Cares4pets

Get a jump on your holiday shopping while supporting the great work of Cares4Pets!

2011-11-29T14:12:00.002-05:00

Do you need the perfect gifts for the health and fitness fanatics in your life? Look no further....check out Team Beachbody! From now until Christmas Day if you purchase any Beachbody product from www.beachbodycoach.com/jennifereliza 25% of all proceeds will be donated to Cares4Pets!

How can you help?

*Go to www.beachbodycoach.com/jennifereliza and click "shop". Beachbody has an extensive line of fitness videos, protein shakes, supplements, and equipment. There's something for everyone so start shopping!

*After you make your purchase, send an email to jennifereliza0@gmail.com. In the subject line please include your full name and the word Cares. No other text in the body of the email is required.

That is all you have to do!!! Together lets help Cares4Pets continue to do their amazing work! If you have any questions about the fundraising program or any of the Beachbody products, please feel free to email Jennifer at jennifereliza0@gmail.com or call/ text 215-301-2041. Have a great holiday!

Bald Dogs Aren't Old Dogs: Carter's Story

2011-10-19T11:36:00.003-04:00

On our last trip to ACCT (Philadelphia Animal Control), we walked past a cage with a little, mostly hairless pit bull puppy in it. Despite the fact that was mostly bald, pretty smelly, and super painful and itchy, Carter sat there and wagged his tail emphatically at us. Although we weren't looking for a puppy that day, we just couldn't pass him by.

Carter has a condition called demodectic mange. It's really pretty common in shelter situations, but it's usually a death sentence for the animal, even though it's not contagious and easily treated. Why? Because no one wants to adopt a bald dog, and because the word "mange" has so many negative connotation. Not to mention complete treatment takes a few months, months that shelters don't usually have.

Demodectic mange is caused by a tiny mite (demodex canis) that lives in hair follicles. All normal animals have a small number of these mites hanging around in their skin, and it's only when animals get stressed or immune-compromised that these little mites multiply and cause disease. The overgrowth of mites can cause anything from minor patchy baldness that resolves on its own to severe generalized hair loss and skin infection. This type of mange is very common in puppies who have poor nutrition, care or breeding, so we often see demodex puppies get dropped off at city shelters. Once there, they are really lucky if they ever make it back out again.

The good news is that the mites are not contagious to other animals or people and can be treated inexpensively. While it takes a lot longer to resolve in a shelter (where the animal takes up much needed room), in foster care these dogs usually recover completely and do not have long term effects from the mites. When we pass one of these guys in the shelter and have the room for them, we always jump at the chance to help an otherwise perfectly adoptable dog.

Carter is one of the most severely affected dogs we've taken in a while, but is also one of the sweetest. When he's healed, he will be a gorgeous black dog with white patches, but for now he's kind of dingy grey and pink. His mange covers almost 100% of his body, and he has very little hair, plus, he's greasy to the touch and a little smelly. He also has a severe skin infection being treated with antibiotics. This is common in demodex puppies because they are so itchy all the time; they scratch their skin open and then get a bacterial infection. But in every other way he's a normal puppy. He LOVES playing with other dogs, and he's learning basic obedience, housebreaking and how to play with toys. He's about 4 months old now and will be ready for adoption soon! Carter doesn't need to grow all his hair back to be adopted; he'll come with his medication so his adoptive family can watch him turn into a handsome black dog in their home!

Bella's story continued

2011-08-07T11:58:00.001-04:00

Our family adopted Bella after finding her on Petfinder.com. Her story is nothing short of sad and amazing. This little girl had been through so much in her young life but through her tragedy came something wonderful. She is a very happy, playful, loving young girl who has brought so much joy and happiness to our family. Adopting her was the most wonderful experience and the people with Cares4pets were really wonderful throughout the adoption process. At first Bella seemed a bit distance with the family and out other dog Duke. It took her sometime to settle in and realize that this was her forever home and that we all loved her and would always take care of her. Bella and Duke also had a rocky beginning but now have become best buds! I know Duke enjoys having a playmate although she is full of energy and tires him out quickly. We love her and feel blessed to have her here with our family. Thanks so much Cares4pets for saving Bella's life and allowing her to become part of
our family!

Jane's Day at the Beach

2011-07-11T10:58:00.011-04:00

Poor Jane has been with us too long... Jane is a very sweet 8 year old mixed breed dog. She is great with "her" people, but not good with other animals and is petrified of children. We took Jane on when her owners had a baby; although Jane was ok with the infant, once he started moving on his own, it was simply too much for her. Finding a home for an older lady that can't live with other animals is a huge challenge, and unfortunately for Jane it just hasn't happened yet. While we still hope to be able to find her a forever home, we also try to make sure that she has as good a life as possible while in our care.

Although Jane grew up in Florida, she hasn't seen the water since coming to us. We decided to take her to the beach for a day to see how she liked it. Lo and behold, Jane LOVES the water. We had almost as much fun as she did running up and down the beach, investigating the horseshoe crabs, and and swimming in the waves. We thought we'd share some of the pictures and movies from Jane's day of fun with you!

Getting her toes wet...

Happy dog :)

Swimming!!!

Shake it off...

Standoff with a horseshoe crab...

A movie of Jane's Day...

Always Plan for Surprises- Chella's Story

2011-07-08T16:51:00.006-04:00

In rescue, we like to pretend that we have some control over what we're doing. We very specifically pick out animals from shelters and vet clinics to fill open spots we have in our foster care program. If one of our foster homes needs a dog that is good with kids and cats, then we do our best to find them a dog that will fit into their home. We are frequently reminded, however, that animals don't often play by our rules. A dog that is good with other dogs in a shelter may not be able to live with them, for example. We build our rescue by making contingency plan after contingency plan, making plans like, "If this dog can do this, then we'll put him here, and if he can't, then he'll go here instead..." Although, as you can imagine, all of our contingency plans frequently go out the window and we're left scrabbling for a foster home at the last minute... Welcome to animal rescue, because no matter how hard you try, you WILL be surprised, and you will have to run around like a chicken with it's head cut off on a fairly regular basis to make sure that all the animals are happy and housed all the time.

Chella is a dog that exemplifies the "you will never be able to plan for everything" law of rescue. Chella actually was turned over to another rescue group that we work closely with a few weeks ago. At the time that she was turned in, her surrendering owner reported her as being a spayed female dog, a few years old, housetrained, sweet, etc. She immediately went into a foster home where she was doing really well.

Surprise, surprise, a week ago Chella had puppies! Since the owner had reported her as being spayed, our rescue friends had not bothered to check. Imagine their surprise when they opened up Chella's crate one morning to find puppies in it! Sadly, because they had not known she was pregnant, no one was there when she had her puppies, and one of them was dead when they found them. The other two, however, were beautiful, healthy babies.

Chella's rescue group had not been counting on taking care of a mama with puppies, and they didn't have a good option for her that could care for the three of them. So they asked us if we might be game to take her on, and lucky for Chella, we had a foster home opening up that was more than excited to take on the pups! Chella went to her new foster home this week, where she is set up in a room of her own with her little ones. She's taking great care of them and is warming up to her new foster mom and dad. In a few weeks, we'll have all three of them up online for adoption, but for now, Chella's only job is to take care of her pups!

Our six Maine Coons: Part Three (Finishing Treatment)

2011-05-17T18:08:00.007-04:00

We've been so thankful for all the financial support we've received to help us pay for these kitties as they recover from their myriad of diseases. Thanks to individual donors (one anonymous donor gave $300) and our successful happy hour at TABU, a Philadelphia bar (where we raised over $200), we have only had to dip into rescue funds a little bit. If you attended our happy hour or made a donation, of of these kitties thank you very much!

In the past two weeks, we've been focusing on medicating them for Tritrichomonas foetus, the protozoan parasite causing their diarrhea. Although some of the cats came to us without diarrhea, we decided to treat them all at the same time in order to decrease the chances of reinfection.

Trichomonas is a really tough organism to kill. It's found in a lot of catteries around the world, and generally causes severe diarrhea that is often self-limiting (it lasts from a few months to a few years, then clears up). However, these infected cats still are infected and can pass the organism on to the other animals through their feces. These cats also can have bouts of diarrhea throughout the rest of their lives, especially if stressed. Until recently, there was no known drug that reliably killed this parasite. Luckily, a few years ago, ronidazole was found to work! It has been shown that a two week course of ronidazole kills these parasites. Unfortunately, a very small percentage of cats don't respond to the treatment, for whatever reason, and continue to have problems. This drug can also be pretty nasty to the cats and can cause neurologic effects that luckily go away once you remove the drug.

Because of all of this, all of our cats were treated with ronidazole at the same time (Guava started a few days later than the rest since she was so sick with her cold), and they finished their two week treatment this weekend! Because the ronidazole seemed to actually cause the cats to have more diarrhea, now that they are finished with treatment, we're giving them a few days to get back to normal.

For kitties like Kiwi, the 7 month old male kitten, that should be it! Kiwi came to us without ringworm lesions, an upper respiratory infection that has since cleared, and other than that was perfectly healthy. Assuming his diarrhea clears as expected, he'll be ready to go to home in the next week or two! We are still looking for a home for him, so please let us know if you're interested!

The next two ladies up will be Persimmon and Coconuts. Both of these ladies have nasty ear infections that just aren't clearing up on their own, so now that we aren't stuffing pills down their throats every day, we're dumping ear meds into their ears... These ladies are not happy about it! But it's (in a way) rewarding to see how much more difficult it is to medicate them than it was when they first came to us too weak to fight! These ladies should be up for adoption pretty soon, as we don't expect them to take to long on the ear meds!

Poor Guava and Fig are the slowest in the bunch, so will take a little more time. Guava still has a raging upper respiratory infection, so she isn't going anywhere until she feels better. And since she started her ronidazole a few days late, she still has some treatment time to go there as well.

Fig, on the other hand, is probably feeling better than he has in a long time, but that's only because he looked so bad when we got him! He has come such a long way and has developed quite the personality, but he still isn't quite right. Although he's put on a lot of weight, we'd still like to see him put on some muscle mass and look a little less unkept. For now, we'll just give him some more time to recover and see where that gets us. If he's still looking shabby in a few weeks, it will be time to run a few more tests to see if there is anything going on that we might have missed.

And finally, Miss Papaya... Papaya thankfully has completed her course of antibiotics in her crate (by eating them in pill pockets). She's looking and feeling much better, but still showing all signs of just being a feral cat that has no interest in people whatsoever. We're going to give her a little more time to see if she comes around, and if not, we're hopefully going to put her in an indoor feral cat colony so she can live out the rest of her life healthy and happy...

