I had no idea the Minnesota Puppy Mill Bill was so controversial but because of a group of pretty nasty, anonymous comments on a post from last year's bill, I've had to finally turn on comment moderation. I'm sorry for any inconvenience for nonanonymous posters.

And so, because I was going to post it anyway. Here is information on the current bill. This bill is really needed--I've worked with some of these rescued dogs--and all the breeders I've spoken to have been in favor of the bill as they've seen some of the abuses that happen out there and are concerned about them, too.

From the Animal Humane Society website:
http://www.animalhumanesociety.org/prevention/legislation/puppymillbill

Puppy and Kitten Mill Bill 2010
Can you imagine your pet(s) not having enough food and water or a warm, safe place to sleep? What if they weren’t given the opportunity to exercise or experience everyday interactions with humans?

For many dogs and cats across the state of Minnesota those circumstances are the only ones they know. Join us in our efforts to help these animals.

The situation
Minnesota is among the top producers of puppies and kittens in the United States. Breeding these animals is a multi-million dollar industry with no state licensing or inspection. While many breeders in Minnesota act responsibly. The problem is the inhumane breeding and care practices. There are reports of breeding facilities housing more than 1,000 animals. Many of the animals live in horrific conditions—cages stacked on top of one another in unsanitary conditions, inadequate food, water and veterinary care; with animals receiving little or no exercise or socialization.

In our work, we see the tragic results of animals coming out of these facilities.

Many states have enacted legislation that provides licensing and inspection of breeding facilities in this country. Minnesota can no longer turn its back on animal cruelty.

Learn more

Read the bill, learn about opposition

Learn about the issue of inhumane breeding

Review recent puppy mill cases

How you can help

For further research on puppy mills and more about the Puppy and Kitten Mill Bill, visit our friends at Animal Folks Minnesota.

I'm sitting with the littlest of the foster kittens on my lap with Kachina the dog tucked up next to us. Kachina is fascinated by the foster kittens and is steadily staring at her. The little one has her paw curled over her eyes and has rolled over on her side so I can pet both her back and tummy. We're both worried about her, I think. (I would take a picture but I don't want to disturb either other of them.) We've lost little ones before and I admit I'm nervous. I was trying to fatten all of them up pre-surgery and thought they might be coming down with upper respiratory infections, so I gave them free access to canned food. This resulted in liquid diarrhea for everybody. I removed the canned and am supplementing the dry kitten food with some that is watered down, boiled and mushed. Everyone including the little one were eating the canned food. Now, this one has decided she'll be finicky and I'm not sure how much she's eating. Everyone else is still pigging out whenever I'm around. The diarrhea is much better but with five of them, it's hard to tell for everyone. She's easily half the size of the next smallest and isn't as active as the others. So, I worry and wonder if I'm being paranoid or not being worried enough. She hasn't lost any weight but she hasn't gained any, yet. She's the first kitten in a long time who sat on my lap nicely while I've been writing. I worry that that is a sign she's getting sick, although she did climb around a lot when Alan first brought her out. We lost the last kitten to "failure to thrive" which is a way of saying we don't know what happened. I really don't want to go through that again so soon. She's loooking at me now and made a litte complaining mew because I'm typing too much and not petting her! Maybe she's just being lazy and wants a warm lap and cuddles!

Now we have the obligatory foster kitten post...

Three kittens suddenly became five the next day as a couple more showed minor upper respiratory infection symptoms. An assortment of sizes and colors--all from the same home with three possible mothers and at least two, likely three, litters. We have three grey ones with an assortment of white paws in a couple cases and one with a stub of a tail (all different sizes), a siamese mix, and a larger sleek and slim tuxedo girl.

They all seem to be fine now so the symptoms may have been related to their living conditions or a vaccine reaction. We'll have them until Monday. Five really isn't any harder than three. Right?

New Foster Kitten (Not So Good Photos)

We have a new foster kitten. His name is currently up in the air. I wanted to name him Rumble because he's such a purr machine. Alan wanted to name him Chester (which makes me think of old men.) He has an upper respiratory infection and a very runny nose but is otherwise acting like a normal kitten. He wouldn't hold still for the photos I took tonight.
We'll try again tomorrow when the light is better and after we've had a big meal and he's sleepy.

