May 3rd, 2011Now Taking Volunteer Apps for the Barn Crew!
… Chunk, Robin, Winnie, Bouncer, Eva Peace, Rosie, Josephine, Ferdi, Camellia, Jimmy Legs, Hypatia, Pepper, Arnie, Fazool, Belinda, Katie Bug, Darla Jane, Tater, Emma, Atomic Betty, Ayse …
May 2nd, 2011Birthday Barn Pups
Josephine’s parents sent us this photo today – marking the barn pups’ first B-day – also May Day. She may not look too thrilled about all the fuss, but maybe she just wants to get on with it and open up all of her presents. Read the rest of this entry »
Twelve plus years into this project, and so much of our work feels routine that activities that used to get our blood going seem like no-big-deal anymore. Like, giving interviews or arranging tricky long distance transport for dogs or massaging dicey play sessions between unlikely dog pairs until they form lasting, trustworthy friendships. Very fun and fulfilling, but not roller coaster thrilling like in years past. These things are part of the job, so to speak.
April 17th, 2011Shoot puppy first. Ask questions later.
A two year old pit bull mix, and a twelve-pound, five month old, bull terrier puppy rush to a waist-high retaining wall, barking at a pair of police officers who were knocking at their door to do a probation check on their owner. One of the officers pepper sprays the puppy, and then pulls out his gun, and shoots her. A twelve-pound puppy. This has got to be a joke, right?
April 16th, 2011Shoot first. Ask questions later.
A two year old pit bull mix, and a twelve-pound, five month old, bull terrier puppy rush to a waist-high retaining wall, barking at a pair of police officers who were knocking at their door to do a probation check on their owner. One of the officers pepper sprays the puppy, and then pulls out his gun, and shoots her. A twelve-pound puppy. This has got to be a joke, right?
April 5th, 2011introducing dogs
We love doing new dog intros because you never know exactly how they’re going to go, so they always bring excitement and surprises. It’s key to keep our own body language and voices happy so the dogs don’t signal off of any stress we might have about a match up. If it doesn’t go as well as we’d like, we know we’ve just moved a little too fast, so we usually try again on another date. In our experience, most boy-girl matches can succeed if both dogs are reasonably well socialized and the intros are done at the right pace for the dogs involved.
March 29th, 2011Fool’s Day: Buy your local rescuer a margarita pleeze
April Fool’s Day is this Friday. It’s going to be BR’s 12 year anniversary, and to celebrate we’d love to honor all the other overworked, under-partied pit bull rescuers who are out there doing good deeds.
March 21st, 2011when librarians judge books by their covers
A few weeks ago, when a crew from PBS was making plans to come into town to film the former Vick dogs, they asked if they could see Jonny Justice working as a reading assistant dog in the Peninsula Humane Society’s ‘PAWS for Tales’ reading to dogs program. They’d heard great things about the work he’s been doing with encouraging kids to read out loud and wanted to film this for their viewers.
March 5th, 2011Let’s do the time warp: The funeral of ‘Spot’
February 27th, 2011Bitchin’ about Hitchin’
I’ve been meaning to write about this ever since I presented at the ASPCA’s Spay Neuter Summit in New York way back in September. The day after my talk I had time to tool around town and visit a friend. On my way over I came upon this poor gal and of course waited awhile to see if her person showed up, and they didn’t. So I took a couple photos with the idea of raising the topic of tying dogs out when I got back.