Carreen's Rescue Blog

Write On...and on and on

2010-04-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

I've been writing and writing, and the words are piling up. Thousands of them so far. So many that I'm dreaming in words now. I'm on dictionary.com 20 or 30 times a day tracking down the words with the exact nuance to express my thought.

Even though all this writing isn't for the blog, that doesn't mean I've abandoned it. I think about Carreen's Rescue Blog every day, especially when some juicy story comes across my desk that I'd love to cover, which happens frequently.

I still get my fix thanks to your emails -- story ideas, comments on old posts, words of encouragement. It's all fuel that feeds my creative fire.

Today, for the purpose of posterity, I've decided to post links here to some of the best-read stories on this blog. The ones that received the most responses. Those that pulled heartstrings and inspired change.

I have a big fat file filled with story ideas ready to go for when I get back to blogging, so please don't stop emailing me your thoughts and story ideas. I'm listening, and I love getting your mail.

I promise this isn't the last you've seen of Carreen's Rescue Blog.

Seeking Shelter From Cynicism

Kids are fascinating to write about, because they all love animals, and they are motivated to rescue them with very little encouragement. When I go into a neighborhood and try to match up a stray animal with a family, the kids always know where a particular pet belongs. The self-starter kids in this story built an unsolicited mock animal shelter after crawling around inside my rescue vehicle.

A Puppy Cries

When a nine-year-old girl living in a drug-addled area of a Prairie town saved a scorched puppy from a dumpster, her act of kindness motivated many others to give. They sent gifts, money and well wishes to a bullied little girl who had asked for nothing for Christmas, but got everything she had ever dreamed of in return. A Christmas miracle for a girl and her dog.

Stop the Seal Hunt

Last year, I wrote ten articles on the Canadian seal hunt, an atrocious event of animal cruelty that has 80 percent of Canadians recoiling in horror at the facts of it. Celebrities, regular citizens, even children have protested the cruel slaughter. Only Canadian politicians have missed the boat. Get the facts on the hunt and see some of the celebrities who have tried to end this bloodbath on ice once and for all. Special thanks to Nigel Barker, who stars in America's Next Top Model. He's a fashion photographer with a heart, and generously allowed me to use his stunning photographs of the seal nursery.

New Orleans Orphans

Katrina struck New Orleans and the floodwaters washed the levees away. The city was underwater. Residents tried to save their animals. But when they were shuttled to safety, government officials didn't let them take their pets.

Animal rescuers watched the footage on television in horror, knowing what was coming next. Dogs and cats clinging to trees, baking to death on rooftops in the excruciating summer heat, trapped at the end of chains, in attics. Swimming for their lives.

We had to get in. We risked our lives to penetrate a city locked down. Intruders were threatened with being shot, and we weren't excluded from those orders. Hundreds of us deployed separately from each other, but we joined together in the field to save 20,000 animals from certain, torturous death.

In 2006, the laws changed across the land to allow people to take their pets when they evacuate. And on Katrina's three-year anniversary, a monument was erected at New Orleans' City Hall of a dog and a cat. To honor the animals who died in the storm, and the rescuers who came to save them. I was on the scene, and made it back to document the mission.

The Photo That Barked a Thousand Words

As a rescuer, finding the perfect home for an animal is always a challenge. So when an animal uses his eyes to find his own home, it's a relief. Meet Wally, whose picture went from a rescue group in Tennessee all the way to a woman at a photo processing lab in Minnesota.

Taking a time out

2010-02-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve been trying to compose a goodbye post in my head, a final piece to let you know that Carreen’s Rescue Blog is going quiet for a while. Obviously I’ve been procrastinating, because it’s been more than a month since I last wrote here.

In the meantime, I’ve had inquiries from readers wondering why I’ve disappeared, where I’m hiding and if I intend to show my words again.

It’s not that I’ve run out of stories to tell. I’ve got ample material. My file folder marked “Carreen’s Rescue Blog” has expanded like a muscle on steroids. I have boxes and boxes of stuff. So many boxes that I’m losing my living space inch by paper inch.

No, I had planned to sign off for a bit because I’m working on three lengthy writing projects that are occupying most of my mental real estate these days. As the blog grew, it was growing more difficult to manage along with these projects.

Still, I’m sure I won’t be able to resist posting once in a while. I’ve been in blogger withdrawal out here. And while the other writing I’m doing is grabbing my mind’s attention, I’ve never written for this long of a stretch being isolated from feedback. I’m realizing how important reader interaction is to me, and how it feeds my creativity.

I think that’s why I’ve been procrastinating. Because I’ve become attached to wordsmithing for you.

I won’t be going completely silent. There are stories that must be told, particularly those that continue a tale I've already started telling. I can’t stand an unfinished story.

There are already a couple of updates to report. There’s the loss of a man, the partner to my dear friend battling cancer. In an earlier story, you heard about her two cats, who are loyally standing by her through the ordeal. I had planned a follow-up on the love of her life, a man out of prison who has cared for Jewel through her illness. We never got to that interview. He died suddenly and unexpectedly last Sunday.

And there’s an inspiring gain -- a restoration of a family connection. I wrote about a homeless man living in his Ford Fairlane with his two cats. His daughter had been searching for him for years from California, and finally stumbled across his name in Carreen’s Rescue Blog. She emailed me, and I was able to put them in touch.

I hope to report more soon on these and other stories.

Until then, it’s farewell, but not goodbye.

Jewel's battling illness and grieving for her partner Keith at the same time. It feels overwhelming sometimes. She's grateful for the support of her two cats Ricky and Mokie (pictured.)

Light at the end of the tunnel

2010-01-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

The world hopes to swim out of troubled waters . Photo of this duck passing under a sun-strewn bridge was taken by Janek Skarzynski at the Royal Baths Park in Warsaw, Poland (AFP/Getty).

Happy New Year!

The roller-coaster ride that defined 2009 leaves many people heaving a sigh of relief that a new decade is upon us. New promise, new hope. And a new beginning.

Shedding a dress size

2009-12-29T15:06:00.000-08:00

When the shave was done, there were two Oscars on the table.

Oscar went for his annual check-up today. Other than his weight—a whopping 26 pounds—he’s in perfect health.

Besides a wellness exam, he also received the slimming “lion cut”, a trim to eliminate mats from forming in his long fine fur. Torso trimmed flat, while legs, tail and around the face stay fluffy. With January descending, it’s chilly in the Pacific Northwest, so I’ll be cranking up the heat to keep Oscar toasty warm.

I'm appalled that Oscar is so heavy. I feel personally responsible for his unbridled gluttony. Now that my two skinny cats have died, the remaining seven will be going on a diet immediately. No more free-feeding. Oscar’s by far the fattest, but everyone could stand to lose a bit of themselves.

Veterinarian Kim Barron defends Oscar somewhat. Unlike my other cats, she says he's "big boned." Big face, big paws.

As for Oscar, he seems pretty happy with his lighter load. He's got a headstart on his weight loss over the others. We weighed the shorn fur, and he’s already dropped a fifth of a pound just by losing the coat.

One of the many reasons I enjoy visiting veterinarian Dr. Kim Barron is because of her intellectual curiosity. Here she's weighing in Oscar's coat.

Hat trick

2009-12-23T14:02:00.000-08:00

Today was Little Carreen’s turn at the vet, and I'm proud to say she’s officially part of my Good Kitty Club.

Unlike some of my other babies, there are no warnings in the clinic’s computer system about her. No instructions to approach “with gloves only.” No scratching, hissing or spitting to haunt her past.

She was so relaxed that veterinarian Dr. Kim Barron and I had a little fun with the fur that spun beautifully off the flea comb in a woven pattern. It made the perfect toupé, or a cozy winter hat, the kind you find at craft fairs.

Kim decided this would be the perfect time to take a picture of Little C for her file.

Bidding goodbye to the best of 2009

2009-12-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

Photo by John Moore of Getty Images.

As the final day of calendar 2009 blasts its way to the finish line, the proliferation of “best” lists are in full swing: best gifts, best deals, best party ideas. Best cocktails, best holiday foods.

The bests are also rolled out for those of us practicing journalism—best photos, best stories. I read all the journalism bests I come across. Not because awards are the only opinions that matter. Awards nearly always indicate excellence work, but there are brilliant artists who will remain a lifetime unrecognized. Some of the most talented ones, in fact.

Still I pore over the pictures and devour the stories, because when a particular story or photo begins to gain a following, it has earned value in cultural relevance, no matter what the rest of the people say about it.

The photo above commanded my attention the first time I looked at it many months ago, and it caused me to stop and think. To piece together the story behind it in my mind. I wondered what this young woman was whispering to her fallen fiancé deep in the ground. I thought about how a pledge to marry would remain forever unrealized. It was powerful enough to evoke tears.

I wasn’t the only one galvanized. The photo has been heralded as one of the top picks for this year, a symbol of the humanity behind the machine of war. Of loss, love and grief. Of an almost-widow’s loyalty, respect and honor.

“Some people feel the photo I took at the moment was too intimate, too personal,” said Getty Images photojournalist John Moore. “Like many who have seen the picture, I felt overwhelmed by her grief, and moved by the love she felt for her fallen sweetheart.”

Mary McHugh is the young woman pictured, and she’s mourning the loss of her fiancé, Sgt. James “Jimmy” Regan. The decorated Army Ranger did a fate-tempting four deployments in three years, double tours of Afghanistan and Iraq. But a roadside bomb stole the last of his luck, and he died in Iraq on February 9, 2007.

 Moore spent five years photographing war in the same countries Regan was deployed in, but that’s not how he came to hear about this 26-year-old fallen soldier from a New York hamlet called Manhasset. On Memorial weekend last May, Moore decided to wander the famous military cemetery in Virginia, where 300,000 veterans and military casualties are interred.

“I felt I owed the Arlington National Cemetery a little time – and I think I still do. Maybe we all do."

Walking the cemetery evoked different emotions than the ones Moore has grown accustomed to witnessing in battle.

“After so much time covering these wars, I have some difficult memories and have seen some of the worst a person can see – so much hatred and rage, so much despair and sadness. All that destruction, so much killing. And now, one beautiful and terribly sad spring afternoon amongst the rows and rows of marble stones – a young woman’s lost love.”

And by giving us a window to witness the grief for an unknown's lost love, Moore reminds us to hold our loved ones a little closer. In troubled times, and in peace.

Sgt. Jimmy Regan with his parents James and Mary in happier times.

The rewards of rescue...priceless

2009-12-19T04:08:00.000-08:00

 Nell earned her stripes the hard way. But life has turned around for this lucky survivor.

Witnessing turnarounds is the most gratifying aspect of animal rescue. A skittish, bony creature who arrives terrified and smelling badly can be transformed into an unrecognizable success story.

Gradually, as scared animal eyes look into kind human eyes, they begin to trust again. Or for the first time.

Watching it happen feeds the soul, soothing the frustrations of compassion fatigue. And it inspires tears of pure joy, even for those rescuers with the toughest shells and a career full of experiences.

Animal rescue is not a perfect system. It’s woefully underfunded, unsupported by government, and not organized. It is characterized by loose affiliations and alliances. For example, contrary to popular belief, humane societies aren’t connected to each other. Neither are SPCAs, otherwise known as societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. These names are generic, like “hospital”.

But the places aren’t as important as the people. Whether they land at a shelter, a sanctuary, an independent rescue group, or a foster home, animals blossom after rescue at the hands of people driven to save.

Some come further than others. Some won’t come far enough to make it out alive.

But for those animals who take to the lifestyle—one that requires them to wait patiently until a permanent place can be found—they are given another chance at happiness.

Nell is one such case that makes the heart soar. I met her at Whatcom Humane Society recently. The photo below portrays a frightened dog who had just been rescued after being tied to the train tracks. She was hit by a train, thrust into the path of danger by someone's twisted idea of sport.

The photo above shows Nell now, lounging under the bedcovers at her foster home.

I haven’t spoken to Nell’s foster parents, but I’m sure they are in it for just that moment in time. The one when she gives them those puppy eyes full of hope and trust.