Our six Maine Coons: Part Two (Treatment)

2011-05-04T10:38:00.009-04:00

We've now had these special kitties in our care for 6 days, and it's amazing how much they have improved since getting them in! They still look pretty ratty, but all six of them have such distinct and amazing personalities!

Daily, these kitties require a lot of work, and we thought we'd share some of that with you :)

When these kitties came to us some of them were dirtier than others. Most of them spent the seven hour car ride grooming themselves, so pleased to finally be somewhere clean! Poor Fig, however, was filthy. Fig has the worst diarrhea of the bunch, so he was caked with feces and too sick to clean himself. First up for him was a bath!

Unlike just about every other cat we've ever had the joy to bathe, Fig just sat and purred while we cleaned him. He also was perfectly happy to snuggle with us post-bath!

Since all of these kitties came to us with raging upper respiratory infections, we put them on antibiotics. They are getting oral liquid medication twice a day; their responses range from dislike to hate!

The medication for the Ronidazole, the drug used to kill the Tritrichomonas foetus (which is causing them to have diarrhea), had to be special ordered in capsules. We just got it in yesterday, and have added these pill to the mix... One more challenge to overcome.

Because we were hitting them so hard with oral meds, we decided to treat their ringworm with a dip instead of another daily medication. Lime sulfer dip smells like rotten eggs, stains jewelry and some clothing, and turns white cats yellow. It's nasty stuff, but it works to kill the fungus and stop the spread of the disease AND only needs to be done 1-2 times per week. We were lucky enough to dip the girls while they were sedated (before their spay) but now get to try it on awake cats! Again, Fig is the model citizen... The rest are not so well behaved!

The rest of the care for these kitties comes down to lots of feeding, watering, and cleaning. Because they all have diarrhea, it gets pretty smelly and messy pretty quickly!

Persimmon's biopsy came back last night, and lucky for her the mass on her ovary was NOT cancer! We all did a celebratory dance knowing that she's been cleared medically and gets to recover and then go to a home like she deserves!

Our biggest challenge is Papaya. She's still petrified of us and has gotten so scared that we now can't handle her at all. Stopping the antibiotics was a necessary decision, but in order for her to ever be able to be moved, we needed to find a way to get the trichomonas medication. We've moved her into a crate where she can be monitored more closely, and put the medication in a Pill Pocket (treats made to hide pills in) and sure enough, she ate it! Now at least she can be medicated without being handled, and then hopefully moved once she is healthy to someone that can do the work to help her trust people again.

Everyone else is doing great; Kiwi is discovering the kittenhood he never got to have and spends his day playing up a storm. Guava still hates being medicated, but forgives us more quickly now, as long as we spend plenty of time with her during the day NOT trying to force things down her throat!

Again, please try to join us for our fundraising happy hour for these amazing kitties at Tabu in Center City from 6-8 next Thursday, May 12th. We hope to see you there!

Our six Maine Coons: Part One (Intake)

2011-04-30T15:17:00.010-04:00

Two weeks ago, we got a message from a breeder friend about 199 Maine Coon cats that had been seized by the Buffalo NY SPCA out of one single home. Because these cats had a myriad of infectious diseases, the SPCA was only willing to transfer them to veterinarians. Because of their diseases, the SPCA has no where to put them, so it's imperative that they get moved to vets as quickly as possible. Jane, a Maine Coon breeder, has been helping the SPCA and doing a lot of the traveling back and forth between Buffalo and the final destinations for these kitties.

Since we have a veterinarian on staff, we were game to step in and help however we could. After talking with Jane and with the SPCA, we learned that these kitties had Tritrichomonas foetus (a protozoan parasite that causes severe and prolonged diarrhea) and ringworm (a fungus that causes skin lesions and itching), as well as ear infections and upper respiratory infections. They had also been covered with fleas when they were seized and had many intestinal worms.

We opted to take six of these kitties; since the cost of treating these cats is pretty substantial (they all needed to be spayed/neutered, treated for ringworm, and treated for trichomomas, plus treated for any other infections), we felt we could safely cover a few cats, put probably not more than that...

Jane and the SPCA were thrilled, and after jumping through a few logistical and bureaucratic hoops, we had a date (Thursday, April 28th) to meet Jane in Northeast Philadelphia (close to her home) on her return from Buffalo. We were so excited to be able to help these guys, but so appalled at how terrible they looked when we got them. We immediately drove them to our veterinarian for their intake exams.

Dr. Sprowls deemed the four girls healthy enough to spay the next day, but wanted to wait on the two boys, who both had pretty nasty sounding lungs from their respiratory infections. The next day, all the girls got spayed. They were all in heat, so very lucky for all of us that the SPCA had gotten into this home when they did, otherwise there would have been a lot more cats in a few months!

One of the girls, who we named Persimmon, had a tumor on one of her ovaries. We opted to send it out for biopsy, and are hoping that we get lucky and it's not a metastasizing cancer. We'll be holding our breathe until next week!

Here's a few pictures, day 1 and 2, of our six beauties...

Persimmon, female, is very shy, but so very sweet when you pick her up. She's the one that we're crossing our fingers for and hoping that her tumor is benign.

Kiwi, male, only around 8 months old, has a big personality and is a total charmer. He's a little boy, but he makes up for it!

Guava, female, is a little spitfire in all the right ways! She hates getting her medication, but is very sweet (when you aren't trying to stuff meds down her throat). She clearly thinks she's a princess, and she might well be!

Papaya, female, is the most scared of the bunch. She doesn't understand that we just want to help. It's hard to convince her we are good people when we're constantly medicating her, but since her upper respiratory infection is so bad, we don't feel like we have an option.

Fig, male, definitely in the worst shape of the bunch, he is literally all skin and bones and has terrible diarrhea. Despite feeling awful, all he wants is to snuggle with you.

CoCoNuts, female, is also a lover, but has a head tilt from her terrible ear infection. She feels pretty cruddy, but still purrs when you touch her.

We'll be keeping you updated with their progress over the next few weeks. If you'd like to support these kitties directly, consider joining us on May 12th from 6-8 pm for a special happy hour at Tabu lounge and bar in Center City Philadelphia. The happy hour proceeds will go directly to these kitties. And as always, if you'd like to donate directly, please feel free to use paypal or mail a check to our PO Box.

It's Hard To Be A Teenage Mom: Bella's Story

2011-03-20T00:06:00.003-04:00

Meet our newest rescue, Bella. She's our most recent (because we get them all the time) poster child for reasons to spay/neuter your pets. Bella is 11 months old, a baby herself, and was pregnant. Whether her owners tried to breed her or not was a little unclear, but they had not done any of the required preparations to get themselves and Bella ready for the new arrivals. What many people don't realize is that breeding dogs and having puppies is not always easy and is rarely a good way to make money, etc. Reputable breeders select mates for their dogs based on a slew of veterinary exams and tests, making sure to decrease the likelyhood of passing on negative traits (like hip dysplasia) while doing what they can to improve on the genetics of the parents (by selecting a mate with traits the other dog lacks, etc). Even after choosing the right dog, it's important to take the pregnant momma dog into the veterinarian regularly to make sure that everything is going normally. By the time she is ready to whelp (or give birth), owners should have a sense of how many puppies are inside and how they are doing. In Bella's case, none of this had been done. She had arrived on a Wednesday night an emergency hospital after being transferred from a local hospital that was concerned about the delivery.

When Bella arrived, she had two live puppies and was trying to have more. Her owners didn't have any money, but applied for and received some CareCredit, a loan for veterinary services. Since they didn't have much, the veterinarians tried to save money and do just the bare necessities. Since Bella was tired from pushing and not getting puppies out, they treated her with oxytocin and calcium to help her get things moving. She finally got one more live puppy out and started feeding her little ones. Since the owners didn't have the money for an x-ray or ultrasound, the veterinarians couldn't tell if she was finished whelping or not. Since she seemed to be doing better, they sent her home.

Twenty-four hours later, Bella was back. The local vet that she had visited on Wednesday afternoon called on Thursday evening to ask how the puppies were doing, and when they were told that poor Bella was still in labor, they insisted the owners take her back to the emergency room. By the time that Bella got there, she was looking pretty worse for wear. Clearly, a puppy was stuck, and it wasn't getting out without surgery. That puppy was clearly dead (having been stuck in the birth canal for likely 24 hours) but the veterinarians were still able to hear fetal heartbeats, very fast and faint, indicating that the puppies remaining inside were dying from all the stress. To make things worse, Bella was showing signs of being septic, which means that the infection in her uterus (caused by the prolonged delivery) had probably ruptured and gone into her abdomen, making her very sick and getting worse. Things were not looking good for Bella or her puppies. Dogs in dystocia (the term for difficult births) for this long have a very poor prognosis, and every minute counts as the infection moves through her body and makes her sicker and sicker. Unfortunately, Bella's owners couldn't get more CareCredit, and they couldn't come up with the money to save her (at least $1000 and probably more at this point). The veterinarian gave them the option to euthanize her or to sign her over to the hospital, saying they would try to find a rescue group to take her, do the surgery, and save her life. In the meantime, they called us to ask if we would be willing to take her, recognizing that at 9pm on a weeknight it may not be easy to find someone willing to do the surgery immediately, which she definitely needed.

Before she was officially signed over, we went into action. Because every minute counts in a case like this, we wanted to be ready in case the owners decided to turn her over to our group. Our veterinarian was called and returned to her veterinary clinic to do the emergency surgery, getting everything set up in the clinic. Some of our volunteers were called, since we would need people to stimulate the puppies when they came out, just in case any of them could be saved. Two of us went to the emergency hospital to wait, so that if Bella was signed over, we could immediately take her and run out the door, getting her to surgery ASAP. The decision wasn't easy for Bella's owners; while they didn't want her to die, they also couldn't understand someone else being willing to try to save their dog and not give her back. It was frustrating for everyone involved as the veterinarian tried not to rush the owners unfairly, but all the while knowing that the puppies and Bella were dying. Finally, Bella's owners signed the paperwork, and we rushed out the door with her. They had not decided what they were doing with the three puppies, so we left them in the hospital, hoping we could come back to pick them up so that they could be raised by their mother.

Within a half hour, Bella was in surgery. She did pretty well, but it was quickly obvious that things were as bad as we had suspected. When we opened her up we found that her uterus had ruptured and her entire abdomen was septic (infected). We pulled out the puppies one by one (there were four still inside), and tried to save the two that looked the healthiest. Despite our best efforts, these two little ones never took a breath and never had a heartbeat. Bella was a trooper through surgery and woke up (after being administered lots of pain medication, fluids, and antibiotics) a little while later, only to cuddle with us for the next hour as we made sure that she was stable enough to leave in the hospital.

