off-leash park because in the last month it's become an official on-leash park with signs posted up indicating that compliance with the by-law is mandatory.

I'm not sure how much the new signage has impacted on the usage of the park by dog owners but when I was there this morning, no one else was there. In fact, when I walk by it on most mornings now, I hardly ever see anyone. The park isn't always heavily trafficked but you can usually count on there being a few dogs running around especially on a great weather day like today.

I started bringing Stella to the park the first year I got her. It was an overgrown field back then, a bit of a dump and unused, with fencing that was falling over. A fellow dog walker and I started going in there and letting our dogs have the run of the place because even though the fencing wasn't perfect, it kept our dogs contained and safe. Pretty soon, other people began bringing their dogs in as well and soon there were maybe 6 or 7 of us fairly consistently using the place. A couple of months into it, though, CNE security chained up the one entrance gate and we were locked out.

Not wanting to give up on the park, a few of us found out who was in charge of the place and talked to them and eventually got them to open up the park for us again. The CNE even went so far as to fix up the fencing, put in additional exit gates and started maintaining the field on a regular basis. It was all pretty nice, idyllic even, a worry free bit of fully fenced in parkland for dogs in a city where something like that is almost impossible to come by.

It may have been tempting and easy enough to keep the park a secret - after all, it was out of the way and no one really knew about it except for the handful of us - but instead we spread the word that it was open and that it was a great place for dogs to go off-leash without the owners having to worry about runaway dogs or traffic or parents with small children.

It may have been tempting to keep the park a secret and maybe we should have. The place became quite popular and along with increased usage, came problem users, not many, but enough. One professional dog walker used to come by with her eight or ten dogs, let them through the gate and then spend the next 10 or 15 minutes talking on her cell phone, eating her Egg McMuffin breakfast while her dogs crapped all over the place. She'd make an effort to pick some of it up but she missed a lot of it. Another guy used to unload his dozen dogs into the park and shout marching orders at them like some army sergeant, which the dogs would for the most part ignore, and it was all quite entertaining in a that's kind of fucked up behaviour sort of way for the rest of us as we watched. As his dogs crapped, he'd bag the stuff and then long distance throw them in the direction of one of the exit gates with the intention of gathering them up on his way out. I'd never seen flying blue bags of shit before that and wouldn't even have cared much except that inevitably the guy would miss a bag or two on his way out and then someone else would have to pick up after him.

It wasn't just the professional dog walkers, though. There were also dog owners who started showing up who wouldn't pick up after their dogs. It only takes one or two like that to ruin the park for everyone else. One dog, two craps a day over the course of a year - that's over 700 piles of crap and that's enough to turn any clean park into a poop minefield.

There were other problems as well, like aggressive dogs running loose, dog fights, dog owner politics, ticket happy Toronto Parks and Rec Officers - including one who exhibited clear signs of stalking female dog owners. Most of these problems, though, got sorted out and certainly there was nothing happening there that any other dog park in Toronto didn't face.

Over the years, most of the original group of dog owners disappeared. Last year, the friend who first started using the park with Stella and myself moved to another part of Toronto. By that point, I wasn't really using the park very much anymore either, only occasionally stopping in at the end of a walk and only for a few minutes to let Stella say hello to some familiar faces.

This past summer, the park gates were locked up again. I made a few phone calls to the CNE only to find that the person I used to deal with about park issues was no longer there and no one seemed to know who exactly was in charge anymore. Eventually, I got connected with someone in marketing of all things and was told that the park was locked due to the city workers' strike. Another dog owner made a few calls as well and was told the park was locked up because it was too filthy with dog feces - which it wasn't.

I suggested we get a group organized to try to get the bottom of this and we managed to get a few names together on an e-mail list but that's about as far as it went. No one really seemed that interested in making any phone calls or doing any digging on how to get the park back and I didn't want to be the point person on this because I hardly used the park anymore.

The CNE came and went and sometime in mid September, the locks were taken off the gates but the new leash law signs went up. There's not much point in bringing a dog to a fenced in park if the dog has to stay on-leash. It's no different from any other place in Toronto. It's about as helpful as bringing our dogs to the library. Locking the gates to the park for over a month, drove all the dog owners away. Now the by-law enforcement policy seems to be keeping them away.

So, there I was with Stella, standing in the middle of a nicely manicured little park, with the sun out and a cool breeze announcing the arrival of fall. Stella grazed a bit, every so often looking up to the gate to see if anyone was coming in. No one else came in.

Update on Victor and Luna

From Victor's (aka Quincy) owners to TAS:

I wanted to send you this picture of Inka AKA Luna and Quincy AKA Victor who met at the park on Monday. They have become very good friends.

Thanks for all your hard work in trying to get them a home. Quincy is doing very well and we love him very much.


Looks like someone used the shrink ray machine on Luna and ended up with Victor (or vice versa).

Another photo of Luna here.

Toronto Animal Services Friday review, Oct. 9

Dawson

Dawson is a Rottweiler/German Shepherd mix and he's a splendid young dog. I'm not sure how old he is but he's still got a puppy look and puppy moves. He's one of those dogs who approaches people with big butt wags while lowering himself in preparation for the possibility of a tummy scratch.

Deuce

Deuce, an older Collie, is a great people dog and will bond quickly with a human companion but doesn't much like other dogs. That's fine. At his age, I'm sure he'd prefer to just go on calm walks with his owner over rough housing at the dog park.

Roxy

Roxy is a Boston Terrier and will be gone in 5 seconds when she hits the adoption floor.

This batch of dogs rescued in Montreal by:
Thanks to Lucy, one of the volunteer dog walkers at TAS, for driving these guys from Quebec.