To read previous stories about Nell's rescue, click these links.

Right on track

Already trained

Staying abreast of health problems

2009-12-17T14:19:00.000-08:00

Poor Henry was exhausted after a day at the clinic. He received a thorough teeth cleaning and a daring shave.

When I weather a spate of sick cats as I did recently, I begin to exhibit hypochondria where their health is concerned.

As I was cuddling Henry the other day, I felt a bump on his chest that seemed like some sort of cyst. He was bundled off to Northshore Veterinary Hospital in short order.

Dr. Kim Barron is a kind and patient woman, and always takes me seriously even when my suspicions have no basis in fact.

There was the time I thought Charlie was choking on a piece of salmon. It turned out he was just coughing on a hairball. The salmon I suspected and tried to pull out was actually his tongue. Thankfully it was slippery, so I didn’t get a firm grip.

Kim gave Henry a detailed once-over looking for cysts, even shaving him down in places for a closer examination.

When he was handed back to me with his nipples bare and boldly on display, I realized that must have been the cyst I thought I’d found.

Good thing it isn’t bikini season just yet.

Following the pecking order

2009-12-16T19:40:00.000-08:00

Photo taken by Jim Rider of the South Bend Tribune in Indiana.

Why did the ducklings cross the road?

In the case of this flock of Mallards, it's because their mother was leading the way. While the little ones struggled to clear the curb, she waited 20 minutes for a clear path across the busy street before heading over with her offspring safely in tow.

Proving that with a little perseverance, even roadblocks in life that seem concretely unsurmountable can be conquered.

Down to a Magnificent Seven

2009-12-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

You might think that in a multi-cat household, I would barely notice when I lose one.

That's not true in the least.

When I come home from the veterinary clinic knowing one of my animals will never return, the missing piece of the puzzle is palpable.

It's not just me who feels it. The remaining cats jostle for pecking order, and there's a perceptible hole in the dynamic for a while until the animals adjust to the loss.

Last night I drove through a heavy snowstorm to get Felix to the veterinary hospital before it closed. Felix is an elderly grey tabby cat I rescued dumpster-diving outside a Jack in the Box fast food restaurant in San Diego 13 years ago, and he's currently the oldest cat in the house. Because of the familiar distress signs I noticed before we set off, I knew when I bundled him into the carrier that he might not return to my cat house.

His health had been deteriorating slowly but surely over the past several months, ebbing away his quality of life. The slow decline made the decision to take his life a difficult one.

Day by day, he began to withdraw from the cat clutch, and them away from him, leaving him to nap alone. He stopped playing and appeared to be in pain at times, even though his tests showed all systems normal. He grew thinner, and just recently the bones on his spinal cord felt more pronounced. The wide-faced tomcat cheeks began to hollow. And when he was sitting or lying down, I could tell he wasn't completely comfortable.

My old cat was simply fading away, a little bit at a time.

The surviving pride of cats -- now down to a Magnificent Seven cast of characters -- help ease the pain of loss. But there will never be another Felix, and the holidays will be dimmer without his friendly spirit in the house.

Goodbye to a survivor and a friend.

* * *

This will be a grief-tinged holiday season for me. I lost Opus in October, and now Felix is gone too. The house feels quiet and lonely without them.

To read about the battle to save Opus, click to And then there were eight.

A furry fashion plate

2009-11-29T17:05:00.000-08:00

Jackson the Chihuahua fancy-foots through fall modeling his too-precious sweater knitted in autumn tones. Notice how the sweater's sage-colored panel on the right complements his eyes perfectly.

Jackson's photo was taken by Los Angeles-based Kim Rodgers of Bark Pet Photography. Kim's passionate about photographing dogs, and she's also a dedicated animal rescuer in her own right.

Bits and bites of happiness

2009-11-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

American Thanksgiving is rolling into place for 2009. It will be my first year celebrating the holiday as a newly-minted American, and a Canadian too (Not born in the USA, Oct. 21, 2009).

I am grateful for so many blessings. Animal rescue sits at the top of the list. Those entrenched in the field know how rewarding and meaningful this work is. Having purpose nurtures the soul, and makes every day matter. And for me, documenting the heroic feats of rescuers keeps my belief in humanity going strong. I’ll be toasting my Tofurkey drumsticks to that.

In the spirit of giving thanks, here are updates from recent stories with happy endings.

I got him!

Yesterday I trapped Montana, the orange cat living outside Cafe Akroteri. Finally appetite overrode caution. He went on the WeSnip van to be fixed and treated. It was a treat for me too, because I had the chance to watch this crackerjack crew in action. I’ll be posting a story on the WeSnip experience shortly.

Initially I had suspected Montana’s ear injuries were caused by fighting with other animals, but that wasn’t it. It turns out this gentle boy had a terrible case of ear mites. The itching had caused him to kick his poor little ears open himself.

Special thanks to Lisa Weston of Richmond Animal Protection Society, a terrific shelter north of the line. She saw the blog story and worried that wily Montana wouldn’t be caught. She offered to give up her weekend to come down and help me catch the cat. You’re the best, Weston!

Previous blog stories on the Akroteri cats:
Almost catch of the day
Compassion is on the menu

Right on track

 I was horrified when I first encountered Nell at Whatcom Humane Society. Some human had tied her to the tracks, and she had been hit by a train. A railroad employee rescued her and the shelter took her in. Soon she was bundled off to a foster home, where she has recuperated marvelously. She’s bouncing around like a new dog, and needs a new home.

Those of you on my Facebook will know there were some nail-biting moments when Nell disappeared from her foster home on Halloween. A storm had struck the region, and the fence enclosing her blew down. Nell was off like a shot. Rescuers put out the word to keep an eye out for her through social networks and more traditional channels too. Sure enough, she jumped into someone’s car at Lake Padden, rescued a second time. You can read more about Nell's progress on the Whatcom Humane Society website.

Previous blog stories about Nell:
On track for recovery
Already trained

Freeway of love

The woman I saw panhandling just off the freeway to raise enough money to keep her dogs will have a less stressful Thanksgiving. Rescue groups stepped up to help her. Her pit-Rottie mix Calla has already been fixed by WeSnip, which greatly reduced her licensing fees. And Alternative Humane Society donated the money to pay for the licensing charges. Then a generous animal rescuer named Belinda Ogley sent money to me on PayPal all the way from Singapore to defray Kristina’s dog food bill for a while. You're a kind soul, Belinda, to care from so far away.

Previous blog story on Kristina:
Working to make it work

The ball and chain

2009-11-22T17:15:00.000-08:00

Check out the 60-pound weight attached to the groom's ankle. That's the full weight of commitment.

Just because I mean well doesn't mean my efforts are always appreciated.

Last night I was blogging from a restaurant bar when in rolled a party of 15. The young men were celebrating. One of them was getting married, and this was his bachelor party.

I asked permission to take photos of the joyous event, and started snapping away. When the pop of my flashbulb finally died down and I returned to my booth to start writing, I figured that was the end of the story.

But that's when she attacked.

The battleax landed at my table like a bat out of hell. She's married to one of the men, and she was raging angry, demanding to know where my photos--which were tame, by the way--were going to end up.

When I didn't back down, her mouth started spewing bitter venom.

"Do you even have a husband of your own?" she mocked, just before asking if I wanted to fight.

There are those who will criticize me for not defusing the situation and backing down. But in my experience, there's only one way to tame a bully. Stand up to her.

I ordered her to step off. I told her the men had consented to the photographs being taken. And then I called her a "mean mommy" trying to control everybody.

That did it.

She stormed off, and peace was restored.

Holy matrimony.

The little shelter that could

2009-11-22T15:28:00.000-08:00

This goat named Marty was a lobby greeter for the RAPS shelter until her mischief-making and counter-jumping caused so much ruckus that she had to be closed into a kennel in the dog area.

I stopped by one of my favorite shelters late last week.

The Richmond Animal Protection Society isn't nearly one of the largest shelters I have formed a relationship with. Nor is it the oldest, or the best financed.

But it does have something going for it.

A giant heart.

Executive director Carol Reichert provides the capable and compassionate leadership that makes it all possible for this little shelter that could.

Richmond Animal Protection Society executive director Carol Reichert cuddles a puppy picked up as a wandering stray two days ago.

Helen Savkovic and Bluey the cat work the intake desk together.

Dogma rules

2009-11-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

Photo taken by Steven Kennedy.

Unexpected meetings with kind souls. That's the food that feeds my soul. Tonight I met Jen Larson, a 23-year-old who is tender and sweet. She already knows she wants a family, but more importantly to me, she wants a rescue dog.

"It completes the whole family picture," Jen said. "When no one else is around, you have the dog."

Jen Larson already sees family dogs in her future.

Veg out

2009-11-21T17:18:00.001-08:00

Erica Epperson's art show opened today in Bellingham, Wash. at award-winning Boundary Bay Brewery.

One of the best parts of my job is mixing business with pleasure. Scouting scintillating stories for you to read draws me to people I like mingling with, even when I'm tempted to seclude from society. Check out the earthy stylings from my friend Erica Epperson. She makes a simple vegetable into a masterpiece. Here's the story I helped write for her bio. It reveals the source of her inspiration.

* * * * *

The relationship between human beings and their Earth is one of sustenance and dependence.

My acrylic and oil paintings are created to honor this connection. I see beauty in the so-called ordinary around me, particularly food items. Food that appears simple and uneventful at first blush. My work usually portrays food I have grown and eaten myself.

Each piece of an artist’s work has its own spirit. That makes it an object of power, providing inspiration, healing and meaning to people who are receptive to its beauty.

That power has led the artwork of others to influence my own style. My most profound influences are the art deco painters of the 1930s and 40s, and the Works Progress Administration murals created in the 1930s during the Great Depression. These paintings funded by the New Deal are tangible testaments to the hearty dreams of the American people. Aspirations that couldn’t be stolen, not even in the face of large-scale economic disaster.

During the Great Depression, communities gained strength by nurturing hope and working together. With our modern society facing its own struggles, the WPA paintings are a historical and inspirational example of triumph.

From my early years as a kid growing up in rural Northern California, I knew I was meant to paint, and taught myself. Art stayed a consistent and vibrant theme in my daily life. When I moved to Santa Cruz, then San Jose Bay, I operated businesses doing sign-making, mural painting, even a tattoo studio. I’ve since settled in Bellingham with my family, in this region that provides me with deep and rich fodder for my work.

A nod to the papoose

You say tomaaaaato I say tomooooto...

Hot little persimmon

Almost catch of the day

2009-11-19T10:45:00.000-08:00

I told you about the cats living outside Akroteri Cafe. Two female gray cats were spayed years ago, but a recent addition to the colony still needs to be fixed. I tried to trap him this week, but he outsmarted me. He waited for the friendlier cats to step inside the trap first, foiling my efforts.

Read more about this trapping mission by going to Compassion is on the menu.

Prep cook Jim Clift loves all animals, and can't stand to see them suffer.

The wily orange cat waited for the gray cats to feed first, testing the danger.

Woke up with wood

2009-11-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Living in the forest is peaceful. Blissfully uneventful most days. Until the wind picks up. Then the trees around the house tremble and creak and threaten to come crashing down on me. When the first one goes, it sets off a chain reaction. The trees are woven together like fabric, and pulling a thread unravels the web.

This time I got off pretty easy. Here’s what I encountered when I ventured out to survey the fallout on my driveway this morning between bouts of heavy rain.

Fruit of the loam

2009-11-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

This is the most beautiful and complex artichoke I've ever seen.

I admit it, I'm uncouth. I didn't grow up visiting museums. Never taken an art history class. I'm mildly embarrassed to admit it took the popular culture book Da Vinci Code for me to comprehend how art relates to the world.

Now that I'm finally starting to get it, I'm growing addicted to something I don't understand.

The fodder that's feeding my addiction this week is coming from Erica Epperson. The self-trained art deco-inspired artist opened her show at one of my favorite spots, the Boundary Bay Brewery in Bellingham, Wash.