Bella's owners opted to take home the three live puppies, to try to bottle raise them at home. The nurses at the emergency room taught them how to feed the puppies, how to stimulate them to go to the bathroom, and explained how hard and often they would have to be doing it. The owners were optimistic, so we're hopeful that these three little ones will survive, and that their owners will have learned a very sad lesson, and take care to spay and neuter them so this doesn't happen again.

Bella is recovering well; after spending a night in the hospital, she went into foster care where she's slowly recovering from her surgery. After two days, she's likely out of the woods and only needs a little time to feel herself... Stay tuned for updates!

When Broken Dogs Get A Second Chance: Fernando's Story

2011-03-17T13:19:00.006-04:00

Being friends with veterinarians at the SPCA is always fun - they call us about anything and everything in the hopes that we can "get it out" (meaning take the animal into our care). Many of these sad, broken creatures of Philly need more care than the underfunded, understaffed, overcrowded shelters can provide. Sometimes we can't help, as our rescue is always full to the brim, but other times we're thrilled to be able to say yes.

This time it was a call about a Pomeranian with a broken pelvis (hip), presumably from being hit by a car. Before we went to meet him we had them send us his radiographs, which you can see here. Basically his pelvis is broken in multiple places, but our friends at the SPCA tell us he can walk, urinate, and defecate, although he's in a lot of pain. Having a general practitioner veterinarian sometimes isn't enough, sometimes we need a specialist's opinion. Basically pelvic fractures come in 3 varieties - 1. the dog will likely die from internal injuries (obviously not the case here since he was doing ok), 2. the dog will heal with STRICT cage rest (no running or jumping, the dog lives 100% in a cage except for 5 minute potty runs on leash) for at least 6 weeks, or 3. the dog will need extensive surgery and pins/plates/wires to put everything back together. The difficult thing about pelvis fractures is that to the untrained (or even less trained) eye, it can be very difficult to tell what kind of fracture you are looking at. So we asked our good friend Joe (names are changed to protect the innocent :) ) who is an board certified (and excellent) surgeon if he would be willing to do an email consult for us and look at the radiographs. He told us that the Pom had a pretty good chance of healing with cage rest, and we should consider going for it. Since we were lucky enough to have an open medical foster home, we agreed to go meet the dog.

Our adventure with this pup continued at 10pm when we showed up way too late at the SPCA to actually pick him up. Thankfully the extremely kind overnight staff recognized our desire to save him and helped us out. Our behavior evaluation couldn't have been better. He was a sweet, but scared and painful, young dog about 9-10 months old. The staff obviously had a soft spot for him, and after receiving a few days of pain medication we were on our way.

The car trip was our favorite part of the story - after being warned repeatedly that he will bite if you touch his broken back end we were a little wary of our new acquisition. Since he was doing beautifully being held we decided he had earned a lap ride home rather than a cage, where he'd be bounced around. After sitting down he started squirming, rolling around and flailing, so we were convinced that one of us was about to lose a finger, arm or face to the tiny monster. Much to our surprise, he was simply expressing his gratitude for taking him away - he was giving kisses and delighted to be with us! We arrived home without any further incidents, he's now relaxing in his own room in his crate with food and water, he's doing well as of day 1. Stay tuned for future updates on...Fernando!

When Behavior Problems Aren't So Simple: Raja's Story

2011-03-14T14:59:00.005-04:00

Five years ago, Raja was found as a stray, a beautiful giant running through West Philadelphia. At 16" tall and 90 lbs he was a stocky little monster. Raja was lucky enough to avoid cars, other dogs, people who wanted to hurt him, and all the other perils of the city streets, AND was lucky enough to be found by good Samaritans who pulled him off the streets and, not knowing what else to do, dropped him off at a local veterinary emergency room. As "those vet students who run a rescue", we were the first to be called. He didn't have a microchip, ID tag or any means to find his owner. We called the local SPCAs and shelters, and we posted fliers, but no one was looking for poor Raj.

This sweet dog, who never met a person or animal he didn't like, wasn't in foster care long until a young couple applied and were approved to adopt him. He settled in quickly and was happy addition to their family. He had a great 5 years there (making him about 7 now), before we received a disturbing email. Raja had started urinating in their house shortly after they adopted a kitten (a few months ago). They were at their wits end; they had tried babygating him away from the kitten, crating him, taking him outside more frequently, in short, everything they could think of, and yet poor Raja kept peeing in their house, ruining their carpets and floors. The sad, frustrated email stated that they just didn't know what else to do and wanted to return him to us so that we could find him a home where he would be happier.

To our surprise, when we arrived to retrieve Raja, he seemed much the same as when we left him: happy, wagging and giving kisses. They reported that he and the kitten seemed friendly, there was no fighting, chasing or other issues between them, just the urination, every day, in the house. Since they were sure that Raja's new behavior wasn't medical (he seemed normal to them in every other way, and they were sure he was just upset about the kitten), he had not seen a veterinarian since the problem started. To make sure we had a complete history, we started asking the medical questions that they might not have thought of. It turns out that Raja had lost some weight recently and also seemed to be hungry all the time, both of which they didn't think much about until we started asking (they had put him on a diet and attributed the weight loss and hunger to this).

In order to think about placing a dog as old as Raja in another home, we needed to do a complete medical work-up for him first. Since old dogs take a long time to place, we didn't feel like it would be fair to ask him to adjust to a new foster home and then a new adoptive home if there was something medically wrong with him. There are lots of serious diseases that are associated with frequent urination and weight loss, including kidney disease, liver disease, diabetes, cancer, and more. We wanted to rule all of these things out right away. We took Raja to our vet office for some routine testing on the way home, doing a urinalysis (to rule out diabetes and look for kidney disease) and x-rays first, then planning to do bloodwork to look for systemic problems like kidney or liver disease. To our dismay, Raja had a very large tumor growing in his abdomen, potentially associated with one of his kidneys, liver or spleen, and it had already spread to the lymph nodes in that area, meaning it was virtually impossible to cure. Based on his prognosis and the fact that he was already showing severe signs of kidney disease, we elected to euthanize Raja rather than allow him to suffer any longer.

We didn't want Raja to have died in vain, so we thought we could share his story in the hopes that his story will help other pet owners to recognize early signs of disease that may be easily mistaken for other things. A lot of the time, especially in older dogs, acute behavioral changes can be associated with sickness. And a lot of the time, it's easy to attribute these behavioral changes with the changes that happen in every day life; the new pet, the new baby, moving, etc, and to convince ourselves that what we're seeing is due to anxiety, spite, jealousy, or fear. Raja's poor owners went through weeks of trying to help him feel more comfortable in his home, getting more frustrated as each attempt failed. The first step to working through behavior problems should ALWAYS be a medical exam, especially in older animals. Routine vet care (including screening tests like wellness blood work) can go a long way to early detection of problems like Raja's, hopefully to identify medical problems BEFORE owners are at their wit's end and the animal is too sick to be treated. If Raja's owners had taken him to the veterinarian when he started urinating in the house, could they have saved him? We'll never know; it very well may have been that it was already too late. But at the very least, they wouldn't have watched their relationship with the dog they loved deteriorate until they had no recourse left but to ask us to come pick him up.

Raja is still luckier than many dogs that die on the streets every day; he had owners that loved him dearly, and rescuers that held him while he took his last breathe. He will not be forgotten...

To Be (Four-Legged) Or Not To Be: Fritz's Question

2011-02-18T15:00:00.005-05:00

Last weekend was a busy one for rescue! One of our intakes was Fritz, a schnauzer/poodle mix with a tibial fracture (the tibia is the larger bone below the knee). After (likely) being hit by a car, he was brought into the PSPCA in early February, where the vets there did X-rays and decided to try to splint his leg, hoping that the break would heal properly. Unfortunately, Fritz was so painful from his broken leg and so overwhelmed by being in the shelter, that the staff contacted us to see if we had the room and the care to take him on.

Our first stop after picking Fritz up was the veterinarian. Because he had been splinted the weekend before, at the very least he was due for a bandage change! Poor Fritz was sweet with all of us, but didn't want anyone touching his leg, so our veterinarian sedated him so that he could be neutered and his bandage changed.

She first noticed that his bandage had slipped down his leg a little bit. Hind legs are notoriously hard to bandage, as they like to slip down the leg and create more pain and problems in bone healing. Even though we can sometimes get away with changing bandages only once a week, oftentimes hind legs need to be replaced more frequently. Fritz's break was also near the top of his tibia (basically at his knee) so it was very important that the bandage stayed put!

Fritz stayed at the veterinary hospital overnight and went home with his foster mom in the morning. By that that night, his bandage had already slipped again, much to our dismay.

We had a long conversation about the best thing to do for Fritz. Continuing to splint his leg for another 6 weeks, especially if the bandage continued slipping every day or every few days, was becoming a more troublesome plan. Sometimes animals let us re-splint their legs awake, but for Fritz, who was scared and very painful, that wasn't an option. Sedating him every 2-3 days was also not a good option.

If we had thousands of dollars at our disposal, we could contemplate having his leg pinned by an orthopedic surgeon, but that would still involve 5-6 weeks of cage rest after yet another surgery for Fritz.

After a long discussion, we unanimously decided that the best option for Fritz was to amputate his leg. Three-legged dogs, especially small dogs, do really well. Instead of going through bandage change after bandage change in a vet clinic that was scary to him for 6 more weeks, plus another 2-4 weeks of limited exercise, Fritz would undergo one more surgery and come out of it without any restrictions whatsoever. The other really nice aspect of amputations is that since the broken bone is removed, the healing process is much faster and much less painful overall.

Fritz had his surgery on Thursday and went home to his foster home today. Already his foster mom is reporting that he is doing so much better than when he had his splint on; he's less worried about her touching him and much more willing to walk around the house and interact with the other animals.

Finally, instead of being in our care for another 6-8 weeks, Fritz will be able to start looking for a home soon, and it's always in their best interest to go to their forever homes sooner rather than later!

Old Dogs Need Homes Too: Stella's Story

2011-02-03T15:21:00.006-05:00

Although we end up finding and placing a lot of puppies, kittens, and young animals, they aren't the only ones looking for homes. Sadly, many older dogs and cats find themselves in shelters or on the street, and finding adoptive homes can be challenging. While we usually have a lot of success placing older small dogs (Fred, from an earlier blog post, is a perfect example, as is Walter, the pug that just went a home last weekend), bigger dogs, for whatever reason, have a much harder time finding homes.

