Jaimecbr900
08-11-2005, 12:40 PM
The Society of Humane Friends, an off shoot of the Gwinnett Humane Society, will be present at our Big Meet this Sunday.
As yall know, our event is a charity event. We have chosen two charities to donate money to from this meet. One of those charities is The Society of Humane Friends. We chose them because of a recent and very traumatic situation that happened to me personally.
I have 3 dogs. Ms. Gina is my big 90lb Lab mix that I adopted from Gwinnett a few years ago. Mr. Roscoe is a 50lb Lab mix that wondered up to my house one day, which after giving him a chance to be claimed at Animal Control, I went back to adopt too (couldn't bear to have him put down). Mr. Cody is our latest. He's an inside Schnauzer little yap yap dog. Well those are the players.
The story:
Gina and Roscoe got a hold of a racoon in our backyard. They tag teamed it and killed it. Well, as everyone knows, the racoon had to be taken by Animal Control to be tested. A few days later, we got the horrible news....Positive for rabies. Great. We call the dog's vet....more bad news....shots had EXPIRED. Animal Control policy is that the dogs have to be put down. We tried everything. I even spoke to higher ups at the CDC to try and get some alternatives. The only they would yield to was a 6 MONTH quarantine. Well, we called every vet and boarding house in the phone book. Noone would take them, even with me paying a premium, because of the exposure. Well, we had almost given up when the director of the shelter heard about the story and how we were trying to do everything we could. So he voluntarily agreed to quarantine the dogs there for us.
We were of course super happy about that. They even agreed to let us visit with them, no contact, but atleast talk to them and bring them things for their cage on a regular basis. We visited atleast once a week. My son was the worst because Roscoe is "his" dog. It's hard for a 6 yr old to understand why "his" dog is in there.
Well after much discussion with CDC, Animal Control, and eveyone now involved the dogs remained in quarantine for 4.5 months. It was then decided to do the last 1.5 months IN HOUSE. Wonderful, eh? Well, not so fast. We had to construct a special enclosure that would guarantee both dogs would be behind 2 individual sets of gates to prevent any accidental releases. Fine, we did that. I also had to sign my life away basically saying I had to be the only one handling the dogs and if I were even accidentally exposed that I agreed under contract to submit myself to the rabies shots, etc. Of course I signed it and both guys came home on July 12th.
They are perfectly fine today. I had to have a vet make a "house call" as part of the provisions of the in-house quarantine, which I did. She came out on July 28th to give them their first set of shots. They have shown zero signs of the disease. They are finally due to be completely cleared and able to resume normalsy on August 28th.
I know that it was long drawn out story, but I wanted to let you guys know (because I'm sure you guys as animal lovers can appreciate) why I chose these guys to donate to.
They will be bringing out a few dogs with them on Sunday to the Meet. One has a very heartwarming story. He's a Mastif. Poor guy's been in the shelter for over a year.
Anyway, I wanted you guys to know about this and if you wanted to come out and see the animals and talk to the President of this all volunteer Non-profit outfit. They work strictly off donations and are the first to answer any calls of help from the shelter. The guy was even there working at the shelter the day I approached Animal Control about giving them some more money.
I will be forever indebted to Gwinnett Animal Control for sparing my guy's lives. Those folks endure some horrible situations to do the right thing for these animals that are often thrown away like trash. I know all you guys in this forum understand and appreciate that.
This is my story and I hope everyone learns from my mistakes. Had my dogs been up to date with their vaccinations, none of this heartache and pain would have been necessary. Thank Goodness our story will have a happy ending. Sometimes that's not the case.
As yall know, our event is a charity event. We have chosen two charities to donate money to from this meet. One of those charities is The Society of Humane Friends. We chose them because of a recent and very traumatic situation that happened to me personally.
I have 3 dogs. Ms. Gina is my big 90lb Lab mix that I adopted from Gwinnett a few years ago. Mr. Roscoe is a 50lb Lab mix that wondered up to my house one day, which after giving him a chance to be claimed at Animal Control, I went back to adopt too (couldn't bear to have him put down). Mr. Cody is our latest. He's an inside Schnauzer little yap yap dog. Well those are the players.
The story:
Gina and Roscoe got a hold of a racoon in our backyard. They tag teamed it and killed it. Well, as everyone knows, the racoon had to be taken by Animal Control to be tested. A few days later, we got the horrible news....Positive for rabies. Great. We call the dog's vet....more bad news....shots had EXPIRED. Animal Control policy is that the dogs have to be put down. We tried everything. I even spoke to higher ups at the CDC to try and get some alternatives. The only they would yield to was a 6 MONTH quarantine. Well, we called every vet and boarding house in the phone book. Noone would take them, even with me paying a premium, because of the exposure. Well, we had almost given up when the director of the shelter heard about the story and how we were trying to do everything we could. So he voluntarily agreed to quarantine the dogs there for us.
We were of course super happy about that. They even agreed to let us visit with them, no contact, but atleast talk to them and bring them things for their cage on a regular basis. We visited atleast once a week. My son was the worst because Roscoe is "his" dog. It's hard for a 6 yr old to understand why "his" dog is in there.
Well after much discussion with CDC, Animal Control, and eveyone now involved the dogs remained in quarantine for 4.5 months. It was then decided to do the last 1.5 months IN HOUSE. Wonderful, eh? Well, not so fast. We had to construct a special enclosure that would guarantee both dogs would be behind 2 individual sets of gates to prevent any accidental releases. Fine, we did that. I also had to sign my life away basically saying I had to be the only one handling the dogs and if I were even accidentally exposed that I agreed under contract to submit myself to the rabies shots, etc. Of course I signed it and both guys came home on July 12th.
They are perfectly fine today. I had to have a vet make a "house call" as part of the provisions of the in-house quarantine, which I did. She came out on July 28th to give them their first set of shots. They have shown zero signs of the disease. They are finally due to be completely cleared and able to resume normalsy on August 28th.
I know that it was long drawn out story, but I wanted to let you guys know (because I'm sure you guys as animal lovers can appreciate) why I chose these guys to donate to.
They will be bringing out a few dogs with them on Sunday to the Meet. One has a very heartwarming story. He's a Mastif. Poor guy's been in the shelter for over a year.
Anyway, I wanted you guys to know about this and if you wanted to come out and see the animals and talk to the President of this all volunteer Non-profit outfit. They work strictly off donations and are the first to answer any calls of help from the shelter. The guy was even there working at the shelter the day I approached Animal Control about giving them some more money.
I will be forever indebted to Gwinnett Animal Control for sparing my guy's lives. Those folks endure some horrible situations to do the right thing for these animals that are often thrown away like trash. I know all you guys in this forum understand and appreciate that.
This is my story and I hope everyone learns from my mistakes. Had my dogs been up to date with their vaccinations, none of this heartache and pain would have been necessary. Thank Goodness our story will have a happy ending. Sometimes that's not the case.