I'm enamored with her work, probably because she shows fruits and vegetables in such gorgeous light.

Erica Epperson brings sunshine wherever she goes.

There's something magical about rhubarb. On the Prairies, rhubarb grows wild all over the place. Little kids pull it out, pour sugar on it and suck on the sour stalks. Rhubarb and strawberry pies are pure heaven. Perfect blend of sour and sweet.

Crossing the line

2009-11-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

It was a dark and stormy night at Peace Arch.

I got to the U.S.-Canada border last night with something to declare, but it wasn’t anything I had purchased.

It was my mission. Animal rescue.

That was relevant because of what I’d just seen. I had been driving down the lanes towards the checkpoint booths around dinnertime when I noticed a thin dog resembling a yellow Labrador trotting along the grassy shoulder. I was headed home to the United States. But the dog was going in the opposite direction, north towards Canada, with her nose traveling close to the ground.

I wasn’t sure if her guardian was nearby, maybe on foot enjoying the lush Peace Arch Park. Perhaps waiting for her in a car.

Peace Arch Park—named for a giant white arch that declares peace between the two nations—surrounds the border crossing connecting British Columbia to Washington State, and Canada to the United States. It's a popular park, and the busiest crossing west of Detroit.

When it was my turn to pull up to the booth, I asked the officer if he knew about the dog.

It turns out I wasn’t the only animal rescuer on the premises. Not only had border officers spotted her, but they had started feeding her too. And had tried to get close enough to catch her.

But so far, the dog had eluded them.

I asked the guard for permission to try. He sent me to park my vehicle in the area usually reserved for searching cars, and into the office to speak to the supervisor. I grabbed a leash from my rescue kit and set off.

The supervisor was kind, expressing concern for the dog and for me. He warned me to be careful amid the traffic. It was stormy, and hail had started pelting little round pellets the size of peppercorns. I trudged along through the slush and searched. My pink skirt wasn’t the best attire for the job, but the galoshes I was wearing were perfect for the task.

Unfortunately the dog had vanished for the time being.

But still I drove off feeling peace. She will resurface again, and I'm sure the guards will help her when she does. When I returned to the building empty-handed, several officers promised to look out for the border-running canine.

Because at Peace Arch, humanity is international.

I was soaked to the skin after my fruitless search for the border-dashing dog.

I recently became a dual citizen. You can read about the citizenship ceremony by going to Not Born in the USA.

Working like a dog to make it work

2009-11-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

Kristina Van Vorst is worried she won't be able to afford to keep her dogs, so she hit the streets with her handmade sign to plead for help.

As the American economy continues its steady collapse into itself, people’s livelihoods are being swallowed by the implosion.

Each day, jobs are being cut, houses foreclosed, bankruptcies filed. Shelters and makeshift tent cities are overwhelmed with trying to house the homeless.

And that includes animal shelters, where donation dollars are dropping as intake numbers are climbing. Animal guardians are surrendering their beloved pets because they can’t even afford to house themselves.

So when I saw 35-year-old Kristina Van Vorst on the street clutching a cardboard sign begging for services—not money—so she can afford to keep her two dogs, I had to stop and inquire further.

Kristina moved to Bellingham, Wash. three years ago, and at first she scraped by working as a nanny. But by the time the family’s children grew out of needing her services anymore, the economy had already began its plummet. Now she picks up odd jobs: landscaping, tutoring, cleaning. Kristina’s live-in boyfriend is lucky if he makes $30 working half-days for a temporary day labor employment agency.

To add to their financial strains, her boyfriend’s father also lives with them, and he’s afflicted with Alzheimer’s.

Kristina needs money to license her two rescue dogs. Three-year-old Calla is a Rottweiler-pit mix who had been beaten with a skateboard in Nebraska. Two-year-old Solonas is a pit hound mix who was relegated to a backyard before Kristina adopted her. Calla also needs to be spayed to reduce her licensing fees, and both dogs need vaccinations and special food.

By the time I encountered her, Kristina’s panhandling hadn’t panned out. She had only collected $5 and a turkey sandwich. But I put the call out to rescue groups I know in the area, and they are already working to help these girls stay together.

Calla is well-behaved and friendly.

An animal by any other name is just a human

2009-11-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

I'm sure this pup wouldn't appreciate being associated with the neighborhood playboy when he's labeled a "dog".

When a man leers at a girl, he gets called a pig. If he’s stepping out on his woman, he’s a dog. Someone who finks out his friends is a rat. A shifty character might be labeled a snake in the grass. If he’s gutless, he’s a chicken.

As for someone being called an animal in general, that could be used to describe rapists, murderers, pretty much any person lacking moral fiber and good character.

Why are animals getting all the blame for our unsavory human characteristics?

I’m not taking a writerly sanctimonious stand against society here. I’m guilty of it too. I catch myself pinning ugly human traits on unsuspecting animals, although much less lately since I decided enough was enough. Now I make an out-loud correction to try to reprogram my mental descriptive go-to phrase, and possibly the listener’s too.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we stopped bagging on the animals for our shortcomings. That would be the humane—and human—thing to do.

Baying at the new moon

2009-11-11T20:07:00.000-08:00

We took pages and pages of notes on relationships.

Tonight I heard a cry for help.

It came from a pizza parlor 20 minutes away.

I had snuggled in for the night with my cats and my laptop, fully resolved to increase my daily word count.

And then a friend called with a problem.

Actually it wasn’t really his problem. He was counseling his best friend, whose wife had just confessed she had strayed with another man.

I knew his advice would be solid. But there’s no substitute for a woman’s touch.

I hit the road, and once I got there, it wasn’t long before the elephant in the room was on the table. The friend shared the details. We communed. We talked about the past. The mistakes, the regrets. Miniscule and significant. The range of events that led to this catastrophic confession.

He talked and I took notes, drew pictures, made charts that mapped out the breakdown of a love affair. This event was the crash, but the derailment and communication breakdown had happened long ago.

In the end, friendship superseded heartbreak, and good times were had by all.

Now that’s true romance.

A Ray of sunshine

2009-11-07T17:17:00.000-08:00

Barely a day goes by that I don't feel compelled to write.

It balances my mood, resets my counter, and puts the world back in order.

So when I read this passage by Ray Bradbury, I couldn't help but feel kinship with a writer I've never known. A writer who has achieved success beyond my wildest wordsmith dreams. I feel humble and filled with gratitude for what his words have done for me today.

* * *

To sum it all up, if you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling.

You must write every single day of your life.

You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next.

You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.

I wish for you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.

I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.

May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories—science fiction or otherwise.

Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

- Ray Bradbury, one of the greatest authors America has ever known

Where there's smoke, there's fire

2009-11-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

A photographer from the Long Beach Press Telegram captured the moment on camera as a firefighter gently brought Ellen back to life with an oxygen mask.

For years, I harbored a fear that I knew was irrational: that my home would burst into flames in my absence.

The phobia wasn’t fostered because I own items with great monetary value. It’s my animals I worry about—that they will end up as tiny charred bodies in a closet, suffocating to death, wondering where I was when they needed saving.

At least, I used to think it was a completely irrational fear. Until I met my friend Danny Parizek in Los Angeles.

Shortly before we became acquainted, Danny was on a day trip to San Diego on Christmas Eve 1999 when he got the phone call that plays in my worst nightmares. His brother was on the line with bad news. The apartment occupied by him and his partner was on fire.

“We raced back,” Danny said.

The apartment building had been constructed in the 1920s to house naval officers. The suspected cause of the fire was faulty wiring going to a hallway closet light.

Danny remembers that when they got inside their place that night, the Christmas tree stood in the living room, its melted ornaments still attached. All possessions were destroyed. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Their two cats had been trapped inside during the fire. Jack, a three-month-old kitten, had sought refuge under the bed. He was dead.

“We were devastated, we were heartbroken,” Danny said. “We wouldn’t wish a fire on our worst enemy.”

But this horrible tragedy was wrapped in a miracle.

Three-year-old Ellen was more savvy than baby Jack, and stationed herself at the only open window. There in the front room, she managed to breathe in clean air and survived until firefighters arrived to douse the flames.

As for me, I'm like a mother with children. Not truly relaxed unless I see my babies are safe in front of my eyes. But for now, I'm trying to let my fear of fire go up in flames.

Compassion is on the menu

2009-11-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not the only restaurant patron who's inquired about cat sisters Kentucky and West Virginia. They preen themselves while on display, right in front of the bar's windows that look onto the alley.

Just like the mining states they are named after, Kentucky and West Virginia know what it’s like to hit the mother lode.

Rather than finding an ore vein, these cats have struck gold of another sort: a steady food source. Four years ago, the cat sisters were born underneath a Greek restaurant in downtown Bellingham.

“I thought they’re kind of like coal miners, living underground most of the time,” said Café Akroteri’s prep cook Jim Clift, the cats’ primary caregiver. “You have to respect coal miners. It’s one of the toughest jobs.”

People patronize restaurants because they’re famished. Hungry cats are no different. It’s common to find stray cats eking out an existence behind restaurant and hotel kitchens, scrounging for discarded food scraps that go out the back door as garbage.

But what’s not nearly so common is finding restaurant staffers willing to take responsibility for these feral cats. Many are too wild to be petted and cuddled. Yet they aren't wild enough to survive without human kindness.

Jim, who has worked at Café Akroteri for 16 years, couldn’t turn away from these creatures in need. He took the lead and started feeding the cats first, but his example has been followed by other Akroteri staff, a resident living upstairs, even the restaurant’s patrons, who bring food for the cats.

“They're pretty spoiled,” said 38-year-old Jim. “They’ve got a lot of fans.”

Jim knows the cats don’t lead an ideal existence. But he also realizes feral cats don’t have many options. Because they are closer to wild animals than domesticated pets, shelters usually have no option but to euthanize them.
 
“I’m kind of prepared for something to happen to them. I know they live a hard life. People go racing down this alley sometimes.”

Letting the cats stay isn’t just a humane decision. It’s a smart one, too. They ensure mice and rats stay away. And removing these ones from the premises just leaves space for more to come in. There’s an abundance of stray cats trying to survive life on the streets, so where there’s food, there will be cats.

The cats got their names because Jim respects miners risking their lives. But he cares for the cats because he respects life.

And that makes it a kindness all around. I’m sure Kentucky and West Virginia would agree.

* * *

Stay with me on the kitty trail, because this story isn’t over…
Jim’s been a responsible guardian. A rescue group helped him trap and spay Kentucky and West Virginia. Now that a third cat’s joined the group, he wants to fix that one too. The other rescue group isn’t operating anymore, so I’ve agreed to help. Early tomorrow, I’ll bring my traps to Akroteri and attempt to snag the orange tabby. Then I’ll drive him to Ferndale to be fixed on the WeSnip van. I’ve been wanting to cover the important work being done on WeSnip by Patricia Maas and her crew for ages now, so this will be the perfect opportunity to do that. Story to follow.

Jim Clift has both two-legged and four-legged clientele showing up for his meals.

Fresh water is always on the menu at the Akroteri Kitty Cafe.

Alley cats need a hand from humans to survive life on the streets.

A fairytale friendship in the 'hood

2009-10-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

Lily dressed up for Halloween as Little Red Riding Hood, with Mungo as her sidekick—a dog in wolf's clothing.

One of the best parts about having a sibling when you’re a kid is that a brother or sister provides a convenient scapegoat, someone to finger-point and blame bad deeds on. An only child doesn’t have such luxuries.

Unless you have a Mungo.

Lily and her Sheltie Mungo get up to all the usual sibling hijinks—sharing food, laying claim to each other’s belongings. And then there’s the mischief-making.

“Lily likes to ensure that the dog is nearby whenever she is up to no good in the hopes that Mum and Dad will fall for the-dog-did-it defense,” said Lily’s mum Nancy MacKinnon, whom I attended Carleton University School of Journalism with back in the late 1980s.

“They’re a really funny pair, as sometimes it seems they merely tolerate each other, yet they are acutely aware of the other and how he/she is doing.”