Take Stella, for example. Stella is a mastiff (maybe boxer mix) who was found along Kelly Drive, completely confused as to where she was and which direction would take her home. A kind Samaritan (and veterinary nurse) picked her up off the street. Since the nurse didn't have the room to take Stella home, she contacted us to see if we could help. All of us at Cares4pets are suckers for older dogs, especially when they are as cute and sweet as Stella!

First order of business with any older animal is to run some bloodwork (to make sure they are healthy) and to get them spayed/neutered. Stella has clearly had A LOT of puppies in her life, and definitely deserves to not have any more! She did great under anaesthesia, but our veterinarian noticed another lump on her shoulder while she was asleep and took that off as well. We biopsied the lump, and found that poor Stella has cancer.

After doing some chest radiographs, we were able to determine that her cancer had not spread to her lungs, hopefully buying her some real time to enjoy the rest of her life.

Stella is any dog-lover's dream come true. She is housebroken, great with people, great with dogs, and wants nothing more than to curl up beside her foster mom. She's calm and quiet, and has been through enough to know a good thing when she sees it.

Although she's in a foster home where she is in good hands and loved, what Stella really deserves is, for the first time in her life, to be someone's pet. She may not have a ton of time left, but she's ready to make the most of it. All she needs is someone to share it with!

Remember, when you're looking for your next dog (or cat), that older animals need homes too. Even if Stella isn't the right match for you, there might be another senior that is.

Casey (Regan)

2010-12-01T10:25:00.001-05:00

My story starts back in October 2006. Our world was turned upside down when our beloved dog Murphy was diagnosed with bladder cancer and could not be treated and was put to sleep. Heartboken,i started the search for our new "Baby". It was there on Petfinders that i found this sweet face which is now my baby Casey. I read her sad story of being on the streets of Philadelphia only 9 months old and how nervous she was to be at the pound ,so the Philadelphia Humane Society asked Cares4 Pets if they could take her . We looked for days at other websites, but there was something about those big brown eyes that just melted my heart. We set up the appointment to see "Regan" (that was her name - it means Queen and a Queen she is ). She was living in a dorm room with Casey Lynch one of the volunteers for Cares 4 Pets .She had a Kitten and Cat as well..When I saw "Regan" playing with the kitten and how she would follow it around only to be smacked constantly in the face , she would ju
st sit there with a confused look we knew immediately we wanted her. We were interviewed and 2 days later we received the call that she was ours pending a home inspection.We picked up Casey on October 7th,2006. We changed her name to her "Foster Mom" Casey Lynch.
Now she is the QUEEN of the house (hmmm..maybe i will change her name back to Regan).
She is my " BABY"

Happy Holidays Everyone !
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Jack's Story

2010-11-30T20:11:00.001-05:00

We were fortunate enough to adopt Jack from Cares4Pets a little over a year ago. Cares4Pets truly is a great group of folks who really guided us through the adoption process, as Jack was our first rescue, and helped us to welcome Jack into our home. Now, Jack's doing great! He recently completed his Canine Good Citizen exam after progressing all the way though Advanced doggie classes. He's the absolute love of our lives and we don't know how we ever managed to survive without him! He's even made his pilot's wings as our favorite co-pilot and loves to take leisurely rides in the plane! He's such a loving and intelligent little guy, which makes the thought of him shivering and mistreated in that horrendous Lancaster Puppy Mill all the more difficult to imagine... But thanks to Cares4Pets, he's in a warm, safe, and forever home with a family that couldn't love him more! And we're so thankful to have him!!!

Thank you, Cares4Pets, for giving us our Jack...

Joe

2010-11-05T13:33:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to say thanks for pulling Joe out of the shelter so he could find his way to us. It's been about a month now, and he's fully settled in and doing great. My daughter was thrilled with the news as well when I told her I found the perfect dog for us, and he's been just that since day one. He loves to take walks , has a favorite ball that he could chase all day, and although he started out on the floor, now sleeps at my feet on the sofa while I watch tv before heading up for the night. We're all looking forward to enjoying a nice long life together. :)

Saving Park Dogs and Cats: A Collaboration with Stray Animal Rescue

2010-10-07T13:27:00.005-04:00

As rescuers with small budgets, limited resources, and huge hearts, we are always looking to find the most efficient way to save more animals. One of the key ways of doing this is by building connections with other rescue groups and rescuers to share expertise and knowledge.

Over a year ago, Buzzy (from Buzzy's Bow Wow Meow in Narberth PA) introduced us to Janice Strawder, who runs "Stray Animal Rescue". Janice is committed to helping out the stray dogs and cats that live in the parks surrounding Philadelphia. Many of these animals may have been dumped in the parks by owners that no longer wanted them, or just ended up there as they traveled in search of food and shelter. Janice spends her time feeding and trapping these animals to get them off the streets (and out of the park!).

Since meeting Janice, we've collaborated on a number of projects, and together have saved and placed quite a few wonderful animals. Next weekend (October 17th) we're having a fundraising event with "Stray Animal Rescue", and in celebration of our work together, we wanted to highlight some of the special animals we've saved, together.

Because our skill sets are so very different (Janice specializes in finding, befriending, and trapping stray animals while we are especially good at treating medical needs and finding animals homes), the collaboration works well. Over the past year, we've placed four park animals with Janice's support; Vivian (a momma cat), Leon (now Monty), Teddy, and Stewart. We're currently doing our best to place two more; Pablo (in one of our foster homes) and Amy (being fostered by Janice). We also have done our best to provide medical care when we can; Itsy, a kitty with a broken leg, was fixed by our vet and has now been adopted by Janice. But we also often call on Janice's expertise as well. A few months ago, when we were contacted about a dog tied in Fairmount Park (Brooke), Janice graciously joined us to help get this dog out of the park. Brooke is now in her forever home.

We are excited to keep building our relationship with "Stray Animal Rescue" and can't wait to join Janice on October 17th from 2-6 pm at the Dawson Street Pub in Manayunk for a wonderful fundraising event to benefit the animals that we both love to save! We hope that you will be able to join us for this event. More event details can be found at: http://www.phillynokill.com/No-Kill/Events.html and you can RSVP on the Facebook event page at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=126567697395889. We hope to see you there!

Winky's Story: Eyelid Agenesis

2010-09-22T13:37:00.003-04:00

Winky spent the first few weeks of his life in a foster home for another shelter. When he was about four weeks old, his foster mom brought him back into the shelter, concerned that he might have an eye infection, since he was constantly rubbing his eyes and they seemed to be irritated all the time. When the veterinarian at the shelter really took a look at him, he realized that Winky didn't have an infection, he instead had a defect called "eyelid agenesis". This is a fairly common birth defect in cats where the edge of the eyelid (which is usually hairless) doesn’t develop correctly and instead the cat constantly has hair rubbing against their cornea. Think of how painful it is to have a stray eyelash rubbing against your cornea; poor Winky felt like this all the time!!! Worse, if untreated, the constant rubbing can cause corneal ulcers and lead to blindness. Until recently, surgical treatment for this condition was difficult to do and had a lot of complications, so most shelters adopted these kittens without fixing the condition and with the recommendation that owners give the cat daily eye-drops and pay attention for ulcers or infections. Many of these cats lose their eyes over time or develop chronic ulcers that leave them mostly blind.

The veterinarian in the shelter partnered up with us to see if there was anything that could be done for Winky; even though he was painful all the time, he was a sweet cuddly kitten that deserved to be saved! We got a consult with a veterinary opthalmologist, who mentioned to us that a new surgical technique had just been described where, after two surgeries, the eye could be completely corrected, so that the kittens could be adopted out without having to worry about complications later in life. Because the technique was new to him, he offered to do the surgeries at a reduced rate, so that he could get the experience with a new technique and we could then afford to help poor Winky. The surgeries were performed and went amazingly well. After healing from his second surgery, Winky went to his new home. Although his eye openings are now a little smaller than other cats, but Winky doesn't care; he's just glad to have eyes that work and will never hurt him again.

After having such a positive experience with Winky, our veterinarian was excited to help more cats with this abnormality. As luck would have it, in August we got a litter of three eyelid agenesis kittens to help; Garfield, Jezebel, and Blondie are in the process of getting their eyelids re-made, and will be available for adoption soon!

Fergie's Story: Sometimes It's More Than We Bargained For...

2010-06-23T13:40:00.003-04:00

Fergie was about 3 months old when she was turned into the SPCA because she was limping and her owner didn't want to spend any money trying to figure out why. Lucky for her, she was a cute little girl and, amidst all the sick dogs turned in every day, she was lucky enough to get the attention of some of the vets there. They were able to get some x-rays taken of her hind leg and they found that she had a problem called "avascular necrosis of the femoral head"- a fancy term that means part of one of the bones in her hip wasn't getting enough blood supply and had died, causing her limp. The condition definitely needed to be treated, since without surgery she would become increasingly painful and continue to limp.

The SPCA contacted Cares4pets because they know that we have a soft side for medical cases and are often able to take on the critters that no one else can afford or manage, with the expectation that we would amputate her leg, since it's the cheapest option in cases like these. After a long discussion, we instead decided to do a special (but more expensive) surgery called an FHO, where we remove only the dead part of the bone and create a false joint - thus saving her leg!

Fergie was doing great 2 months after surgery -she was using her leg, running, playing and happy - just waiting for her forever home. Then one day she seemed to have some pain in her foot and started licking it a lot. A few days later, she started chewing on her toes, so much that she caused a wound. After examining her we found that she did not have any feeling in her foot at all, so even though she could use it almost normally, the nerves were badly damaged. We tried several medications and wraps for her foot, but nothing seemed to help, in fact the nerve damage continued spreading up her leg, and worse yet, she seemed to have more pain. At this point we decided that the most humane and safest thing for Fergie was to remove her leg so that it wasn't hurting her.

She again did well in surgery and within a two days was running around on her remaining three legs without a care in the world. Unfortunately for us, however, these two procedures were very expensive. As a rescue group that is always short on funds (since we immediately take on more medical cases as soon as we earn a little money), this second surprise surgery dipped into our reserve funds. Because of that, Fergie is looking for a few sponsors! With any donation over $25, you'll be one of Fergie's Angels! For your support, we'll send you a picture of Fergie, her story, a sponsorship certificate, and a letter of thanks. Sponsorships in someone else's name are also welcome, just be sure to include their name, address, and reason for the gift (ie. birthday, etc). Email us at cares4pets@hotmail.com and donate via paypal or via check (sent to our PO Box). Fergie (and all of us) thank you!