For adoption information on these and other dogs (and cats and other animals), please visit Toronto Animal Services.

Grace

Taking in an older, sick animal is undoubtedly one of the highest forms of altruism. The payback is a few more weeks, months or, if exceptionally lucky, years of a good life for the animal at the risk of almost certain heartbreak for the owner.

A little over a year ago, a friend, Gudrun, took home a dog from Toronto Animal Services who was deemed too old and sick to be put into general adoption and would have almost certainly been euthanized. Gudrun gave Gretel a welcoming home and much love and when Gretel passed away a month ago, it was terribly sad, as is the passing of every cherished pet, but there was consolation knowing that Gretel had lived at least a good year at the end of her life.

Missing the pitter patter of canine feet, Gudrun started looking around for another dog, again focusing on seniors as those are the dogs most often overlooked by the adopting public. So, I introduced Gudrun to Mabel.


Mabel's age is a bit of a mystery but she's no young 'un. The TAS vet placed her at between eight and ten years old and while old age alone would not have failed her in the health test, her diseased kidney in combination with some other ailments did.

Gudrun met Mabel for the first time on Friday, and on Saturday, Gudrun took Mabel home.


Mabel is now Ursula and after a bit of an iffy start with Gudrun's cats, she's now settled in quite nicely. Let's hope Ursula's health issues don't prevent her from enjoying the time she has left, however long that may be.

Update on Ursula here.

Nightmare on Elm Street

It's pretty obvious from the twitching and noise making and REMing that all dogs do when they are asleep that they dream and since they dream, I wonder if they have nightmares and if they have nightmares I wonder what they have nightmares about.

It's around 2 a.m. Rocky is in a deep sleep when he suddenly snorts and pops up wide awake and scurries out of the bedroom in the dark, bumping into things and slipping on the wooden floor in his eagerness to get out of the room and downstairs. At first I think he maybe needs to go out for a bathroom break - though that would be very unusual and quite worrying actually as Rocky has got an iron gut - but, no, he's not interested in going out. After a few minutes, I persuade him to go back upstairs and back to his bed but he just as he touches down, it's like he recalls something deeply unpleasant and he grunts and he pulls himself up and runs downstairs again. After that, I can't get him to go back upstairs.

Rocky is not one of those dogs who instantly wakes. He likes to loll about and snort and lick his paws and rub his eyes. For him to jump out of bed from a deep sleep is quite extraordinary. Then to rush out of the room for no reason other than to escape the room is quite disconcerting. I'd almost be tempted to blame a ghost, not that I believe in ghosts, but hey, you never know what spirits might be haunting a 130 year old house. I'd be tempted to blame a ghost but Stella, who is sleeping in her bed right beside Rocky's bed, is watching all the commotion with much annoyance. She wants the lights off and silence please if you don't mind. There are no ghosts disturbing Stella's sleep so I'm guessing that whatever it was that disturbed Rocky, disturbed him alone.

Downstairs, Rocky stands by me for a few minutes then he goes and lies down on the bed in the living room but he doesn't sleep. He lies there with his head up, staring at me in the semi-darkness. I go over to him give him a pat on the head and check his stomache for bloat but don't notice anything unusual and feel his heart which seems a bit more speedy than normal. After a few more minutes, I want to get back to sleep so I beckon him to follow me upstairs but he won't come. He just watches me at I climb the stairs. Rocky is a Velcro dog so for him to stay downstairs by himself is very odd. Something really must have freaked him out upstairs. I'm thinking he had a nightmare.

In the time I've had Rocky, this has happened three times, though the other two times I managed to convince Rocky to go back up. Was there a monster in his dreams that he now thinks is still in the bedroom? Do dogs even dream of monsters and if so, what's a monster for a dog? I would think if a real monster appeared on the scene, most dogs would bark at them, chase them around and generally be a nuisance to them. The only thing I've ever seen Rocky run away from is a squeaky toy. Could he have been dreaming about monsters with squeaky toy voices?

So, questions for you all. Do your dogs have nightmares? Do they bark and howl in their sleep? Do they sleepwalk? Do they wake you up in the middle of the night, frantic and looking for reassurances?

Sometimes I need an editor

Dakota, a Beagle, and Butch and Angel, a couple of bonded Miniature Pinschers, have not been adopted yet and I think part of the reason is that the photos I originally took of them rather suck. So, a couple of days ago I took them out for a reshoot and I'm thinking the results are better.

This is the original Dakota photo:

Nyeh

I don't know what I was thinking letting that one get used. It's really not a very flattering shot at all.

Here are a couple of new ones. The first one will be the new TAS adoption website photo. The second one may be used as an additional photo on the TAS Petfinder site:



I hope the new photos bring some more interest for Dakota. She's way too good a dog to still be in adoption.

The original photo for Butch and Angel don't do them any favours:


This new one puts them in a better light, I think, showing them off to be the cuddlebugs they are:


I wish the main TAS adoption website could handle multiple images because these two funny faces really need a bunch of photos to reveal the full range of their personalities:

Angel is definitely the more take charge of the two:



Whereas Butch is, well, see for yourself:



It would be nice to be able to upload videos as well so that potential adopters can be shown what to expect when they show up. One of the problems Butch and Angel have is their lousy cage presentation. They act like a couple of little wingnuts when they first see someone:



But really, they're just starved for attention and as soon as they get some, they chill right out:



Problem is, most people don't get beyond the initial barking. These two really are a lovely pair together.

Sad news on Angel here.

For adoption information on these and other dogs (and cats and other animals), please visit Toronto Animal Services.