Particularly in the last little while, when three-year-old Lily came down with a bad bout of the flu.

“Mungo has been her shadow, keeping an eye on her, and if she fusses, coughs or cries, he comes over and pokes me on the leg with his muzzle, then walks back to her and waits for me to see to her.”

Mungo’s playing nurse now, but in the past, that’s been Lily’s role.

“She will use him as her patient when playing with her doctor’s kit. He lets her, but gives me a look that I interpret as “why, why???”

Mungo has been intrigued by baby Lily since her first day home from hospital, showing acceptance into his pack by bringing his toys to her.

On track for recovery

2009-10-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a still from the old cartoon that inspired the name for Nell the dog. It was part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and featured dim-witted Dudley Do Right, a Canadian mountie. He would save his heart throb Nell when evil Snidley Whiplash tied her to the tracks. But Nell always gave the horse more affection than her hapless human hero.

On Thursday I told you about Nell, the Whatcom Humane Society dog who had been tied to the train tracks and left to die by some heartless human being.

Many of you have written to ask how Nell is doing. I'm thrilled to report that she was transferred from the shelter to a foster home yesterday. It will take time for her to trust people again. Who could blame her. She will get patient, tender care from her foster family.

Desperately seeking closure

2009-10-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

I see these posters at every shelter I visit. I always hope for a happy ending. Sometimes not knowing is the hardest part for these pet guardians searching for their lost loves.

Already trained

2009-10-29T12:24:00.000-07:00

I saw this dog recovering in a back kennel at Whatcom Humane Society when I stopped by to visit last week. She was terrified. Rescued just days earlier, she had been tied to the train tracks by someone and hit once by a locomotive. I see or hear about cruelty every day, but this one shocked even me.

Shelter staff named this poor girl Nell, after the woman in the old cartoon who was tied up on the train tracks by evil Snidely Whiplash. She would be rescued by her hero Dudley Do-Right. In this case, it will be the shelter that's doing right for sweet Nell.

Facing the eye of the storm

2009-10-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

It was gratifying to watch Shelly's instant connection with shelter staff at Whatcom Humane Society when she was in Washington State last week. Hooking people from our field together is one of my favorite pastimes. It creates rescuer synergy. Here Shelly's engaging in "shelter speak" with superstar WHS volunteer Lynn Graham.

When it comes to bonding experiences, outrunning a hurricane together is high up on the list.

For Shelly Patton and I, the event nourished a friendship in progress, one that had already begun to bud in the wasteland left behind by natural disaster.

New Orleans first hurtled its way into my heart when I helped rescue animals there in 2005 following the devastating floods of Hurricane Katrina. Like most animal rescuers, I couldn’t stay away from the city that had been washed away, even when the initial mission was over.

I’ve returned several times since that fateful event to document the recovery and try to make sense of it all.

It was during my one-year anniversary trip there in 2006 that I first met Shelly Patton. She works at the Louisiana SPCA, the state’s lead animal welfare agency. The shelter had lost eighty percent of its staff and its entire facility to the floods. Shelly and the rest of her team were working out of trailers, the animals housed beside them in a makeshift shelter formerly operating as a coffee warehouse.

I was in New Orleans writing about the city’s animals for a piece that ran in Modern Dog magazine.

But it ended up being a very human story.

The tales told gave me hope in humanity. Researching how people risked life and limb to save their pets. How local and out-of-town rescuers worked side by side to achieve miracles amidst tragedy for the animals who were left behind to die.

When the three-year anniversary came along in August 2008, the city decided to erect a monument at city hall to the animals who suffered through the floods, and to the people who risked their personal health and safety to save them.

I knew I wanted to be there to see the statue unveiled.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Gustav had decided to be there too. The giant storm was scheduled to hit New Orleans on August 28th, the exact same day Katrina had made landfall three years earlier.

With the levee system still in tatters, it was quite possible that the city would flood again.

Rescuers who went to the ceremony were poised to help if the worst happened. Instead of spending a peaceful afternoon of fanfare down at city hall remembering what was saved and mourning what was lost, we left the ceremony on the hunt for survival supplies: ice, water, food for several days. Coolers and gas cans filled with extra fuel.

It would be days before the hurricane hit, but that night I returned to my hotel to find a flyer had been slipped under my door. City officials had ordered the hotels to close down the following day, and to turn guests out of their rooms. Visitors were instructed to leave the city at once.

But I didn’t feel like a visitor.

I had a job to do. Now that FEMA had new rules in place, laws had changed. The pets were going with their people for the first time in history, and I wanted—no, needed— to be there to write about it.

I decided I wasn’t leaving. I had planned to ride the hurricane out in my car. Then Shelly Patton saved the day. She invited me to join the Louisiana SPCA’s team, to write and photograph their efforts to help the animals for the organization’s website. Every hotel room just outside the storm zone was booked solid, but they graciously invited me to squish into one of their rooms.

There would be three people, five dogs and a rabbit sharing the space for several days. And all the rooms occupied by shelter staff were just as chock full as ours. The hotel’s generator was operating only to serve food in a dining room, so the rooms had running water but no electricity.

But it was still a refuge compared to the alternative.

I won’t forget the eerie drive out of town that day to Baton Rouge. By the time animal rescuers left the city, it was just hours before Gustav’s scheduled landing. The highways leading out of New Orleans were jammed in every direction but one: the path of the hurricane. Three of us were driving in a convoy. Shelly, SPCA staffer Ginger Morvant and me.

We were taking our animal-laden vehicles out using the only wormhole left.

While people sat for hours on freeways waiting to escape with the rest, we drove free and clear, the only three vehicles on the road for most of the two-hour drive.

Traveling a path that’s separate from the one everyone else is taking is simultaneously liberating and terrifying. But sometimes it’s the right road.

After we parked our cars in the hotel lot, Shelly asked me to move mine closer to hers. Good thing she did, because I had been parked in this empty space. It wasn't empty for long. The wind snatched the metal hotel sign taking it down effortlessly, like it was a spindly toothpick.

Two city workers setting up a barricade parked a little too close to the water's edge, and their truck slid right into the drink. They had to climb out the back window to escape. They were quite embarrassed when I interviewed them at the water's edge, and weren't anxious to have their photos taken.

I had the chance to interview one of the country's most famous mayors, Ray Nagin. For months his face was plastered all over the news as he led the city's recovery from Katrina, and negotiated with state and federal officials. Nagin stopped by the pet evacuation center to see how the efforts of animal rescuers were progressing.

While visiting our local shelters last week, Shelly also met Whatcom Humane Society executive director Laura Clark, who gave her a tour of the Williamson Way shelter.

Some shelter animals need a leg up

2009-10-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

This cat took an interest in me while I was visiting Whatcom Humane Society. I have more than a dozen photos of her in different poses sticking her paws out of the cage.

One of the reasons people get upset visiting shelters is the sad sight of animals pushing their paws out from behind the bars seeking affection.

But these aren’t the animals most deserving of pity.

Their demeanor—begging to be chosen—helps sell their strengths to potential adopters.

While shelter workers and volunteers do their best to keep all the animals in their care balanced, happy and comforted, there will always be those claimed by kennel stress. Pushed into the back of their cages, looking terrified, perhaps even hissing or growling as people walk by.

Only a handful of human beings would choose these animals instead of a friendly, outgoing one. Not many will step up and see past perceived imperfection to select a companion who will need some extra love, affection and attention to trust again.

These rare few have learned a secret that keeps rescuers going. An animal’s issues don’t have to be just an inconvenient hassle. By giving them a chance, we stretch ourselves. Our patience, our ability to love unconditionally, to accept things as they are.

The resulting bond between animal and guardian is strengthened because of the journey the two have taken together to get there. And the joy and satisfaction that comes from saving is reward enough.

Because by saving them, we also save ourselves.

Follow animal instincts to vet a vet

2009-10-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

Dr. Kimberly Barron works on this Labrador's ears.

When people ask me how to choose a vet, I always tell them the same thing.

If the veterinary team in question is committed to assisting the animal rescue mission, then you’ve found a keeper.

It’s true, I admit it—I’m biased. But after two decades as an animal rescuer, this litmus test has served me well. Veterinarians and their assistants who support animal welfare are almost always knowledgeable and compassionate. And they have the animals’ best interests at heart. Plus they care about the well-being of all creatures in their community, not just the clinic’s bottom line.

When I moved to Bellingham, Washington in 2001, one of my first stops was a visit to Dr. Kimberly Barron, owner of Northshore Veterinary Hospital.

Kim has served on the Whatcom Humane Society board of directors. She’s donated her time and medical skills to rescue groups and supported initiatives such as spay-neuter days at her clinic. She understands the issues.

Eight years later, I’m proud to call Kim a friend.

When my cat Opus fell sick recently, the knowledge that I had Kim in the pocket was a source of great comfort. If the worst happened, Kim would be there to help me take Opus’ life as humanely and painlessly as possible.

Kim’s competence alone would have been enough to endear her to me. And her personality complements her skills. Kind but not gushy, matter-of-fact but nowhere near cold, Kim has a friendly, good-humored demeanor that inspires serenity and soothes grief.

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t affected by her work.

Those in veterinary medicine who truly care about their charges face the same risks of compassion fatigue and burnout that test shelter workers and other rescuers.

But there’s a difference. At a shelter or rescue group, the human guardian most often walks away, leaving the animal behind as the only creature in need.

In a vet clinic, a human being is the first patient to present in need, characterized by sorrow, heartbreak, or other personal problems such as divorce, illness, and job loss, even a need to give up an animal because of an unexpected move or other change in circumstances.

At Kim’s clinic on Electric Avenue, any one of her clients might be losing a member of the family on any day. Or every day.

That means Kim and the rest in her veterinary ranks minister to the people just as much as they help the animals.

It takes its toll on her to support her clients’ emotions.

“Sometimes it comes out as being really irritable or depressed, and I don’t really know where it’s coming from,” Kim said. “And then I realize I’ve been doing a ton of euthanasias. Even if it’s for the good of the animals, it’s still really hard to do it.”

Before I arrived with Opus on her final day, Kim had decided she was going to take a break from euthanizing until the following week. She had already taken the lives of two cats and a dog in the previous 24 hours.

When the bodies start to pile up, Kim doesn’t sleep well.

“It’s not guilt or remorse,” she said. “I know it needs to be done. But it takes its toll.”

Another veterinarian at her clinic had offered to take over for a bit while Kim recuperated.

But in the end, Kim decided to perform the procedure. To follow the case through to its final conclusion.

It wasn’t an easy euthanasia. Opus doesn’t react well to leaving her home environment. Just like when she’s receiving a simple vaccination, Opus fought the injection that would shut her system down for good.

It’s the third cat Kim has euthanized for me in four years.

I know there will be more goodbyes in my future. But I’m comforted to think that Kim will be there, and not just for my animals.

For me, too.

To read the full story of Opus, go to "And then there were eight".

If you are interested in hearing more about Dr. Kim Barron and her animal rescue experiences, check out this story I wrote about animal hoarding. Kim's story is the lede.

Janet Erchinger-Davis rescued this pug from Craigslist to be a friend for her other four-year-old pug St. Coco. This one got an even loftier name: Basil the Great.

This woman brought a bird in for her daughter Korren, who has three rescued birds including one saved from a rodeo clown. This one, a sulfur-crested Cockatoo named Daphne, came by for a check-up.

The clinic had a record-setting day for number of teeth pulled: 42. Nine came from the mouth of eight-year-old Chunky B, a rescued Chihuahua who had been fed people food his whole life. He's been fixed up good as new, except for a new feature that's oddly endearing: his tongue has a tendency to stick out.

Licensed veterinary technician Rose Eastman does the Kennel Card Shuffle.

Leaving a beauty mark

2009-10-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Nature has sprinkled magic dust everywhere in the form of autumn leaves. Colorful decorations bestowed upon earthlings by a force bigger than themselves. I thought this streetlight poking through the trees last night resembled the moon.