Alan says he smells fresh like fabric softener (usually our fosters are a little stinky, especially if they are sick) and that he is pound for pound the cutest kitten we've foster. I'm not so sure about that (just look at the anime cute trio we had a few back) but people really do seem to like orange tabbies, so Alan's in good company.



He likes to knead when he's being petted and is obviously missing his brothers who are probably already adopted by today.

New Dog Update

As of last night, both dogs have now passed from level 1 to level 2 in obedience training. The big question I have is "Why didn't we do this sooner with Gambit?" I know the answer. We weren't allowed to have Gambit around other dogs for the first few months we had him home as a foster because the vet was worried his immune system was compromised by whatever he had been through before he was found with his littermates as a puppy during and after Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after we got him home, he developed kennel cough and was also having diarrhea from Coccidia. Once we'd had him home for about 5 months and he was fully recovered, we had him neutered and, boom! a week later, one of his kidney's failed because of a birth defect. After the first year, I was working at the shelter and another job and putting in long hours. Then I was only working at the shelter and putting in long hours. The last thing I wanted to do was come back to work for class after a long day. Kachina and her issues forced us into training and it was the best thing we could have done. Most of level 1 (and probably 2, too) is about training the owners on how to work with the dogs although you think you are training the dog. The dog responds so quickly once he knows what you want--the harder part is learning how to communicate that. The positive reinforcement method we're using is remarkably fast and effective.

The Gentle Leader is also making a huge difference. We were already walking Gambit with one and had gotten Kachina one for walks, too. Now, we're using it at home, too, when we're here, for the times she starts to get out of control. With her high energy level, she sometimes gets so excited that she almost loses control and does things like repeatedly jumping at our faces or over the couch or onto the bed. The calming effect it has on her is amazing. After coming home to find the results of destructive chewing, we've got her crated now when we're gone. We'd done that with Gambit as a puppy but somehow thought we wouldn't need it with Kachina who is 1 year old. We should have done it from the beginning! It gives her a safe place to go when she's stressed, gives Gambit a break from her for while and keeps our furniture, shoes and other items safe.

One not so good development is that Kachina's started to show some aggression with Gambit around food and treats. For the first couple weeks, the dogs would switch off between toys and treats without any problems. They'd eat side by side from different bowls and then check out the other's empty bowl without any problems. Suddenly, Kachina was lunging at Gambit and chasing him away from treats (sometimes--sometimes he would fight back.) One of the training staff asked me what had changed from the prior week. We realized that it coincided with a barking complaint from our nasty neighbor who threatened to call the police on us. That's a whole other story! We'd been afraid to just let the dogs out to play on their own and make their normal tussling, play noise. Amber, the trainer recommended the dog park. I'd been waiting to visit the dog park until I was more sure of Kachina. I took the two dogs this morning (alone!) and it went very well. Kachina played freely but came back to check in with me and came when I called her. Both dogs played very gently with the smaller (and larger) dogs we met in the park. They ran and chased to their hearts content. We're hoping frequent visits will help. In the meantime, treats are limited to when Kachina is kenneled and we are feeding them separately.

