- Do you subscribe to Dharma Dog Training’s Newsletter? You should.
- A Unique Campaign from The Humane Society of the United States
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- Springtime Activities in Omaha
- Mill Dog Monthly from Bailing Out Benji
- World Spay Day, Legislative Alert in Nebraska
- Attend the Nebraska Rescue Council’s monthly meeting this Saturday
- Five Hard-to-Ignore Reasons to Adopt!
- Paws in Pink to Benefit Breast Cancer Foundation
- VCA, Inc. Acquires MidWest Vet Specialists from Kansas State University
Extreme discrepancies in pet owners- examples in the news show best and worst kinds
Two local stories involving pets illustrate the extremes to which people will go to care for animals, or not. One involves a harrowing journey to bring life into the world, another involves a life taken. The latter could end with more life lost, too.
Let’s start with the happy. From the Omaha-World-Herald, we read about Martha Boss, a woman who not only prepared for safe delivery of her Havanese’s pups, she willed them into safety with quick action and the help of some unsuspecting folks not accustomed to delivering many babies, especially not of the canine variety.
“With her dog, Kelly, soon to deliver puppies,” the newspaper states, “Martha Boss had done her due date diligence, and then some. She’d been to her vet, who thought the 8-pound Havanese would have a normal delivery. She’d checked the hours and locations of emergency veterinary clinics, just in case. And when the time came on April 30, Kelly delivered her first two puppies without any problems.”
That’s when some trouble came. After two pups safely exited their mama, the third pup’s head got stuck making its way out. Fearing the closest emergency vet was too far away, Boss brought Kelly to the Lakeside Emergency Room. You know, the one for humans?
Luckily, the hospital was accommodating AND was staffed with emergency personnel who, luckily, had experience with deliveries outside their own species. The third pup was successfully extracted. A fourth wasn’t so lucky, though the staff performed a cesarean section operation in an effort to save it.
This tale is amazing on many fronts (heroic people, dog delivery in a human hospital, etc.), but what stands out, especially when compared to the other story we encountered today, is the depth of care all around. Many lives intertwined, all with the intention to bring forth more, caring for each other.
On the other end of the spectrum, unfortunately, the consideration and effort to be compassionate toward others wanes significantly. In a tonally opposite story, one dog is dead and other lives are in limbo. One pet owner faces five citations and another is without a pet.
Without giving all the gory details, here are a few facts:
Two Pit Bulls attacked one Chihuahua, leaving the little dog dead. The pits were unlicensed and unvaccinated. The owner of the pits has been cited by the Nebraska Humane Society. The pits were “loose,” says this KETV story, and the owner of the Chihuahua, Rick Janak, said he feels “total sadness and anger too, because people should’ve locked their dogs up.”
This second story is less amazing emotionally, but still fraught. We’ve written about a number of dogs killed by other dogs here (always in a pack, always unmonitored) and it’s disheartening to cover another preventable dog death.
So today, we’re thinking about the lengths to which Kelly and her owner went to in order for her pups to be delivered safely versus the lengths to which another dog owner went to avoid responsibility. A miraculous act by many makes our hearts happy while the monstrous act by others weighs us down.
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