Even in darkness, bright shiny leaves form a crunchy carpet of many colors.

Not born in the USA

2009-10-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

We all received tiny flags to wave on our special day.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. "

- Excerpt from a sonnet called The New Colossus. It was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 and mounted on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. The poem embraces the millions of immigrants who have made the United States their adopted homeland.

* * *

I swore yesterday.

Except this time, everyone approved.

I was taking an oath.

A promise to be a good and loyal citizen to my adopted homeland, the United States. I moved here 12 years ago. Me and three cats in a U-Haul driving across the Canadian border near Vancouver, on my way to Southern California.

But until yesterday, I didn’t feel like I really belonged. Just like felons, I couldn’t even vote, a particularly sore spot for me in last year’s historical election of the first African American president.

 Yesterday that all changed.

In Seattle, 111 people including me from 46 countries were claimed by the United States in a ceremony that occurs at the Department of Homeland Security offices about three times a week. It moved me to tears.

Besides receiving our naturalization certificate and congratulations from government officials who were on hand, a couple of short videos were screened. President Barack Obama spoke to us with a personal, heartfelt message.

“This is a historical day, and you’ll never pass this way again. Citizens such as yourself have enriched this country socially, culturally and economically. Use your freedoms and your talents to contribute to the good of the nation and the world.”

I don’t feel like I’ve given up my love for the place that birthed me. But because I’ve made America my homeland, I want to feel like I’ve got rights in this nation, too.

And now I belong to both.

I’ve been accepted by not just one, but two of the greatest countries on planet Earth.

And that’s just dandy—or shall we say, Yankee Doodle Dandy—with me.

I have the privilege of keeping dual citizenship, so now I'm a proud member of both Canada and the U.S.

Nearly one-quarter of the world's countries were represented in this single ceremony.

Here is the oath that all new citizens of the United States must swear to uphold:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

While being in the United States means we have the right to bear arms, that doesn't mean weapons are welcomed at the swearing in ceremony. This location also had an immigration detention center, so anything even vaguely threatening was confiscated. The guards had set up this display case of confiscated items. One guard told me that this many items are confiscated every two weeks.

It was truly a flag-waving moment outside after we had all completed this process. Here I'm posed with Judy Mikel from the Philippines and Daniela Alexakis from Romania. They both live in Vancouver, Washington.

Addicted to love

2009-10-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Krista Wiendat shares a bonding moment with baby John.

My interest in photographing human beings used to be lackluster at best. But I have to admit that’s changing. As my hope swells in the power of people to better the world, humans have started catching my shutter’s eye.

Here’s one from the mouths of babes.

I spotted Justin Vance and Krista Wiendat standing outside a restaurant cradling their baby boy John. The baby had his mom’s eyes, but his dad said he sees his son’s striking resemblance to himself at that age.

“He looks just like I do in my baby pictures,” Justin said proudly.

John is three months and five days old. His parents are young, just 22.

“We aren’t a couple,” Justin informed me.

Justin and Krista might not be together as a couple, but because of John’s arrival, he makes them family just the same.

While Krista and Justin cuddled young John, a gospel revival amped up into full swing across the street at the farmer's market.

And then there were eight

2009-10-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

At first, Opus rallied after receiving fluids, but her health soon began its steady decline again.

I don’t take vacations from writing. For me, stringing words together is like consuming food and water. It must be done within certain intervals or my well-being starts to weaken.

So when I go quiet for even a week, my close pals in rescue know exactly what that means.

Something has gone wrong.

Most likely I’ve been immersed in material that’s too torturous for my brain to process and I’ve shut down. But sometimes it’s more personal than that.

This week, my silence was as personal as it gets.

My mind was consumed with making one decision, that choice all animal guardians dread: to take the life of my beloved companion animal.

Opus was my oldest cat at 17. She had been with me since kittenhood, one of dozens of animals I fostered in the early 1990s for Winnipeg Humane Society (WHS) in my no-pets-allowed townhouse apartment.

I get attached to every animal I foster. But I was young and only felt ready for the commitment of adopting two cats. A pair, so they would have each other for company.

Opus stood out to me because of her feisty attitude. She also gave me my first bout of ringworm.

My dear friend Tamara Vukusic—a fellow Carleton journalism school graduate—had been working at WHS at the time handling public affairs and media relations. She called me to come and get Opus because the ringworm meant her time was up. She said she had a kitten sitting in her desk drawer who was “special.”

Was she ever special, as I would come to discover later.

Opus’ counterpart was a slightly younger and much sweeter black-and-white fluffy tuxedo kitten I named Magnum.

Together they formed magnum opus, a Latin phrase that refers to an artist’s greatest life work, her most monumental masterpiece.

Many other cats came my way over the years, but Magnum and Opus formed the heart of me. Through all the heartbreak, in rescue and otherwise, they were a constant source of strength and support.

Two years ago, I lost Magnum at age 15 to pancreatic cancer. He was the primary cat tasked with cheering me up when I was sad. I cried for nine days straight when he was no longer there to lick the tears away.

Because Magnum died at an age considered old for a cat, I couldn’t live in my denial bubble anymore. Opus’ body clock was ticking too.

I had a reprieve for two years plus a week after Magnum’s death. Then Opus looked sick all of a sudden. She became thin and listless almost overnight.

I already knew what that meant as I bundled her into the carrier to bring her to my veterinarian. She had been healthy for 17 years, but she was old now, and it was likely her time.

Still, everything reasonable that could be done had to be done. Just in case I was wrong.

Taking Opus to the clinic —or anywhere for that matter—hadn’t ever been easy. She fought doing anything she didn’t want to do, and like most cats, being removed from her home environment was one of those things she really didn’t want to do.

Northshore Veterinary Hospital already had warnings in the computer system about Opus when I arrived, so they knew not to handle her like the average housecat.

Veterinary assistant Tonya Teetz came in wearing thick gloves up to the elbows. After a cursory look, it was determined Opus would be less stressed out if she was lightly sedated for testing.

Tests were run on her blood and urine. Results began rolling in showing normal. Unusually normal in fact, for such an old cat. Opus was set up on IV fluids because she was dehydrated, and she spent the night at Northshore for observation.

On Facebook, I recorded her progress. People on my Friends list cheered Opus on as she started showing lively signs over the next 24 hours. She was eating healthy portions again, standing up, swiping at us, and trying to rip out her IV needle.

The next evening, she was discharged to me looking much better. But the apparent miracle recovery wasn’t to be.

A day later, X-rays revealed a cancer tumor in her colon that was large for a cat’s small system, at 9 centimeters by 4.5 centimeters.

Hope had evaporated.

The night I heard the fateful news, I posted the question I was posing to myself on Facebook as I was pondering it: When to do it?

Support came pouring in. Animal lovers messaged me their stories. How long their pets’ illnesses had lasted before they made the decision, all the life-saving measures they had tried. The guilt they had felt when they waited too long.

But it was veterinarian Kim Barron’s advice in a story I wrote about Magnum two years earlier that came back to me again and again (Grieving guardians seek peace and understanding). Kim's words echoed in my mind as I paced through the night beside Opus’ bed.

“If there’s nothing that can be done and the animal is not completely comfortable, and if the owners are ready, it’s time,” she had told me in our interview.

As the night wore on, Opus’ condition didn’t get any better. In fact, she got worse. She started changing body positions every 15 minutes or so trying to get comfortable. Cats tend to get settled into the same position for hours. And she moved very slowly. She seemed to grow more listless.

When morning dawned, I had my decision. I called Kim and made an appointment for 2 p.m. to give me the morning to say goodbye. But as I watched Opus, her eyes seemed to plead with me.

Within half an hour, I had moved the time up. To right now. As soon as I could get her there.

Of course I wasn’t ready. Who is ever ready to say goodbye to a cherished friend?

But then I realized I was ready in a way. Ready for her to stop suffering. Ready to ease her pain as she had eased mine for 17 years.

And that—the gift of a humane goodbye—is eternal.

* * *

Note added Dec. 15:
Just two months passed, and I experienced another grave loss. Read about Felix in Down to a Magnificent Seven.

Katie Sinclair and Rose Eastman work expertly to sedate Opus. Notice the gloves.

Dr. Kim Barron supervises a battery of tests for Opus.

Opus is extremely fractious, so she is sedated for tests that some cats could handle wide awake.

Despite Opus' cantankerous nature, veterinary assistant Tonya Teetz formed a bond with her while she was at the clinic. When Opus had to be euthanized, I was going to request Tonya, but I didn't have to. She asked to be with Opus before I asked for her, and appeared in the room as if by magic.

Opus' fighting spirit came back briefly.

I made the same request to Kim when Opus died as I had for Magnum two years before: that she would autopsy her so I could look inside and find closure, to see that there truly was no hope. Veterinary assistant Deirdre Kettlestrings prepared the room.

In addition to the autopsy I requested, Kim elected to do an ultrasound for educational purposes, because she had never seen a cancer tumor inside the ascending colon before.

Opus chose to spend her last night at home looking out over the forest she loved so much from the comfort of her warming bed.

Sam sat by Opus saying his quiet goodbyes. They spent 7 years together.

Opus Maloney
1992 - Oct. 8, 2009

Rest in peace
my angel

A road-worthy friendship

2009-10-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

It didn't take any provocation for Adam Wayne to display his body art.

There are times when I wear my work in animal rescue like a hairshirt: it inspires reactions that are uncomfortably itchy.

Last week, I was relaxing in a local pub when my hairshirt caused someone else to show me his.

The man in the photo—who would only identify himself by his first and middle names, Adam Wayne—partially disrobed when he found out what I do.

Granted, it wasn’t me who inspired his undress.

He was driven by love for his pit bull mix, Charlie. To show me the tattoo he got as a tribute to his beloved dog. It’s an exact tracing of Charlie’s paw print, complete with nails.

Charlie had a hairshirt of his own to wear and bear just before he met Adam. He was the only survivor of a cruel act.

One of Adam's friends had been driving on the 5 freeway in Whatcom County, Washington when he saw the terrible sight.

Someone had treated a litter of a half-dozen puppies just like litter, offering them no more kindness than an ashtray loaded with cigarette butts tossed from a vehicle’s window. By the time Adam’s friend stopped to help, the puppies were nothing more than lifeless lumps in the road.

Then, as he drove on, a miracle.

Little Charlie, just a few weeks old, was sitting right underneath the sign for a rest stop.

Waiting for someone to stop and rescue him.

That night, Adam went by his friend’s place to visit the sole survivor. Love was instant and ardent.

“I knew when I looked at him that he was mine. I begged my friend to give him to me, and he did.”

Thirty-one-year old Charlie and nine-year-old Adam have been together ever since. The 80-pound dog is a mix of a pit bull breed, Labrador and Greyhound.

“He’s my kid for sure. He loves me unconditionally. Anything I do wrong, he doesn’t care. He does a prance when he sees me.”

Life for Charlie didn’t start out as a freeway of love. But he’s certainly found himself in a partnership that’s been road tested.

Notice Adam even included the dog's nails as part of the tattoo.

Polly Ester blend in a blanket

2009-10-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

Anyone else like to poke their toes out of the blanket like Polly Ester? Photo courtesy of Tory Maxwell.

Fall is my favorite time of year. The leaves get crunchy and colorful, and the odd warm days feel like bonus summer.

Being an insomniac, I welcome it when the nights grow colder, because that means sunlight time is shrinking. Darkness encourages sleep.

Animals can sense winter coming just like people can. While we’re winterizing our homes, they have their own chores. Bears prepare dens for hibernation. Squirrels pack nuts away. And dogs and cats…well, they’re trying to stay cozy too.

Meet a four-year-old pup who figured out exactly how to stay warm when the chilly bite of the Pacific Northwest autumn caught up with us last week. Polly Ester—so named because she is a blend of dogs—loves to bundle up in blankets whenever possible.

Her guardian Tory Maxwell says Polly Ester is possibly a mix of American Eskimo and Australian Cattle Dog.