New Addition to the Household I'm sitting on the couch with the two dogs sleeping next me which is not the normal state of things the last two weeks. We had a pretty wild 1 year old Aussie Cattle Dog (Blue Heeler), Kachina, at work who had been sitting for quite a while despite her cuteness. At a year old, she had too much energy and no training and was a chore to handle despite a basically sweet nature. She was a pointy eared and nosed dog about the same size as our dog Gambit and their energy levels were close, so I remember thinking she might be a good match for him. Gambit's the type of dog who gets into trouble if he doesn't have enough mental stimulation and physical exercise. For instance, if I have work to do on the computer after a day at work and he hasn't gotten enough attention, he'll start pulling things off the tables and throwing them around or terrorize the cats or, if he goes out, will bark incessantly at squirrels and crows in the neighborhood. We were waiting for our new backyard fence to be installed and were talking about getting Gambit a companion. I never thought that Kachina would still be at the shelter but mentioned to Alan that if she was, we should take a look at her. We also had a tough litter of foster kittens that had been home with us for over a month. I didn't blog at all about them because we weren't sure they were going to make it. The litter of four had been eating canned food when I took them home but it quickly became obvious that they weren't getting enough nutrition and I started bottle feeding them milk replacer. Pretty quickly there became a size difference within the group and two stayed pretty small. Within a short while, we lost one of them. It followed a familiar pattern of the kitten doing fine up to a day before and then eating only a little and then none at all and then crashing suddenly. We tried another de-wormer, Fenbendazole (panacur), and they all seemed to be doing better. We had to leave them in the care of one of my co-workers (and wonderful pet sitter) for a few days for World Fantasy Convention and when we got back a third kitten declined. This was one of the bigger kittens and it was really hard--I hate how helpless it makes you feel. At this point, we hadn't named any of them. I think we knew from the very beginning that this would be a tough litter and naming them seemed too hard this time. We are at a very different place than we were a little over a year ago when we were just starting fostering and felt it was important to name all of them, even if they died before we could find the right name. I want to point out that most of the time fostering isn't this hard. I tend to take home the tough cases I don't feel comfortable sending with our regular foster parents. We lost that one, too, and were down to one little grey female and one slightly larger little black female kitten. They should have been up to 1.5-2 lbs but were hovering around 1 lb.

Finally, the panacur seemed to kick in and they started gaining weight. I was able to start mixing the milk replacer with boiled Royal Canin Babycat 34 and thicken the formula. The Royal Canin Babycat 34 is kind of a miracle food. Many kittens will skip right to it from nursing with their mother bypassing canned and other options. It makes weaning much easier in a lot of cases. It took forever for these two to start eating a thicker mixture out of the bowl. The little grey one started three days earlier than the black one. Once they could eat out of the bowl, things sped up and they didn't need the bottle any more after a few days. The key is to always have both the dry and the mixture available until they start eating it. The Royal Canin really packed on the pounds and pretty soon, Morgan and Merlyn were at surgery weight. We named them around the time I was laying out Cat Valente's Under in the Mere, hence the Arthurian inspired names! The two of them were bonded pretty closely but were also very independent and human focused. It was a nice balance where they could entertain themselves (mostly wrestling) and yet checked in often with us for attention and affection. I had the happy opportunity to see them go home together. I don't always think litter mates make the best adoption choice since they can be bonded more to each other than their human housemates, but in this case, I think they will be fine. The woman who adopted them said they decided they couldn't separate them when they were being held by different people, saw each other, and reached out towards each other. We had such a long haul with these two, I almost bust into tears when I saw they were beging adopted as a pair. So, we had a fence installed, the house was clear of foster kittens and Kachina was still sitting in a kennel at the shelter. Alan came to visit and loved her, so we took her home for a trial stay. She is a huge handful, very jumpy and often mouthy, but very affectionate and it's obvious she loves Gambit. Gambit seems to love her most of the time but is also sometimes overwhelmed. They have already passed some bad habits to each other but they're workable. We're going to start training classes at my work on Monday with both dogs and see what happens. I have to finalize the adoption this week, so I think we've made our decision.

Books to read to foster kittens (and other small beings)

#1 The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

No kitten blogging for a while as this was a difficult litter with 2 doing pretty well and 2 not so well even with a foster mom. While we were in California for Liz's wedding, the smallest one died, despite getting great care with fluids given and hand feeding. My poor pet sitter. The other little one, who is now named Mouse, is still way behind size-wise but is doing much better and eating on her own. At this point, bigger siblings Fox and Wolf are ready for spay and neuter surgery and we are just waiting for Mouse to gain a few more ounces.

My new favorite, geeky animal thing is to read out loud to the kittens while laying on my back on the rug in Alan's office. The kittens start out running around and attacking and playing with each other and me and then by the end of the three chapters we are reading each night, lay purring on my lap and knees. I am only 12 chapters into the book and love it so far--it's wonderfully scary and heart-warming at the same time. I am expecting the scariness to increase. Here's the first paragraph for an idea of why this is such a good book:

"There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road. A small calico cat. Her family, the one she lived with, has left her in this old and forgotten forest, this forest where the rain is soaking into her soft fur."

Nominations for other books to read out loud to these and future fosters would be very welcome.