It Takes a Village: Linus's Story

2010-03-09T15:43:00.006-05:00

Because we are one of the few rescues in the Philadelphia area that regularly pull pit bulls and other square breed dogs of local shelters, we often get called with the plea to take just one more...

Oftentimes, we're full to the brim and just can't manage it, but every now and again, we can afford to make the room.

A few weeks ago, one of the veterinarians working at the shelter called us about Linus, a 10 month old American Bulldog who was limping pretty badly on his left hind leg. They were able to do the initial work up and found that Linus's hind leg didn't fit into his hip properly. Radiographs confirmed that this was a problem on both sides, but since the left was worse than the right, that was the one that he limped on. Although Linus was clearly in pain, he was sweet as pie and loved everyone that came up to talk to him.

It was decided that Linus needed surgery on both of his hips to help him move comfortably. They found a local veterinary clinic to partner with that was willing to do one of the surgeries at no cost. However, a shelter is not a great place to recover from surgery, so they were asking us if we would be willing to take Linus on. By putting him in a foster home, we would be able to decrease his risk of infection and help him do the rehab that he needed to help him learn to use his "new" joint.

We took him on, and for the past few weeks Linus has been recovering in one of our foster homes. The second surgery is usually done about 3-4 weeks after the first, so we started looking for veterinarians that would be willing to help us afford this. Another local veterinary clinic was able to cut us a rescue discount on the surgery. In addition, we applied for and received a grant from United Animal Nations, a nationwide organization that puts together small grants for veterinary care (amongst other things).

Linus has his second surgery this Thursday. In a few weeks, he'll be as good as new (or, in his case, better than he's ever been) and ready to look for a home. In the meantime, a local shelter, two veterinary clinics, a foster home, and a national organization have all worked together with us to save one more dog.

Some may say that all that effort just isn't worth it for one dog... but those people haven't met Linus!

Another Reason to Spay Your Dog: Maddie's Story

2010-01-22T15:12:00.003-05:00

When you ask people why they choose to not spay or neuter their animals, you hear a multitude of answers, ranging from "It's too expensive" to "I don't want my animal to get fat". So many rumors abound about the dangers of spaying and neutering, and all too often, the reasons TO spay and neuter go unnoticed.

In our blog, we've talked to you about the sad reality of pet overpopulation, and for this reason alone, we've pleaded to you to please try to help control pet overpopulation by spaying and neutering your animals.

What we have haven't mentioned to you is that not only is spaying important to the countless kittens and puppies that don't need to be born, but it's also better for your female dog.

"How can an invasive surgery be better for my dog than just leaving her intact?", we hear asked, time and time again.

Maddie, one of our most recent rescues, is our new poster child for the benefits of spaying. Maddie came to us as an adult, unspayed dog. She was a little skinny, a little dirty, and a little worried about what was going on when we picked her up. Within a few days of being in foster care, Maddie was thriving. She LOVED the attention of her foster mom almost as much as she loved her new sweater :) When we took Maddie in for her physical exam prior to her spay, however, the veterinarian found a few masses in her mammary tissue. During her spay, the vet removed these, and sent them off to be biopsied. As back luck would have it, they came back as cancerous tumors, widespread enough that Maddie, who is just starting to figure out what life is all about, will probably have only 6 months left to live.

Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with the fact that she was not spayed when we found her. The very harsh and sad reality is that a dog's chance of getting malignant mammary cancer during their life increases the longer they are left unspayed. Puppies spayed before their first heat have only 0.5% chance of getting malignant mammary cancer in their life. That's one puppy out of 200. If that puppy's owner allows her to go through one heat cycle (a common rumor is that dogs should be allowed to go through one heat cycle before being spayed), her chances go up to 8%. That's 8 puppies out of 100! If she goes through a second heat cycle, her chances rise to 26%, meaning in a litter with 4 female pups, at least one of those puppies will die of mammary cancer. And the odds keep going up with each additional heat cycle.

Although there is always the chance that Maddie could have fallen in the 0.5% of dogs that will get malignant mammary cancer despite spaying, chances are, if she had been spayed by her original owner as a puppy or even a young dog, she would not have developed these tumors.

For her, the damage has already been done. For Maddie, we are just trying to find her a hospice home for her last few months; someone to adore her and spoil her rotten while she's still healthy enough to enjoy it. For all the puppies going to homes today, however, we hope that Maddie's story will encourage owners to spay this generation of puppies, so that these dogs can live long and full lives!

Rodenticide (Rat Poisoning) and Dogs: Brownie's Story

2010-01-06T15:00:00.003-05:00

Of course, it's not hard to imagine that something designed to kill mice and rats might also cause problems for dogs and cats. Not to mention, in making rat poison something that rats want to eat, it also becomes appetizing for our favorite family friends! Luckily, most pet owners keep their dogs far away from common poisons like these, but every now and again, dogs come in to veterinary clinics after consuming substantial quantities of rodenticides.

The majority of rodenticides used in the United States today are anti-coagulants, which means that they interfere with the blood's ability to clot. Vitamin K is necessary for blood clots to form in all of our bodies (rats, dogs, and humans included), and these poisons block the ability of Vitamin K to be reused in the body. While effects usually aren't seen for a few hours to days after consumption, if not treated, affected dogs start bleeding from their noses and their mouths, and eventually internally as well.

As horrible as this is, the treatment, especially if started BEFORE symptoms begin, is very successful and painless. By feeding the dog Vitamin K (in tablet form) for as long as the rodenticide is in their body, these dogs heal completely.

In the past few months, we've been lucky enough to save two dogs affected by rat poison. The first one, Hazel, was a very severe case as she came into the emergency room already bleeding from her nose and her mouth. For her, it was too late to just start the Vitamin K, so she needed a blood transfusion first. Luckily, she pulled though and is now happily living in her forever home!

Brownie, a little cocker spaniel/dachshund mix, was dropped off at a local emergency room just last weekend. He was skinny and scared, and his owners claimed that he had eaten an entire case of rat poison. Luckily, he was dropped off before he started showing signs, so after his owners decided to transfer him to us, we were able to take him home immediately and start him on Vitamin K therapy. He's now in a foster home while he gains some weight and gets past the dangerous part of his illness, and then he'll be available for adoption!

Elderly Owners: Butterball and Fred's stories

2009-12-07T14:50:00.005-05:00

In the past week, Cares4pets has rescued two animals that were in desperate need of help. Fred, a 14 year old yorkie mix, came to us when his elderly owner entered hospice care due to a long fight with AIDS. Unfortunately, Fred was not invited to come along, so he ended up in rescue. Fred is mostly blind (due to cataracts), mostly deaf, and has very few teeth. What he wants most of the time is to sit on your lap. Even though Fred only has a few months or a few years left in him, we are confident that we can find him a home where he can retire in peace.

Butterball, a black and white long haired cat, on the other hand, has a much longer story. Her 80+ year old owner got evicted from his home over a month ago. Neighbors on his block aren't sure where he went, supposedly with family, but they do know that the house has been solidly boarded up since the eviction. Butterball's owner had a few cats, most of whom had been accounted for. However, no one was sure where Butterball had gone. When workers came to clean out the house last week, they found a skinny, dirty cat in the basement. Somehow, Butterball survived on her own in a boarded up house for over a month. They called us immediately, and she's been in our care every since. Poor Butterball; she's very anemic, dehydrated, covered in fleas, has very little hair left, and is skinny as a rail. Our vet pumped her full of fluids, and we've been feeding her ever since. Most days she just lays in her cage, looking at us with sad, sad eyes. This morning, when her foster mom went in to feed her, she gave a pitiful meow and lifted her head to be scratched. We're hopeful that with a few more weeks of TLC, Butterball will be back to normal. In the meantime, we're just thankful that she made it out alive.

All too often, elderly owners are unable to keep the pets that they love and adore. While many of these owners have families and friends able to take care of their pets in their absence, sadly, this is not always the case. These animals are then abandoned, left in their homes, sent to the streets, or dumped in shelters. Because these animals are often older themselves and may have other medical problems, they are oftentimes less adoptable. Because they came out of loving homes where they were adored, they also tend to be much more depressed; they know what it means to be loved and taken care of, and they are very aware all of that has changed for them. So, next time you are in a shelter or looking at a rescue group's posting, take a second to think about these abandoned animals. They may not be all that happy to see you, they may not look very pretty, but they still need your love.

Weekend at Buzzy's

2009-11-22T19:59:00.002-05:00

On November 14th, Cares4Pets was at Buzzy's Bow Wow Meow in Narberth, PA. Along with Mulligan and the Panamanian Devils were Conqi, Stay Puffed, and the still unnamed brindle puppy. The guys received a lot of attention from the customers at Buzzy's.

Adopt a Boxer Event recap

2009-11-01T17:42:00.004-05:00

Saturday's Adopt a Boxer event was very wet. It rained the entire time. Despite the unfortunate weather, we had a lot of visitors to the Cares4Pets tent. Quite a few people came over to say hello to Ebony, Henry, Unnamed Puppy, and Mulligan. Stay-Puffed made a late appearance as the crowd was winding down. This was Mulligan's 32352nd appearance at an adoption event, the most ever by any of the current animals. Well, that's not quite accurate, but he's been to a lot and it's about time he finds a forever home. And if he has to put up with another kid blowing in his face, ~~he's~~ Shana's going to scream. Please enjoy some photos from Saturday's event.

Halloween adoption event (10/31/09)

2009-10-26T10:44:00.003-04:00

Join Cares4Pets at the Halloween Bizaare (Bizarre Bazaar?) & Flea Market on Halloween!!

Adopt a Boxer and the Delco SPCA are putting on an event that we'll be at, showing off our adorable, adoptable animals.

The days activities include a meet & greet with our dogs for adoption, and animals from other rescue groups, a costume contest for the dogs and the kids, fun games with prizes for kids, our popular ask the dog trainer and Canine Good Citizen Test, and Emerald Du Cour the Animal Communicator (reservation required for Emerald) Add to that raffles, 50/50, silent auctions, lots of food and music and you have a day of fun for the whole family.

Saturday October 31 from 8:30 to 3:30
Rosetree Park
Providence Rd
Media, Pennsylvania 19063

Henry Needs a Foster Home, STAT!!