“Maybe??? Who really knows,” wrote Tory. “She came into the shelter when she was three months old. I remember her coming through the door. I don’t think I put her down after that. She was supposed to be a foster. Ha, that obviously didn’t work.”

The shelter Tory’s referring to is Whatcom Humane Society. She supervised the animal care technicians there for five years, and departed in 2006. That’s a lifetime in shelter years. Many employees don’t even last one year in the emotionally charged environment that characterizes the life-and-death reality of shelter life.

Calmly competent, always cheerful and upbeat, Tory’s one of my all-time favorite WHS employees. And I’m not alone in my sentiments on Tory.

Even though Tory doesn’t work at Whatcom Humane Society anymore, she will always be part of its fabric.

And so, for that matter, will Polly Ester. A fine blend indeed.

Here's Tory Maxwell writing her coordinates in my notebook at a shelter social event. I snapped a quick pic because I knew I'd be writing about her some day soon.

A photo that barked a thousand words

2009-09-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

This is the photo of Walley that spoke to Alyssa Winters at the photo lab that day. All photos courtesy of Adrian Hitt Photography.

About a quarter of us meet the love of our life in the workplace.

For Alyssa Winters, that’s exactly how it happened.

The Minnesota photo lab technician was having a regular workday in the mounting department watching the images roll by. And then one face stood out from all the others.

You could say his picture barked a thousand words.

It’s not like Alyssa doesn’t have her share of animals to gaze upon. Six days a week—24 hours a day—the White House Custom Color lab in Eagan processes images for professional photographers.

“Being an animal lover like myself, this happens about a million times a day with all the photos I see of dogs,” Alyssa said.

That’s what made her chance encounter with Walley even more random than it already was.

“There was something about Walley's photo. Just the look in his eyes, I can still feel it. I looked and looked and looked at that photo all day.”

Within hours, she had contacted the shutterbug named Adrian Hitt who had sent in the digital files depicting the Catahoula Leopard-American bulldog mix named for his walnut-colored coat.

In her spare time, the Tennessee-based photographer parlays her picture-making skills into raising public awareness for the plight facing millions of animals euthanized in the United States every year. Arming rescued animals with professional photographs of themselves helps puts their best paws forward to potential adopters.

In Walley’s case, it was a shoot in mid-January for a Nashville-based rescue group called Camp Chaos 37206 that landed his photos at White House Custom Color this past February. The dog had been rescued trotting down the street on New Year’s Eve with a rope around his neck.

Adrian suggested Alyssa get in touch with Camp Chaos.

“I worked with a volunteer named Jen and filled out the application and references. I had her become my friend on Facebook because we have another dog at home and I wanted her to see how his life was. It was hard with me being here and them being there. It was a huge trust building moment on both ends.”

A week and a half later, Alyssa was on a plane headed from the north to the south to meet Walley. And that night she brought him home.

“Walley has made me so happy. My husband is in love as well. He's also a huge animal lover and says that Walley was meant to be.”

Alyssa and her hubby aren’t the only ones thrilled with the new addition. Walley’s dog brother Maynard is overjoyed.

“He has been a huge happiness to Maynard,” Alyssa said. “They play together and take walks together and kiss and love each other. Maynard has always been social and I have wanted another dog for quite a while but it just never felt that right ’til I saw Walley.”

Alyssa didn’t just save Walley. She’s using his snuggly, calm personality to educate others about pit bulls, a group of dogs often unfairly maligned by the media.

“Everywhere I take him he gets noticed because he's so handsome and people are very curious about a 'pit bull' you know? So I take it as my chance to educate people about bully breeds and adoption as well.”

Now that’s what I call a Kodak moment.

The atmosphere sparkled with love at first sight when Alyssa flew from Minnesota to Tennessee to meet Walley.

Newshound

2009-09-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

This dog posed for me. Notice the Bellingham Herald building in the background.

The Princess and her Bean

2009-09-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

Kristopher Wentworth adopted Princess, the little dog on the left, just three weeks ago. He's letting Isabella -- otherwise known as Bella Bean -- take Princess under the paw to show her the ropes in dogness. So far it's going well. Can't you tell?

A vow to be there

2009-09-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

A Jewel of a girl shares a laugh with Mokie, a gem of a cat.

In sickness and in health.

That’s a promise human beings make to each other. That we will be there no matter what. Through thick and thin. In good times, and in bad.

But it’s a promise that’s broken often.

Except by the animals. They don’t know any other way to be.

This morning, I stopped in to visit my dear friend Julie Davis, whom I affectionately call Jewel. We met eight years ago, connecting instantly because of two twinned traits: an offbeat sense of humor, and our love of animals. We both support our local animal shelter—the Whatcom Humane Society—and sit on the board of the capital campaign committee together.

Julie was diagnosed with ovarian cancer on June 30. Just two weeks later, she faced major surgery at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. Ninety-eight percent of the cancer was cut out of her. She’s undergoing chemotherapy until the end of the year to eradicate the rest.

Family and friends have rallied around Julie since she was diagnosed. But no one has been there for her as steadfastly and loyally as her two cats.

Eight-year-old Mokie and 12-year-old Ricky don’t leave Julie’s side for long.

Chemotherapy compromises the immune system, so it’s been suggested that Julie should consider placing her cats elsewhere until she’s all better.

But she won’t hear of it. She’s donning gloves and a face mask to clean their litterboxes. She’s always got a bottle of antibacterial gel standing by, just in case the cats squeeze in a comforting lick on her hands or face.

The cats keep Julie’s spirit supported when she’s feeling sad. They make her laugh and provide comfort. And when the magnitude of what she’s facing becomes almost too much to bear, they don’t mind if she cries into their fur.

Mokie and Ricky aren’t the only animals comforting ill people. Across the nation, nursing homes and hospital wards are now welcoming animals into their fold because they buoy patients’ spirits, assisting recovery while improving day-to-day quality of life.

Julie knows the next few months will bring good days, and bad days.

But that’s easier to bear with Ricky and Mokie at her side. Because they’ll be there with her, for better or for worse.

Do you feel inspired to help Julie, or stay updated on her progress? You can follow her journey and offer support on her Caring Bridge website.

Julie and her mom Maxine shared a laugh on the La-Z-Boys she bought recently to aid her convalescence. Maxine cut her hair bristle-brush short to match her daughter's hairdo as a gesture of support. Mom wanted you to know that they were reclining because neither was feeling well. Maxine had a sore leg, while Julie felt sick from chemo. Still, there was great beauty in shared pain. Notice Mokie posing on the window ledge.

This blonde ale's on tap

2009-09-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still out there on the road writing. Today I met Sirus. She's an eight-year-old yellow Labrador. But she's a whiter shade of pale than yellow. She resides in Anacortes, a community found on Fidalgo Island in northern Washington state.

Sirus is a lucky pup, and she knows it.

A cozy catnap

2009-09-19T02:58:00.000-07:00

Here's about all that's going on today at the cat house.

Watching the paws go by

2009-09-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

Justin Hadaller (left) and Kyle Burt hang with Tatayana and Dakota.

While I love working in the solitude of my forest, there are times when I crave white noise. A din of background sound was the backdrop against which I learned to write as a 19-year-old cub reporter in a busy newsroom.

When the buzz bug bites, I take my laptop into the world to write from busy places. There’s an added bonus: I find photo opportunities and stories begging to be told all over the place.

On my travels today, I met Justin. I approached him because I thought his dogs might make a nice photo.

It turns out the dogs aren’t his. At 25 years old, Justin believes he’s still too young to make a lifelong commitment to an animal. So for now, until he gets his own dog or two, he volunteers to dogsit for friends, and he does it for free. Today he was watching 10-year-old Tatayana, a Husky, and Dakota, a Malamute who’s five.

Even though they barely know each other, they are clearly in like.

Kids would rather read to dogs

2009-09-17T19:04:00.001-07:00

Jane Talbot's struggles with dyslexia inspired her to participate in the program that has children reading to dogs.

When Jane Talbot was a tiny girl, visions of monsters under the bed weren’t what she feared most.

It was words on a page that frightened her.

Jane was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was six. The prospect of trying to read in front of other kids was paralyzing. The sentences looked like a jumbled mess. In her mind’s eye, words jumped ahead of their proper place, causing her to read them out of order.

“I had a fear of reading out loud – it was intimidating and terrifying to me,” said Jane, who has been volunteering at Whatcom Humane Society (WHS) for ten years.

Jane is 41 now, but the memory of that fear is still fresh. As if she were still attempting to decipher text while standing in front of a classroom of kids. Or attending college, where a creative administrator skirted Jane through the red tape by categorizing her as a visually-impaired student. That way, she was allowed to access textbooks on tape. By hearing and reading the words simultaneously, her comprehension increased.

And she graduated.

Jane’s experience motivated her to help other kids struggling to read. This past fall, she and her Labrador-Shepherd cross Betty participated for the first time in the four-year-old WHS reading program Dog Day Afternoon.

“I thought I could help kids in the program break down their barriers,” Jane said. “It’s so rewarding to see these kids reading to the dogs.”

Betty and other listening dogs around North America work miracles for children’s literacy. The dogs provide an attentive, non-judgmental audience for young readers. They don’t criticize or laugh. They don’t act bored, hurried and impatient. They are there just to listen.

Even kids who know how to read flock to these dogs just for fun, growing their vocabulary and public speaking skills in the process. But the greatest beneficiaries by far are those who have obstacles to reading and speaking.

Golf great Tiger Woods is one famous example. Tiger used to stutter. Before facing a human audience, he would practice speeches and presentations in front of his dog, Boom. He was building confidence with the help of his dog. Eventually he realized that if he could do it for Boom, he could also win the people over.

“Adults can be intimidating – the dogs are not judgmental,” says WHS outreach director Laura Clark.

The popular WHS Dog Day Afternoon program moves from library to library in Whatcom County for one-month stints every spring and fall. There is usually a waiting list. During the afterschool hours of 4 to 6 p.m., kids start cycling in for 30-minute sessions to meet with the dogs and their guardians. Many kids had younger siblings in tow.

This past fall, I attended a session at the Fairhaven library. Every half hour, a new batch of kids crowded at the doorway in anticipation, clearly excited for their turn to come. One little girl who didn’t want to miss her chance hobbled in with a broken leg that sported a bright pink cast.

Kids develop a love of reading while bonding with their listening dog.

“I like reading to dogs because I like animals. I really like reading and I really like dogs,” said eight-year-old Fern Beach.

Parent Tonya Lockman brought her eight-year-old son and kindergarten-aged daughter to the Fairhaven library.

“We try to make it every fall and spring because it’s hysterical fun,” Lockman said. “It was a big deal when my daughter could read to her own dog. She was very proud and excited.”

On this night, the listeners at the Fairhaven library are all rescue dogs. The program has an unexpected spin-off effect for the shelter – it piques a kid’s interest in animals, particularly rescued animals. So much so that some drop by the WHS shelter with their parents to adopt cats and dogs, Clark said. Kids also shed their fear of dogs.

“These dogs are kid tested and approved,” Clark said. “This gives the child a chance to learn about dogs with friendly animals.”

The librarian watching the session beamed as children read to their chosen dogs.

“It fulfills librarians’ dreams to see kids reading,” said Donna Grasdock, Fairhaven library specialist for the Bellingham Public Library. “It almost makes me cry.”

Do not try this at home

2009-09-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

All day, my email box pings and bings with stories. Right now, I have more than 100 tales I'm trying to find the time to write. Some sad, some inspiring. All important. It's just a matter of eking out the moments to get them down in the midst of life's commitments.

While the rescue people send along many items that make me cringe, they also email me warm fuzzies that make me laugh out loud in pure delight.

I don't endorse this activity, but the cuteness factor was too high not to post. I wish I knew who had taken this shot. If anyone out there does know, please tell me so I can give credit where it's due. For now, I'll have to thank "Anonymous" for this photo of a water-worthy wiener dog on a board. Hang ten, Shorty.

Doing the dog paddle

2009-09-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've spoken to several professional photographers who look down their noses when asked if they've considered taking pictures of animals.

