Tuesday, August 18, 2009



The new Addition-

I'll be honest, I was reluctant to get another dog after Babe died in Feb. I was enjoying the relative freedom of not having to have a dog bark, or scratch at the door, or interact with the neighborhood dogs, or chase the golf carts down the road, or flea treatments, and the need to be home regularly. I was concerned about the interaction between new dog and the cats, one of which is very big and mean.

But, it all was discounted by others and the dog search began. They found this guy at the animal shelter in Branson, which is affilated with another shelter that is a kill shelter.

They come in, and if they don't get adopted here, they go to the other shelter where their days are numbered.

So, the name search insued and, after a few options, it was decided that he would be "Rufus". One of the first things Delaney did was take him to the pet store and show him off. She always wanted to walk around the store with a dog. There, she bought him a name tag which will be joined by a shot tag when he's older.

For the first few days, the cats hid, hoping he would just go away. Now, the big bad cat is making her stand, refusing to be relegated to certain rooms, and laying down the law with hisses when he gets too upitty. The other cat, poor Bob, has taken up permanent residence downstairs with Tyler. Such a shame since he was just starting to try to be in the same room as big, bad mean cat.

Well, as far as dogs go, he's pretty cute. We can't say for sure, but I'm going to say he's Mostly Beagle. Another addition to the family that has 3 kids, 2 cats, a turtle, some fish and now, a new dog.

A thought about animal shelters and rescue groups. I understand that these are once mistreated or unwanted animals and everyone who works with them has a kind heart.

But, the product(animal) is free and the labor and supplies are mostly donated. The building might have some overhead, or might be subsidized by local government. There is no reason to charge more for some unwanted dogs than others. The restrictions some groups put on the adoption proccess are just extreme. References? References from a vet? Dictating what sort of home enviroment with visits? Restrictions on how far from the shelter the permanent home can be? (couldn't adopt a puppy unless you lived in that metro area) Adopting puppy mill rejects at hundreds of dollars? I can understand the cost of shots and fixing, but for a few hundred more you can buy a properly bred version. At that point, why go with the reject? Isn't the real point to find a good home for the unwanted animal?

There's a closer shelter that is mostly volunteer with too many chiefs and not enough indians. They maintain a "no Kill" status but are always too full to take in new animals. In the past I know some dogs have been put down because they went "kennel crazy". There's only so long a dog can stay in a concrete cage before it goes mad. The shelter is filled with what I call "big black dogs" which are some dubious combination of labs. Several times the dogs have acted very agressively as you walk by. Who would pick one of those? How long should a dog that's been passed over several times take up a space in a shelter before you decide that space could be used more effectively? No one likes to think of a poor animal sitting there waiting for a family and it's time runs out but there's no reason to keep so many truly unwanted and unsocial animals.
As an interesting side note- Michael Vick, football player who was convicted for running a dog fighting ring, has served his time and now wants to play professionally again. Talk about a public relations nightmare! What team would want to be known as the one that hired a dog fighter? Hmm, Maybe the teams that have people convicted of Murder on them? Is a dog more valuable than a human? Public outcry seems to say yes.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Summer Cruise-
I know, a weird thing for me to be doing, but, Branson was overflowing with all sorts of interesting cars this weekend for this:
http://www.supersummercruise.com/
and I had never gone to watch the Midnight cruise, mostly because it starts at Midnight!
It ended up being a great night with my son and some of his co-workers, none of which are car nuts, so the conversations were pretty funny.
I was technically challenged more than anything else by camera issues. First, I spent some time taking pics of cars before the official cruise started. Then, my camera battery ran down mid way through the cruise. So, I pulled out my phone and took video with it.
When I got home, I started downloading pics from the camera and promptly "lost" them somewhere in my computer. They didn't go where they were supposed to. Since it was after 3 am, I decided to work on it today. So, got up this morning and started the deep search. I found them in the recycle bin, of all places! When I reclaimed them, I couldn't find them still, and the search began all over again!
I finally found them, but oddly, the videos I took on my camera wouldn't import into Movie maker. I ended up using the video I took from my phone along with stills I took with my camera.
I know it will never win any photo quality awards, but i think I did ok with what i had to work with.
As far as the evening went, I enjoyed it. Afterwards, the kids all wanted to meet at Denny's and make plans for the week.

Movie of midnight cruise