2009-10-24T17:46:00.003-04:00

Hello. My name is Matt and I’m a Cares4Pets volunteer. Last week, my wife and I found a young dog. Natalie from Cares4Pets encouraged us to write a blog post to help find him a home.We saw Henry trotting on the grassy area on the side of the road and pulled over. His emaciation was horrifying. That he could move so well was surprising. He was shivering, both from the cold and fear. It was clear that he wouldn’t have made it much longer against the elements. I rode with him in the back seat of the car, holding him until we got home. Amanda cleaned off his beautiful brindle coat and dried him. Henry was still obviously shaken up. We’ve been mostly keeping him in the travel kennel we had been using for Emerson, our foster dog. At first Henry would not relax, keeping his eyes open the whole time he was in the kennel. But after a while he closed his eyes and got some much needed rest. He’s improving continuously in our small apartment, but with two very playful and energetic pit bulls, he doesn’t get the stress-free environment or attention he really needs. He really wants to be out of the crate much more often than we can work out at this point. Three dogs in a small space is creating a strain on everyone, and we REALLY need to find a better suited place for this little guy to go.Henry is about a year old and fairly small; he’ll probably only be about 30-35 pounds when he reaches his proper weight. His interaction with dogs and cats has been very limited, but shows promise in his socializing abilities. Henry has a playful personality. With a few sweet words and gentle pats, he’ll give you kisses while playing with a tennis ball on your lap. He’s already crate trained and possibly even house trained, evidence that he’s a quick learner. He also walks wonderfully on a leash.Henry needs a foster home in which he can recuperate without the stress of other dogs. Cares4Pets will cover all costs related to his foster care including food and veterinary care. He’ll be a wonderful companion for anyone gracious enough to care for him. If you have room in your home to foster this sweet dog worthy of a fresh start, please contact Cares4Pets at cares4pets “at” hotmail "dot" com.

Ladybug: A Lesson in Feline Leukemia

2009-07-07T13:16:00.004-04:00

Ladybug is quite possibly the nicest cat you will ever meet. Whenever someone comes to visit her, she purrs up a storm, climbs into their lap, and begs to be loved. She's also just about as cute as they come: a cute, tiny tiger tabby with big, soulful eyes. And yet, despite all of her charms, you won't see Ladybug on our list of adoptable animals. Why not? Because Ladybug comes from a home that had an active Feline Leukemia infection. Even though she snapped negative (more on that later), she has to be quarantined from other cats for 3 months before she can be cleared from this devastating disease.

So while Ladybug is waiting, let's take a few minutes to think about Feline Leukemia and what it means for us as rescuers and pet owners.

Feline Leukemia (or FeLV) is a retrovirus that exclusively infects cats and causes immune suppression. It's also one of most common causes of cancer in cats. Cats that are sick with FeLV can present with a variety of signs; because they are immune suppressed, they tend to get sick from bacteria and viruses that they would normally be able to fight off. Cats with FeLV often present to veterinarians with severe respiratory illness (trouble breathing, pneumonia), GI disturbances (inappetance, bloody diarrhea), and any number of other signs. Although these animals can be treated for their presenting disease, FeLV doesn't go away, so they are will get sick with something else in the future. The life expectancy of a cat with FeLV is generally only around 2-3 years, although acutely infected kittens often die within a month or two of infection.

FeLV is easily passed from cat to cat via bodily secretions. Cats that groom each other, fight, or even share food and water bowls can pass virus to one another. Although many cats will become immune to the disease, kittens and sick or stressed cats are at very high risk of contracting the disease.

So what does that mean for us as rescuers (and cat owners)? First of all, under no condition should any cat be brought into our homes and allowed to interact with the existing cat population before being tested for FeLV. Every time that we at Cares4pets find a stray cat or a kitten, the very first thing that we do is to get them tested. The simple, 15 minute blood test for FeLV checks for active virus, so it tells us if the cat is actively fighting the disease. So, since Ladybug tested negative, the question still remains; why is she in quarantine?

The answer to that is because Ladybug came from a home with an active infection. What happened in her home could happen to any one of us. Her "dad" found a stray kitten on the street and, being a bleeding heart like most of us are, brought him inside. He didn't know about FeLV, so he allowed the kitten to be loose in the house with his other cats. A week later, it was clear that something was really wrong. He took the kitten to the vet and found out that it was FeLV positive. Because the kitten was so young and already sick, he was euthanized immediately. In the week that he was in that house, he came into contact with the rest of the cats that lived there, one of them being Ladybug. A few weeks after that, Ladybug's brother came down with a terrible respiratory disease, tested positive, and was euthanized as well. For the next 6 months, everyone seemed to be fine, and Ladybug's owner crossed his fingers and hoped that all the rest of his cats would be fine. However, Princess, one of the older cats in the house, started looking worse for wear and eventually went the same way as Ladybug's brother. Ladybug came to us for reasons completely unrelated to the FeLV part of her story, but right after Princess was euthanized, so we have to consider that she, like all the other cats in her house, may be infected. The fact that she was so young during the initial infection and has remained healthy helps us to think that she has become immune and will be fine, but there is always the chance that her second test, a month and a half from now, will come up positive. For most rescue cats, that would be a reason to euthanize immediately. For Ladybug, we'll all have to sit down to make the difficult decision as to whether we euthanize her, send her to an FeLV positive cat sanctuary, or keep her in one of our few foster homes while we try to find her a home that will understand that she will most likely have a very short life expectancy.

But the FeLV infection has impacted Ladybug's dad's life too. Because his house now has to be considered "positive" for the disease until each of his cats test negative in two tests three months apart, all of his cats have to remain indoors, and he can no longer bring in any stray cats or kittens, as they would be at risk of picking up the disease from his current cats. He has to constantly watch his cats to make sure they don't get sick and has to be concerned about every little sneeze or cough that they may have. He has to be prepared to lose more of his cats in the next few months, all in return for bringing one sick kitten into his home.

Adoption Event THIS SUNDAY!!!

2009-06-16T15:31:00.006-04:00

Join us this Sunday, June 21st (yes, we know it's Father's Day!) for an adoption event at the Bucks County Horse Park. Also at the horse park that day will be "Driving for a Cure" a carriage driving show for a cure! We'll be set up from 9 am to 2 pm with some of our critters, and they'll be excited to meet you (and to see the horses!). You can stop by to visit us and to enjoy the show free of charge. Lunch is provided for $10. We hope to see you and your families there! Please email us at cares4pets@hotmail.com for more information and if you are interested in meeting any of our dogs specifically.

Rescue in the recession

2009-06-14T19:16:00.003-04:00

While people are losing their jobs, pushing to make ends meet, and trying to cut back, it's easy to forget that we are not the only ones struggling in the current recession. As families fight to keep their children fed, something has to give. Unfortunately, more often than not, that something is the family pet. We see the effects in our animal rescues and our veterinary practices every day.

In the past few months, all of our veterinary friends have been commenting on the effect the recession has had on their practices. The common trend is that appointment numbers are down, way down. But that's far from the only effect the veterinary community is seeing. Even when clients do make the commitment or find the funds to come in for an office visit, they frequently don't have the money to do necessary diagnostics and have waited to make an appointment much longer than they normally would, leaving the veterinarian with little they can do to help. As a sad consequence, this means that euthanasia rates are up, way up. When clients can't afford medical care and wait until their animals are really sick to bring them to the vet, there oftentimes isn't another option. Veterinarians are tired of killing animals, but they don't have much of a choice.

Of course, veterinary practices aren't the only ones hit by the recession. Animal rescues and shelters have been slammed. Intakes in shelters are through the roof, and every day animals are dropped off not because they are strays, not because they are sick, not because they are unloved, but simply because their owners can't afford them and can't keep them. Shelters are full of animals that simply don't belong there. On a daily basis, we get emails from at least a handful of owners looking to find a place for their pet in a no-kill rescue, and we sadly have to turn them away.

What's worse than the increase in animal intakes, is the decrease in adoptions. Because families are being cautious about their finances, they aren't adopting. Our adoption number are less than half of what they were last year at this time, as are many other rescues. We have a huge number of highly adoptable cats and dogs just waiting for their home. Unfortunately, it looks like they'll have to wait a little longer. This breaks our hearts; it's hard to say "no" to animals that have no where else to go, but again, there isn't really another option.

So in these tough times, take a minute to think about your furry loved ones and to appreciate the fact that you CAN still take care of your pet. Remember that we're not the only ones hurt by the recession. If you have an extra dollar burning a hole in your pocket, think about donating it a local rescue group that can put it to good use. If you have a little extra room in your house, think about adopting another friend or fostering for a while to give a needy pet a place to go. And please, if you do nothing else, spay and neuter your furry friends.

Adoption Event THIS SATURDAY!

2009-05-28T16:45:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to pass on some more information about our adoption event this coming Saturday. We'll be at Greensgrow Farm in the Kensington/Fishtown area of Philadelphia this Saturday (5/30) from 10 to 2 pm. As always, we love to have people stop by to give our dogs (and us) some attention. The address is 2501 E. Cumberland Street in Philadelphia. While you are visiting, please thank the Greensgrow staff for having us join them for the day; they've been fabulous to work with and we're very excited!

Greensgrow Farm, if you haven't been there, is a fabulous place. Every Thursday and Saturday through the summer (and starting this week), they host a farmer's market with a slew of produce, meats, cheeses, etc, that are locally produced and direct from the farmer. You'll also have the chance to pick up any plants that you haven't gotten into your garden yet. They have a fantastic selection of veggie, fruit, and herb starters, as well as flowers and plants for your garden. On top of that, their staff is amazing at giving out tips and suggestions for all of your urban gardening. Their website is: Greensgrow Farm.

And if you're looking for something specific, here's a list of what will be available this Saturday at the Market:

LOCAL PRODUCE:
Asparagus
Beets
Leeks
Radishes
Scallions
Spinach
Greenhouse Tomatoes
Yams
Strawberries
Spring Mix
Baby Arugula
Baby Spinach
Red Leaf Lettuce
Green Leaf Lettuce
Romaine Lettuce
Radishes
Alfalfa Sprouts
Pea Shoots
B+B Garden's Organic Produce (Saturday only): Radishes, Pac Choi, and a variety of greens

LOCALLY PRODUCED GOODS:
Fruitwood Farms' Honey
Patterson Farms' Maple Syrup
Blue Water Coffee
Lilith's Apothecary
C.O.P.A. Soaps
Metropolitan Bakery Granola
Antonia's Pierogis
Nature Soy Tofu
Ray's Wheat Meat
Vrapple
Hot Sauce
Apple Butter
Greensgrow's Pesto
Slowrise Breads
Tony Rolls' Baguettes
'Baked' Coffee Cake + Scones
North Port Fishington Vegan Cookies
MyHouse Cookies Scones + Brownies
Gilda's Biscotti
Spelt Flour + Noodles
and much more....

