Friday, October 19, 2012

All American....Amber's ready for some football!


Amber's ready to play some ball! It's football season and the gals here are the ones ready to do some line work. The guys are a little too delicate to hang with these girls. That's not too fair on our part, because Nolan is sick. And Peanut is a little fearful and slight to make the cut.

That's ok, though. Some of us have to be the armchair quarterbacks. Nolan still thinks he's a lap dog.

No cheerleading for Amber or BeBe either. With these girls, it's all or nothing.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Lowball rescue...$100 bucks a day

Reunion Rescue is out there panhandling again. It costs us a lowball $100 bucks a day to keep our heads afloat. Boarding alone is $250 a month and until we can make some adoptions here in Texas, we must keep our California dogs in boarding.

Once a couple of adoptions happen here, we can move some of the Cali dogs to our sanctuary here and get them ready to place. Until then, it's $100 bucks a day.

Where do we get the money? Well, mostly from the generosity of our donators, selling a couple of books and a tee shirt, but between juggling the dogs here, exercising, feeding and training, fundraising is difficult to say the least.

BeBe and Peanut need herbal tinctures to help them move past the issues incurred at Spindletop. We'll get there, but $65 a bottle is expensive.

We took a big hit at the vet for Nolan which could have been bypassed, but wound up at the wrong vet....ch-ch-ch-ch-ching...went the cash register and emptied out Reunion's reserve. They did leave us a big fat tick on his chest....was that a tip?

We took another hit on one of our sanctuary cats to the tune of $1K at the conventional vet. The homeopathic treatment is trying to undo the damage done at the regular vet, but no guarantees. Amber, Pip and the rest of the dogs need to be fed which along with sanctuary cats and birds adds up to about $10 a day on a slow day.

Crates, kennels, collars, leashes, toys, Kongs, chews....all these things cost money. We got a wonderful donation of dog beds from our good friend Kathi, but still need tarps for the deck and would love to have some raised beds for the outdoor day kennels.

The sanctuary cats have chewed their furniture to the bare bones and are down to one halfway decent kitty condo. Please consider a donation to help our kitties. We have two chip-in's going..one for the kitties:

http://reunionrescue.chipin.com/cat-sanctuary-condos

And another chip-in for Nolan:

http://reunionrescue.chipin.com/nolans-chip-in-fund

We also need volunteer help.
  • We need photographers in the bay area who might be willing to take a photo or two of our wonderful California dogs. 
  • We need help with our networking on the internet. 
  • We need help in Austin at some local events.

Please help Reunion Rescue help our current animals until they find those forever homes. We just know they're out there.

Here are our Texas dogs:

http://www.petfinder.com/pet-search?shelterid=TX1054&preview=1

And our precious California dogs:

http://www.petfinder.com/pet-search?shelterid=CA303

Guido...Mr. Perfect looking for a home

Guido and friends

William looking for a great home

Spuds is still looking for a home...he's blind





Rainy days and easy cheese

Amber...I'm waiting for my man, I mean Kong....
Yesterday was one of those long rainy days with a houseful of bored pit bulls. We are all about the crate training, but these guys need that extra boost. Usually, the girls are the ones not too interested in the sodden outdoors, but nobody wants to go outside.

I got a little bit lucky with Peanut who scampered around the deck a minute, but the rest of them just wanted back inside. It was time to get creative.

Amber's ice cream Kong
I keep a back log of stuffed Kongs in the freezer, but you certainly don't want to feed these guys 24/7. Amber is already getting some love handles, but I just can't help it with her. She is so easy to spoil. Life's too short to not be able to spoil Amber. She waits for her Kong just like Lou Reed is waiting on his man. Oh, boy!

Reunion Rescue has a Kong training doc along with about a million recipes for stuffing the Kong. Here's Amber with her Kong cream cone...instead of ice cream, she is getting organic ground beef blend stuffed with a couple of cookies and topped with cream cheese.
Nolan doing some serious Kong time

Nolan is still not completely Kong trained, so he's getting his breakfast, lunch and snack time through the Kong. He gets beef or chicken blend with some tasty raw dog food roll and topped with a squirt of Easy Cheese or cream cheese. Yum! Fattening up Nolan is getting easier by the moment. These stuffed Kongs are Reunion's way of funning up the old Satin Balls routine.

Peanut licking his lips

Peanut was a hard sell. He's still having a few tummy issues due to his abusive past. Like some people, Peanut is sensitive and gets an upset tummy.  For the longest time, we had to feed Peanut kibble and yogurt with Slippery Elm. He had a very hard time keeping it down, but recently has made to leap to raw!

It was a great day when Peanut decided he could join the others eating a good organic raw food diet. He gets lots of chicken or beef blend filled Kongs with a squirt of Easy Cheese or cream cheese to top it off. He keeps us on our toes to make sure his Kong looks like neighbor Amber's.

Nolan and Peanut are still served Kong room temp since they are not at the Kong training level of hard core girls BeBe and Amber who like to chew and knaw on a frozen Kong.

Today is a bit sunnier and the guys will have more grass and yard time to romp and exercise, but on a rainy day, the Kong is a dog's and his rescuers best friend.