They seem to think that it's beneath them. That unless their subject is inherently human, they are somehow less than. They don't get that capturing an animal's traits -- both human and non-human -- can be just as challenging and profound as the rewards garnered from people portraiture.

If only they would step outside themselves to regard the magnificence of another species.

Brooke Mayo is a shutterbug who is fully cognizant of the beauty that walks on four legs. The North Carolina photographer has poured her canine crush into a new book launched this week, and the images are stunning. It's called Diving Doggies: A Celebration of Play Underwater. You can buy it on Brooke's website.

On the road again

2009-09-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

Ed Kost and his cats Princess and Jasmine are living in transit now.

I was strolling through the glass doors as I exited my bank this week when a 1978 Ford Fairlane parked in the lot caught my attention.

I circled behind the faded orange car to take a better look. I think it piqued my interest because there was a time in my past when I’ve called a vehicle home. It taught me how to spot the signs of a rolling residence. Extra clothing, toiletries, all the tiny comforts squirreled away into the little pockets of a vehicle interior.

Or maybe it was the paws that gave me pause.

Two fluffy cats were perched on the car seats with their backs to me. I’ve seen lots of dogs in cars waiting for their guardians, but never a cat. And here were two of them intently watching the bank door, waiting for their master to return. I noticed they were wearing collars, implying someone loved and protected them.

I didn’t want to ambush an owner at close range who might be potentially defensive about a tough situation. To minimize the chance of face-to-face conflict, I crossed the lot and waited beside my vehicle for him to come back.

It took a little while, but 15 minutes later, he appeared. I walked up slowly and explained my purpose. I talked about how pretty his cats were, but didn’t wait long before I got around to gently asking my main question: was he living in the car?

It turns out he was glad I asked.

Ed Kost spent the next hour with me, talking about how a man who had pulled his life together more than once had everything taken from him yet again. And this time, it happened just as he was entering his golden years. Ed, who recently turned 65, lost his house of 28 years. That was just seven weeks ago.

But, “it doesn’t feel that recent when you’re doing this,” he told me.

He’s a recovered alcoholic, and had been working as a chemical addictions counselor at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, Washington. Then a car struck him down while he was out for a jog, breaking his pelvis. Ed lost his job in an economy where work is scarce. And he couldn’t find a new one once he’d healed.

Before he knew it, Ed got behind on mortgage payments. The bank closed in.

He’d enjoyed a big property, a shop, and 17 cars to call his own. And now he was forced to live in one of them.

“The sheriff said load your car up and go.”

But Ed isn’t letting his latest run of bad luck take one of the last things he owns, that thing he’s worked the hardest to earn.

His sobriety.

The meetings are keeping him going, and he goes to several of them a day. It passes the time and provides social interaction. And there’s strength in that support.

“My ass is getting tired from sitting in meetings so much,” Ed said.

Ed’s story is sadly echoed at shelters across the country. They are reporting an influx of owners surrendering animals because they have lost their homes, another casualty of record foreclosure numbers.

But Ed’s not intending to give up the animals he’s committed himself to. Not if he can help it. He speaks fondly of one-year-old Jasmine and Princess, who are well cared for and obviously precious to him.

They started out their lives without a home, brought into his house when they were tiny by a mother cat in the neighborhood. The cat wasn’t allowed inside her family’s house. So when her babies were born, she carried all three kittens into Ed’s house one at a time, settling them into a back room. Ed was instantly taken with this street-smart mother and her helpless kittens.

‘The owners treated her like an outside cat. I treated her like an inside cat.”

The cat chose well. Because even though Ed doesn’t have a place to stay right now, home isn’t necessarily where the house is. It’s where the heart is.

And Ed has proven he has plenty of that.

Ed tethers Princess and Jasmine together when they go to the park so they can safely enjoy some fresh air without slipping away.

On the hot days this summer, Ed had a fan going for the cats, and misted them with cool water to keep them comfortable with him in the car.

At a loss for words

2009-09-06T15:57:00.001-07:00

One year after the storm, most neighborhoods were still lifeless. Only the grass came back. Houses were tossed about like toys, landing on different streets than the ones they belonged to.

Early last week, I promised to post Katrina coverage in chronology until I had the whole story outlined. I had intended for my stream-of-consciousness series to coincide with the four-year anniversary of the devastating storm.

It was about time I finally told this story right.

I’ve made many trips to New Orleans since the deadly flood in 2005 decimated the city. I couldn’t stay away. In fact, three out of the previous four years, I’ve been in the Big Easy at this time of year. Though "Easy" it wasn’t.

On all of the other anniversaries except the second, I was there to document the rescue and recovery mission.

But despite the volume of material I’ve gathered over the years—notes, photographs and stories from people willing to tell me how they survived it—so far, I haven’t told the story well. I’ve not been able to bring myself to sit down and write this epic from end-to-end.

Instead, I’ve been etching it out in bits and pieces.

Every time I went to write it, I’d sit there in front of my blinking computer cursor and freeze up. The tunnel of pain I had to crawl through in order to get to where I needed to go as a storyteller stopped me dead in my writer’s tracks. Even looking at photographs of the moldy houses we entered was enough to start me dry heaving as I remembered what we saw and smelled.

This year, I'd hoped it would be a healing exercise for me. I’d planned to start from the moment I stepped on a plane to rescue, and write through the mission following the progress as it continues now, so people would know what New Orleans is like today.

I put out the call to people who were there with me, and to those who are living there now. People I love and respect. We started to talk about it together. To share memories, stories, and photographs.

With four years passed, I had believed the pain wouldn’t be so fresh.

Was I wrong.

If you’ve been reading, you’ll know that I started to tell it.

Hope is born in a barn, Wednesday, September 2
Look into the light, Thursday, September 1
The silver lining after the storm, Monday, August 31

I had predicted I would be able to write six to 10 stories depending on my ability to achieve mental balance, and shut the story off when the writing was done.

Three stories in, and it’s already become too much. For me, and—I’d imagine—for some of you.

When I started writing it, I was right back there again. Reliving it in full color—the sights, the sounds, the smells. The nightmares.

Often it’s the same nightmare that plays repetitively, and I know others who have had it too. The animals are crying, and we are in the streets looking for them, crawling under rubble and searching. But we can’t find them. And when we do, we can’t catch them. They simply cry and die as we stand by helplessly.

Two years ago, this repetitive nightmare had me crawling off the opposite edge of the bed in the middle of the night. Just like when I had inched my belly along the ground under houses and mobile homes looking for animals who were lurking in the coolest hiding places they could find in the baking Louisiana heat.

I didn’t wake up until I crash-landed on the hardwood floor, breaking or cracking a couple of ribs. I’m not sure how many or how severe the damage, because I didn’t see a doctor. But I couldn’t walk for a week, and I was sore for a long while after.

Thousands of animal rescuers returned from New Orleans, but we didn’t really leave. I can’t even grasp how the locals feel. They tell me their stories and share their pain in gut-wrenching detail, but how can it be truly real to me when it wasn’t my life that was swept away?

This wasn’t our home, yet it became the place our hearts lived for a time.

And some hearts never returned. Umpteen marriages and relationships were destroyed when people who had been in the hot zone returned home changed, with altered definitions of what life meant to them.

Many refused to return home at all, preferring to erect new lives from the rubble. An animal sanctuary founder, a newly-minted animal control officer, a horse rescuer. They would all make New Orleans their new home.

Addictions took hold. Locally, and within our rescue community. The suicide rate in New Orleans tripled. Even some animal rescuers who witnessed the destruction succumbed, taking their own lives. People who had rescued beside us, who now couldn’t bear the pain of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder compounded by the tragedy that was already their troubled existence before Katrina annihilated what was left of their faith in humanity.

I noticed there was a common thread that strung all of us together. The ones who came on the scene to help, and those who called the city their home. People who stayed in New Orleans and abandoned their old lives. And the ones who deserted New Orleans to go on to new lives.

It was the guilt. That’s what claimed us all.

The feeling that we didn’t do enough to save the city, and its people, and the animals.

When in the end, we barely saved ourselves.

Trash piles were almost a relief because they signaled life was returning to the dead city.

This little piggy is blanketed by love

2009-09-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

I find cross-species love to be the most magnetic. Check out this Rhodesian Ridgeback who adopted a tiny orphaned piglet found freezing in the forest on a 20-acre farm in Hoerstel, Germany. Katjinga had just finished weaning a litter of her own. But when this pig came into her care, she soon started lactating again and is clearly enamored with her unlikely charge.

Hope is born in a barn

2009-09-02T08:36:00.001-07:00

Miracles happened amid destruction. These orphaned kittens were born during the storm. Here we are in the barn tending to them. The seats we're sitting on were pulled out of all of our vehicles to make more room for animals. They formed an impromptu sitting area for volunteers on a rare break.

I am accustomed to being treated like an oddball when I venture into the public domain. People’s negative reactions towards my viewpoints about animals might range from suspicion to outright ridicule.

A party, a shop, even a restaurant aren’t places where I can completely let my guard down and relax, because I never know where the hits will come from next. Even a task that appears as benign as getting a meal can turn hostile. One time, I tried to order vegetarian at a restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. The waiters were so outraged that you’d think I’d threatened to throw rotten eggs at the Alamo.

It’s happened so frequently over the past two decades that the hostility whirs like an operating system in the background of my social interactions. I’ve grown so used to it being there that I’m barely phased anymore, and don’t pay it much notice.

At least, I hadn’t noticed it. Not until it was gone. Four years ago, I rocked up to the borrowed barn operation being run by Pasado’s Safe Haven. With New Orleans without power, water, or sanitation thanks to Katrina’s merciless blow, shelters had popped up around the city’s perimeter. This makeshift shelter was 45 minutes south. It was a haven for the frightened, orphaned animals left behind.

But it was a safe spot for the people, too—like-minded volunteers who had gathered together in one place for a singular life-saving mission. People like me, who didn’t have to explain to each other why we were risking our health and safety to help the animals, and not the humans. Everybody on that 150-acre property felt just like I did.

Amidst the hell we would come to experience in the months to come, here was a tiny piece of heaven. The beauty of that unexpected effect juxtaposed against the ugliness we witnessed made the phenomenon all the more profound and awe-inspiring.

I stepped out of my minivan and immediately got to work with the other volunteers, scrubbing down carriers, walking dogs, and cleaning cat cages.

The condition of the animals was shocking. The rescuers who had infiltrated the city in the early weeks had faced greater numbers of pets roaming and locked up in houses than we saw, though there were still plenty of animals left requiring rescue. But those who came to rescue later in the mission found the animals when they were in terrible shape—emaciated, scared. Aggressive in some cases.

The appearance of the animals should have prepared us for what we would encounter when we got into the city. They were skinny, cut and bruised, and smelled like something I have never experienced before. A rank odor that I hope I don't ever smell again. Mold, toxic waste, garbage, and the dead carcasses of animals and people.

Katrina’s floodwaters rose and carried it all with her, turning the basin city into a soup of slime that coated everything when the waters finally receded. Including the animals. And us, when we waded in.

This puppy was rescued from a house with his sister. He died shortly after this photo was taken, and his black and white sister (next photo) died after I delivered her to a veterinary clinic near the airport. I named her Daisy Ray.

Daisy Ray survived a little longer than her mate before succumbing. No food and water for a month was too much for her tiny body to survive.

The animals were fed, watered, even washed when their demeanor was calm enough to allow it.

We found many black cats. This was one of the lucky ones. He almost seemed to know someone was on the way to get him. We labeled his carrier so he wouldn't get shipped out of state by mistake.

The cats were kept in stalls inside the front barn to keep them calm and away from the barking dogs.

Dogs were staged in cages in the back barn, waiting for transport out of the area.

Another photo of the back barn.

Donated supplies came rolling in. Animal lovers from around the country were following our progress on the Pasado's Safe Haven website. We even received a letter of support from Jane Goodall, the renowned primatologist! Donors sent food, leashes, brushes, toys, anything you can imagine...plus a few things that left us scratching our heads, such as several pairs of stiletto heels. In the end, they did make themselves useful by inspiring an impromptu chorus line. The ridiculous shoes made us laugh when we needed it most.