AS ALWAYS, you can also find local meats, cheeses, eggs, and milk from humanely raised, grass-fed animals in our fridges and freezer in the greenhouse.

We hope to see you there!!!

Upcoming Adoption Events

2009-05-11T15:00:00.002-04:00

Spring is here, and with it comes warmer weather. What does that mean for us? It means we can finally start getting back outside with our adoptable animals at adoption events! Adoption events are a great chance for people to meet our animals and to get a chance to chat with us about the work we do. It's also a fantastic opportunity for our critters to get a day's worth of love and adoration! Since most of them are being fostered in homes with other animals, they rarely get 100% of anyone's attention for very long. Adoption events are the perfect way for us to remind them just how special they are! We are always looking for volunteers to staff our table at adoption events and to hold dogs; the more volunteers we have, the more dogs we can bring!

We currently have three events scheduled in the upcoming month or so; we'll update with more information when we have it. We'd love it if you can stop by to stay hello to our critters (and us). If you have a little more time, we can also use a few volunteers for each event. As we schedule more events for the summer, we'll keep you posted with dates and locations.

THIS SATURDAY!!!
Location to be announced

Saturday, May 30th
Greensgrow Farm in Kensington

Sunday, June 21st, 9-3
Location coming soon!

The cat affectionately known as Splat...

2009-04-01T15:49:00.003-04:00

So on a pretty average Sunday afternoon, I got a call on my cell phone from the emergency service at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary Hospital. A good friend of mine (and a weekend nurse in ES), Trish, was on the other line. "Would you guys be interested in taking on a high rise cat?" The veterinary profession commonly uses the term "high rise" syndrome to refer to cats that have jumped (or fallen) from a height that would easily be death of a less fortunate species. For some reason, cats that are immediately treated have a 90% survival rate after falling anywhere from 2-32 stories. Tiger, the kitty sitting in ES that Sunday, had fallen from a 6 story window sometime on Saturday. Unfortunately for him, no one had brought him into the veterinary clinic for 24 hours. Because Tiger didn't have any other options, Trish called us to see if we had a foster home and the funds to help treat poor Tiger. Luckily, I had just adopted out my last set of kittens and only had one other foster kitty, so I was game to take Tiger. And, thanks to the generous grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, we did have the funds to fix him. I headed in to ES to meet this poor kitty and to get a sense of how bad he had been injured. As it turned out, he had broken his left hind leg pretty badly and had a bunch of abrasions on his mouth and tongue, as well as some degloving on his front left paw. We FIV/FeLeuk tested him, then loaded him up on painkillers and antibiotics for the night (since his surgery would have to wait until the morning) and then I took him home. That night, he got pain meds every 4 hours, and first thing in the morning we drove out to Sara's veterinary practice to have him worked up and, hopefully, fixed. After some radiographs, it was clear that his left hind leg had been broken in two places (at the knee and near his hip) and couldn't be saved. His front paw, although it looked terrible, only had one dislocated bone, which could easily be removed. A few hours later, Tiger awoke from surgery with on less leg and one less toe. For the next few days, we kept him on strong pain killers and antibiotics as we waited to see how well everything would heal. Luckily for Tiger, he's now doing great! He's moved from being on cage rest to having the run of a small room, and he's learning how to get around, climb on laps, and play with only three legs. He's still a little worried about sudden noises and movements, which isn't too surprising considering his traumatic injury. Hopefully, in the next few weeks he'll be healthy enough (physically and mentally) to go to a new home!

We've been busy...

2009-03-30T13:56:00.002-04:00

Just because we've been quiet over the past few weeks doesn't mean we haven't been busy! The past few months have been pretty crazy for us, luckily all in good ways!

To start, this year we were awarded our first grant. Last year, we were nominated for this grant by one of our supporters, Jennifer Mayer (who is also an associate board member of the foundation) and wrote our very first grant application. The wonderful Nathan Cummings Foundation decided to award us $9,900 towards our general mission of rescuing homeless animals, especially those with medical needs, and placing them into adoptive homes. We are eternally grateful to this foundation for believing in our goals and helping us to save more animals. Because of this grant, we've already been able to save a few critters that we otherwise would not have had the funds to treat. Over the next few months, we'll be highlighting some of these "special" cases, who had no other options and were slated for euthanasia, and who we were able to save and place into homes due to this generous grant. Thank you again and forever!

While that news has certainly been at highlight of the past few months, it's far from our only accomplishment! Another one of our volunteers, Amy Lefever, a marketing and publicity guru, offered to help us to "get our name out there"! She's helped us to develop a marketing and publicity plan and took the initiative to develop a Cares4pets facebook page, which already has 36 fans!

In addition, our website has been launched!!! Jason Kraley, one of our supporters, has been kind enough to donate his time and design skills to setting up a website that is not only eye-catching and fun, but also easy for all of us techno-illiterate folks to update. It looks amazing and will hopefully also serve to help our efforts be noticed! We're still a little behind in getting it up to date, but many of our adoptable animals are finally listed!

Finally, I have to take a minute to thank Ashley Mosser and Christy Hoffman. Ashley, our resident Girl Scout, has been doing an amazing job collecting updates from all of our adoptive homes, organizing them, and putting them on both our petfinder site as well as our newly launched website. In a few months, we'll hopefully have a much more complete list of our previously adopted critters with new pictures and updates. Christy is one of our volunteers that started out as a foster home and has been willing to donate even more of her time to our organization. Christy has been updating our facebook site, learning how to update our website, searching for new grants, and emailing food companies to see if anyone is willing to donate dog and cat food to our organization. She's amazing; we already don't know what we would do without her!!!

But that's not all! In the past few months, we've also had a number of donation drives done for our organization; the Long family (also proud owners of on of our rescues) did a donation drive for us over the Christmas holidays and brought us tons of wonderful goodies; everything from toys and treats to lots of food! Local Girl Scout troops also put together a drive for us, garnering us a ton of blankets, towels, food, cleaning supplies, and more!

So as you can see, we've been super busy! We hope that the next few months will be just as exciting! We'd like to expand even more and start publishing a bi-annual newsletter as well as plan a fundraising and networking event (or two!). Thanks again to everyone who has helped make the past few months such a success!

Being a Foster Home

2009-01-27T18:08:00.002-05:00

Because Cares4pets is a foster-home based rescue group, we don't keep our animals in a central shelter. Every now and again, we need to kennel a dog for a few days until we find it somewhere appropriate to go, but for the most part, all of our critters are in loving homes. It's really easy to take something like this for granted, but it takes a lot of time and effort to place animals in appropriate foster homes and to keep them there. In addition, fostering is a ton of work for the foster home too; teaching a dog or cat basic manners while learning about their personalities can be a daunting task, especially when one is not looking to adopt their foster animal.

Although each of us running Cares4pets can share our foster stories, it's hard for us to remember our first overwhelming foster experience. However, one of our foster homes just started a blog to share their first fostering experience with the world. It can be found here: Foster Home Blog. As all of us who have fostered animals know, the true reward from being a foster home comes when your animal finally gets to his/her forever home and settles there. Brutus, the first foster dog for FosterDogMom, just went to his forever home last weekend. In the next few weeks, we'll get pictures and updates from his new home to share with his temporary foster home. Already, FosterDogMom is gearing up for foster number two. For all the trials and tribulations, she and her family will be back for more!

On the other hand, running a foster home-based rescue group is hard for us as well. We are constantly on the lookout for foster homes, especially homes interested and willing to take on large dogs, pit mixes, cats, and special needs (medical or behavior) critters. Quite often, we find a great foster home, only to have them "fail out" of our foster program, meaning that instead of fostering, they end up falling in love and adopting the animal. That's wonderful for them, the animal, and us, but it also means that we are forever on the lookout for more foster homes.

If you or anyone you know might be interested in fostering for our group, we would love to speak with you! Please send us an email, and we'll give you more information and answer any questions you might have!

Babies!!!

2009-01-01T15:34:00.002-05:00

In just one afternoon, we managed to acquire 6 puppies (5 girls and one boy) and 3 kittens. It's always a "mistake" to look around when we're helping out at local shelters, and last weekend was no exception. Shana was heading to the shelter to help with spays and neuters, so I asked her to take a quick look around to see if there were any cats or kittens in desperate need of foster, either because they were medical cases that needed treatment or because they were too young to stay in the shelter without getting sick. Shana asked one of the volunteers at the shelter, and it all went downhill from there. The conversation went something like this...

Natalie: If you see a cat that needs a foster home, let me know, since I currently don't have any foster cats.

Shana: They just told me that they need a foster home for two kittens; are you game to take two?

So I arrived at the shelter ready to take home two kittens, only to look in the cage to see that there were in fact three. And so, it's no surprise that instead of taking home one cat to transfer to Cares4pets, we ended up taking three.

The puppies were another story... We all know better than to walk through the shelter when we visit, knowing that something will catch our eye. The last time we visited, we left with a sheltie and two american bulldog mixes after promising ourselves that we wouldn't take anything home.

And so, since we have more than enough dogs in our program currently, Shana avoided the adoption rows. However, as she walking out the front door, she almost ran into a big tupperware bin with holes poked in the top. She opened it up to find a litter of adorable puppies inside. No note, no information, just a tupperware bin full of puppies.

And thus, in a matter of hours, we found ourselves with 9 more critters in need of homes. All in a good days work...

Doesn't anyone want an old Rottie?

2008-12-01T18:23:00.002-05:00

When one of our volunteers saw two dogs running down the streets of West Philadelphia, she of course stopped to see if they were ok. They were both petrified and one of them was dragging a chain behind him, but other than that they were both friendly and healthy. After a few days of looking for their owners, it became pretty clear that whoever had lost these two dogs didn't want them any more. Momma Bear (as we named her) is a sweet, old Rottie. Her son, Buddha Bear, was mixed with mastiff. Being young and healthy (he was only around a year old), we found Buddha Bear a home pretty quickly, where he is being spoiled just like he deserves. Poor Momma Bear, however, hasn't gotten her lucky break yet.
When we first brought her in, we noticed that she always had a lot of nasal discharge and that her eyes seemed pretty uncomfortable. When we had our vet look at her, she was diagnosed with entropion, a condition where the eyelid folds back over the eye, causing her fur to scratch the cornea of her eye every time she blinked. This poor old lady lived the first few years of her life with painful eyes. Now that they've been surgically corrected, her eyes are much clearer and she's a much happier dog. But being a happy dog doesn't necessarily get you a home, especially when you're an old lady rottweiler. Momma Bear loves to be snuggled; she will curl up in her foster mom's lap for hours at a time. She doesn't ask for much; a few scratches, a few minutes of play time, and she's pretty much content. And yet, she sits in foster care, still waiting for her new family to come take her home. She's not a spring chicken, so we cross our fingers that we'll be able to find her a home soon, that she gets to enjoy being the love of someone's life, even if it's only for a few months or a few years. She deserves that much.

Just because we love them doesn't they don't need homes too

2008-11-04T18:21:00.003-05:00

Sometimes rescue is fun; you pick up a stray kitten off the street, watch him grow from a little sickly fuzzball into a Tazmanian devil of kitten craziness, and then adopt him out to people that will love and adore him for his whole love. Sometimes rescue is crazy; you drive 4 hours (each way) to do a home visit for a dog that is being fostered 4 hours in the other direction, and somehow find a way to get dog and people to meet. Oftentimes, rescue is just plain frustrating.

Some of our critters are harder to place than others. For example, kittens that we post on petfinder in the midst of kitten season. Very few people are inclined to wade through an adoption procedure when they can go onto craigslist.com or walk into a shelter and have a happy kitten within an hour. And anyway, just because WE think our kittens are special doesn't mean that they look any different than the 1000's of needy kittens rotting in shelters and crossing their fingers for adoption.

Every now and again, we get an email on these little guys; something about our kitten has caught someone's eye, and they email us to get more information. We're always in a flurry to get these people in to meet the kitten ASAP, dropping personal plans to make it home to meet a potential adopter. And oftentimes, they fall in love with the kitten, because, again, our kittens are awesome (and really, who can meet a kitten and NOT fall in love). We love them as a home, they love the kitten, the rest is just paperwork... Or not...

All to frequently, the next day we get THE email... it says something along the lines of, "I LOVED so-and-s0-cute-adorable-kitten that I met yesterday and would LOVE to adopt him... except then I got home and (insert name here: neighbor, co-worker, friend) called me about this sad little kitten that they found out in the rain. It needed a home, and since your kittens are happily in foster care, I figured it needed to be adopted more."

And so our kitten sits in foster care for days, weeks, months longer than it should. And yes, he is loved, adored, and taken care of, but every day he sits in our foster home is one more day that he misses out on being the center of someone's universe, one more day that he thinks he's in a home where he belongs when in fact he hasn't found it yet, one more day for his foster mom to fall in love and cry that much harder when he finally leaves. And more importantly, that's one more day that the foster home is full and has to say "no" to all the other kittens that she just doesn't have room to help. One more day that sick (and even healthy) kittens at the local shelter die because there were no foster homes open to take them.

This doesn't just happen with kittens, it happens with our dogs too. Just today we got an email from a woman who had been planning to meet one of our critters. The dog she had been interested in has been in rescue for a few years, just waiting to go to the right home. After speaking to this woman, we were ecstatic; FINALLY, our pup would at least have a chance at a real home. And then again, this morning, the email: Even though I think I would LOVE your dog, there is this other dog who needs it more...

And the dog that has sat in foster care for years sits a little longer. She's a special dog that needs a one in a million owner, but unfortunately, there are millions of dogs for that owner to choose from. The dog in a rescue group always loses to the abandoned dog on the side of the road, to the dog about to be euthanized by her owners, etc. And again, that dog spends yet another day in a foster home where she is not someone's baby, she is just one of many. And her foster mom falls more and more in love with a dog she can't keep. And her rescue group turns away multiple dogs that need medical care or special treatment every day, simply because they don't have room to foster one more.

And the hardest part is that we can't really be mad. We certainly can't tell someone that our critters need it more; there are ALWAYS animals that need it more than ours. We know our animals are lucky, and we have to be happy that some lucky creature was slated to die and didn't have to.

But at the same time, we cry when it happens. We cry for our foster pets and the families they could have had. We cry for ourselves and how much more we'll fall in love with this foster baby before he finds a home. And, mostly, we cry for the dogs and cats that we just don't have room to save.

Adoption Event Re-Cap

2008-09-08T12:27:00.016-04:00

Even though the weather report for this weekend was a little worrisome, Sunday morning dawned clear and sunny! We loaded up Squee (the coolest one eyed kitten in the world), Mama Bear (our wonderful Rottie), Gingham/Lola (the sweet pit mix), and Porter (our new beagle mix), and drove over to the Natural Pet Expo in Northern Liberties. The whole day was wonderful. Tons of people came to say "hi" to our rescues; they all felt like stars! We also got a chance to meet some other wonderful exhibitors and to spend a day with some of our wonderful volunteers. Thanks to Casey, Philippa, Ashley, Patti, Micki, and Carol for taking some time out of a beautiful Sunday to be with our critters!

Adoption Event THIS SUNDAY!!!

2008-09-03T13:04:00.002-04:00

Come join Cares4pets (and other local animal oriented businesses) in Northern Liberties this Sunday! We'll be participating in the Fifth Annual Natural Pet Expo from 10-5 on Sunday, September 7th on 2nd St in Northern Liberties. We'll have some of our adoptable animals there to meet you- both feline and canine!

Other exhibitors include homeopathic veterinarians, chiropractors, Reiki, massage, natural food choices, etc. In addition, there will be a parade at 1 pm, a BBQ (for dogs and people alike), free samples, and more! You can check out more information at Natural Pet Expo.

Gusher, the puppy with 9 lives

2008-08-20T18:29:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, we got a hysterical phone call from a rescuer friend. A friend of hers had been fostering a puppy (she frequently had foster puppies in her home) when this little puppy was picked up by the head and shaken by another dog. She was distraught and didn't know what to do; not only was the puppy bleeding from the wound in his head, but he was also "acting funny". One of our volunteers came to the rescue. She immediately picked up the puppy, Gusher, and took him in to one of our vets to see if anything could be done. They kept him overnight for observation, then sent him home with us to continue "observing". Puppies with "shaken baby" syndrome generally start recovering pretty quickly... or they don't. We kept our fingers crossed for the next few days as Gusher tried to recover. For the first few days, it was really touch and go. Every time he tried to stand, he would fall over. Eating out of a food bowl was impossible, so Gusher's new foster mom fed him pieces of kibble one by one. However, by a few days out, Gusher was looking much better; now, instead of falling over, he just tilted his head to the side and was able to take a few tentative steps. He mastered eating and drinking again, and then started figuring out how to be crate trained! We've now had him for a few weeks, and he looks like a different puppy. He still tilts his head to the side, but he can run up and down stairs and play with the other dogs in his foster home, just like a normal puppy. Now that we're convinced he's through the woods, Gusher is meeting potential homes. We're of course quick to warn any potential adopters that he may suffer from seizures in the future, but we're hopeful that he'll grow into a happy, normal dog albeit a little bit tilty...

Good News (and a picture of Squinty)!

2008-08-18T12:59:00.003-04:00

On the right, the picture you've all been waiting for... Mr. Squinty in all his squinting glory. Anyway, on to the real reason for this post...

Late last week we got the good news that Ashley, the high school Girl Scout Senior interested in helping our organization, passed her Gold Award interview and can now start working on her Gold Award project. Why is that so exciting for us? Well, for the simple reason that Ashley's Gold Award project focuses on helping our organization! Over the next few months, Ashley will be helping us to finish our website (that has been floating around in cyberspace for over a year), design a Cares4pets calendar, set up adoption events, and help us stay in touch with all of our wonderful adoptive homes. We're planning to meet up this week to start planning her project. Very exciting!!!

Squinty

2008-07-31T18:04:00.003-04:00

About a month ago, we brought a new cat into our foster program. Rescuing cats is a frustrating ordeal. Because there is such a problem with kitty overpopulation, finding homes for our wonderful kitties is a long process. If you can pick a cute kitten up off the street or from a shelter any time you turn around, why would you want to jump through all the hoops of a rescue group to adopt a (slightly) less cute adult cat. But that being said, we love rescuing cats. From pulling stray cats (that don't want to be stray) off the street to helping sick kitties in need from shelters, rescuing cats can be very rewarding. Our most recent "addition" is named Squinty.

Squinty is, as his name implies, squinty. We're in the process of figuring out why, but in the meantime, it makes him super cute and loveable. In addition to his squinty eyes, he's also morbidly obese. Squinty came from a colony of rescued cats that live in a place akin to kitty heaven. But unlike many of the cats in the colony, Squinty wanted more. Squinty wanted a home to call his own with people that love an adore him. So when I met him, I instantly fell in love. Knowing that he would take a while to place, I had to wait until a spot opened up in my home. About a month ago, after placing Smokey and euthanizing Yum Yum (a sad story for another time), I finally brought Squinty home.

Squinty has had a rough transition to household life. Never having been an actual pet, he is working on figuring out exactly what that means. He LOVES attention, but still worries about quick movement. He's a big fan of the dog in his foster home too. He's been spending the past few weeks in the furnished basement as he adjust to being in a house, so that he doesn't have to immediately be in the mix of things. For the first few days, he hid in a corner of the basement (there are lots of nooks and crannies) and refused to talk to anyone. Only a used litter box and empty food bowl let me know that he was alive and well. After a few days, however, he started peeking his head out when I came downstairs. A few days later, he started emerging for snuggles. Now, every day when I open the door to the basement, he's sitting one step higher on the stairs, as if to say, "I'm almost ready to see what's going on up there...".

So this morning before going to work, I opened the door at the top of the stairs and just left it open. It took him a few minutes, but Squinty finally emerged for a few minutes, sniffing the house, the other cats, and the dog, before deciding his adventure was complete for the day and running back downstairs. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow, he'll stay for a little longer. And hopefully in a week or two, he'll decide that he's ready to move upstairs permanently, and join the family. When that happens, he'll go up on the website and start looking for a home. Like many of our kitties, it may be another 6 months or a year until he finally finds his forever home, but we all know that the wait is worth it.

Welcome to Cares4pets!

2008-07-24T15:35:00.003-04:00

Cares4Pets started as a small-scale rescue group a few years ago when veterinary students in Philadelphia recognized a need for animal rescue in the Philadelphia area. Initially, the students used cares4pets internally- to find homes for dogs and cats within the veterinary school and hospital community. However, as more and more people came to them with animals in need of homes, they decided to make Cares4Pets more than just a school-wide club. In the fall of 2005, Cares4Pets became a Philadelphia rescue group that adopts animals out across the Philadelphia area. In our first year, we placed over 50 animals in their forever homes. This year, we became an official 501(c)3 non-profit organization!

We're excited about sharing some of our successes (and heartbreaks) with all of our supporters and would love to hear from you as well! Thanks for reading!