The barns were quieter during the day, because many volunteers headed into the city each morning. Others stayed behind to care for the survivors.

As night fell, curfews kicked in, and rescuers had to leave the city or risk tangling with the military. The barns turned into organized chaos as rescuers from all over the country descended there with animals they had found roaming the city or locked up in houses. Animals were logged in, triaged, and settled into kennels.

Follow me on Carreen’s Rescue Blog…

As I head into the decaying city, I’ll describe what we encountered when we arrived.

Look into the light

2009-09-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

The scale of destruction is impossible to convey in a photo. Trees were uprooted like toothpicks. It took my breath away.

Like a bat signal beamed into the sky, the call for help shone out and spoke to each of us when Katrina’s storm surge rolled in. Independent of each other, animal rescuers flocked to a city in trouble.

But the lighted cry for help wasn’t coming from anything resembling the fictional Gotham City Police Department. Far from it. In fact, it wasn’t put out by an official agency of any type.

It was the continuously looping news footage broadcasting from flickering television sets and computer screens that drew rescuers to New Orleans, where we would sneak into a drowned city to save the pets despite myriad dangers.

The animals were residents of New Orleans too, and the government had denied their passage to safety, causing great anguish to the people who loved them. And their inexorable suffering also brought pain to humans they didn’t even know—the animal rescuers.

We responded en masse. The cries came from the animals, but also from their guardians, who telephoned our temporary shelters in the coming weeks and months begging us to break down their soggy doors to save their starving, dehydrated pets.

Locals from the rescue community worked alongside out-of-towners to do the job together, a rescue effort that was too big for locals alone. Seasoned rescuers saved alongside animal lovers who had never been in the field before. Veterinarians and vet techs, cat trappers and dog trainers, shelter staffers and animal welfare volunteers. In a rescue community known for squabbling, we put aside our differences in order to perform this history-making, life-saving mission.

The rescue would test us, and it would define life’s meaning in a way the rest of our lives never had.

I made my first trip there four weeks after the storm had passed. I had no idea what to expect. I was traveling alone. When I go into dangerous situations, I tend to feel safer by myself. At least my own behavior is predictable to me.

I carried directions to places outside the city where different groups had assembled makeshift shelters. Their locations were being kept under wraps because people had been stealing dogs from temporary shelters, which eventually ended up being under guard. But if you were connected to the rescue community, you could find out where the shelters were.

The United flight into New Orleans didn’t appear to contain residents, who still weren’t allowed to return. Instead, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials, Red Cross workers, and insurance agents filled the seats.

A dirty, skinny collie was sprinting down the runway as the plane descended into Louis Armstrong Airport, swerving off the pavement to escape the roaring bird that chased him. Slipping through a hole in the fence, he was gone. The airport, one of the few gathering places left as people travelled in and out of the deserted ruins, likely lured the hungry dog because of its garbage output. It was the first glimpse of the horror I would witness in New Orleans in the days ahead.

When passengers disembarked at the terminal, the luggage carts had mysteriously disappeared. Carts had vanished, yet wheelchairs were parked crazily everywhere. Perhaps that was because this airport had served as a triage center for days, a hellhole where the sickest residents were kept alive before being transported away from the city to safety. If they survived that long.

I had watched them suffering and dying on the news, and as I waited for my luggage to roll down onto the carousel, I imagined the sights and sounds of misery that must have permeated this building a few weeks before.

I had two large duffel bags filled with survival gear including a tent, sleeping bag, carbon mask, gloves, boots, and enough snacks to last two weeks. I liberated one of the wheelchairs to haul my stuff. When I got to the rental car parking lot, it was a mess. The vehicles were dirty, nearly empty of gas, and strewn in disarray.

“Take any car you want. The keys are in them,” the clerk said wearily.

I looked at the cars for a moment before choosing one, weighing my concerns about finding gas with my need for a large vehicle to haul animals. Then I decided on a minivan. Someone would know where to find gas, I figured.

I thought the hours spent watching coverage of the floods on the television had prepared me for what I would encounter. I was wrong. Dead wrong. The scale of destruction eclipsed my imagination’s outermost boundaries, leaving its residue of despair in my mind long after I came home.

Most of us—though not all—would return home from New Orleans eventually. As for Katrina, she stayed with us.

The force of the storm uprooted this tree effortlessly, taking the sidewalk's paving stones with it.

Coming up next on Carreen’s Rescue Blog…

Find out what I encountered when I arrived at the triage shelter set up by Washington state-based animal welfare group Pasado’s Safe Haven. A kind attorney and his wife living near New Orleans in Raceland had reached out over the Internet to offer Pasado's the use of their 150-acre farm.

The carriers stand outside the barn, washed and ready for their next trip into the city.

The silver lining after the storm

2009-08-31T03:42:00.000-07:00

Photos in this post courtesy of Pasado's Safe Haven, the Washington state-based animal rescue group I joined up with shortly after I arrived in the destroyed city.

I’ve never celebrated the anniversaries of tragic moments. I don’t even retain the dates. I see people remembering death and destruction on the days they fall annually by the calendar, when I just want to forget.

But this time, I’m making an exception. I can’t help but pay homage to the largest natural disaster in the United States. Because it was the biggest. And because I was there to witness its aftermath.

Four years ago today, I was glued to a TV screen watching the tragedy unfold with horror, knowing what was coming next. What would happen to the animals? I wasn’t the only one. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina had made landfall on the Gulf Coast, and the weeks that followed were nail-biters for animal rescuers across the U.S. and Canada.

When the storm surge came in Katrina’s wake, most of the levees protecting Greater New Orleans were breached—53 in all. Within hours, eighty percent of the city that’s nestled into a land basin was submerged, with water reaching 20 feet deep in some places. People ran and swam for their lives.

But citizens were forced to leave their most treasured belongings behind—their pets. As was tradition, the government refused to allow animals on the evacuation buses. Early footage began trickling out showing animals clinging to treetops, swimming beside boats, and paddling for their lives while they struggled to survive an abandoned city.

Because of widespread looting and violence, the city was locked down under a state of emergency, Louisiana’s version of martial law. The military threatened to shoot trespassers. And that included us.

But animal rescuers—a gritty and determined group—were infiltrating the city anyway. We are naturally programmed to help creatures in trouble. We couldn’t stand to sit back idly and watch. We had to get in.

Rescuers on the scene in the early days of the disaster were reporting their tragic findings via the Internet, telling us we could self-deploy, but no one would be responsible for our health and safety.

Noah’s Ark may not have been on hand to save the animals when the storm struck, but a cavalry of sorts wasn’t far behind. Independent of each other, thousands of rescuers of all stripes traveled to New Orleans to help with the largest animal rescue in world history.

Many thousands of pets would make it out alive thanks to people who ignored official orders, but obeyed their own laws of the heart.

As a result of Katrina, federal laws would be changed forever.

And so would we.

What’s up next on Carreen’s Rescue Blog…

Over the next few days, I’ll be writing short pieces on what we experienced in the field. Stories of tragedy and destruction, but also of hope and inspiration. It was a life-altering experience for those of us who tended to the victims of the floodwaters, and I'll take you there to see it through my eyes.

He can run but he can't hide

2009-08-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

Last week, I told you about Sugar Paw's penchant for snuggling into the blankets on my bed. Well, he was at it again today. As soon as I pulled the sheets off, he was already raring to get himself buried into his nest.

The velvet paw rules with an iron fist

2009-08-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2009-08-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the fumes from the hairspray impaired my fashion judgment. That's the story I'm sticking with, anyway. If you got me too close to the campfire, I would have gone up like a Roman candle.

Up until a year ago, I was regularly accused of being too harsh when writing about animal rescue. The blood, the guts, the gore. I told it all. I even wrote a manuscript for a children’s book that drove my focus group to tears.

But I didn’t do it for the sake of gratuitously shocking people. I wrote it raw because I wanted readers to see what I saw, to feel what I felt. To understand the untold suffering. I thought that if they were right there with me, they would grow motivated to take action.

Little did I know that writing the whole truth would accomplish just the opposite—nothing. The effect was reversed. The converted were traumatized and didn’t want to read about the horror they were already living amidst much of the time. In their leisure moments, they wanted to escape. And the outsiders just got annoyed and defensive about having the ugliness shoved in their faces.

One by one, people whose creative minds I respected told me it was too much. That I needed to tone it down. Soften the story. Wrap my words in velvet, so to speak.

I heard them, but—to be honest—didn’t really listen.

It wasn’t until I started writing my own rescue blog that the tides of understanding finally turned for me. I realized people would stop reading if everything I wrote was sad. It would be a mental overload and a downer and they’d never return to read my stories again.

I began to think in terms of ratios. I would write eight happy stories for every two sad ones I posted. Or seven to three. Or nine to one.

And seeking out the items with happy endings gave me an unexpected bonus result: a better frame of mind. I read once that we feel what we think. Seeking out the joyous stories for readers, the ones that bring me to tears—of inspiration, not pain—propelled me to start living in that happier, more optimistic space. Hope was restored again.

So yesterday when I ran the story about my interview with sports star Troy Westwood on the horrors of dog fighting and Michael Vick, I thought I’d close with a shot of a happier time. Troy and I in our teenaged awkwardness, dressed up in full fancy ‘80s regalia, on our way out to a family wedding.

I almost didn’t post the shot because I didn’t want to frivolously detract from the serious nature of my story. But remembering the advice from my creative mentors, I reluctantly decided to give the piece an upbeat ending.

Little did I know my atrocious ‘80s hairdo would be what caught readers’ eyes, and give them something to laugh at. Every email I received mentioned the bird’s nest appropriate for a bald eagle.

So, in the spirit of good humor, I’ve dug up a few more for your viewing pleasure.

Let’s just say my hair is ending this story on a high note.

Notice the top of my hair didn't even fit into the photo. It wasn't the first time that happened in a picture.

Photo courtesy of the Winnipeg Free Press

Who could forget the crimping iron?

When I wrote for the Winnipeg Free Press in Manitoba, there would always be times when photographers needed a model at the last minute. Here I had been dragged in to get the shot for a story about the fur industry. I was already rescuing animals and clearly not impressed with modeling the coat. I remember feeling pretty disgusted about being wrapped up in dead animal fur.

A Troy story

2009-08-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Troy Westwood's notoriety north of the line rivals Vick's prominence stateside.

Anybody even vaguely acquainted with me knows that I am no Sporty Spice. I was the kid hiding out in the bathroom stall at school during gym class. I’d lock the door and stand on the toilet seat to make my feet invisible to hall monitors searching for stragglers.

So when Michael Vick was given the go-ahead to play in the NFL, I was astonished that his reputation as a sadistic dog torturer hadn’t tanked his career. And when the Philadelphia Eagles signed the quarterback for a cool $7 million two-year contract, my amazement grew.

As an outsider looking in, I’ve noticed that sports stars are portrayed as being more than athletically gifted. Much emphasis is also placed on them being stellar community leaders involved in charities and other high-minded pursuits.

In my struggle to understand the Michael Vick issue from all angles, I called up an old friend—who’s also my high school sweetheart, by the way—because I knew he would throw fresh light on the controversy. He’s articulate and outspoken, and controversial at times in his own way.

Just like Vick, Troy Westwood is a #7, but he played in the CFL. The 17-year veteran kicker for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is the longest-serving player, and holds more than 30 team records. He’s the fourth-best scorer in CFL history. The 290 games he’s played ranks seventh in league history. His retirement last year has him most certainly bound for the Hall of Fame.

These days, he's a morning co-host on QX104 FM radio in Winnipeg, and a case manager for Family Connections, an inner-city organization that reunites children with their parents.

Troy had watched Vick’s interview on 60 Minutes last Sunday, and he didn’t take his comments at face value.

“Any time you have to read from a written statement, I’d question how from the heart it is,” Troy said, although he added that he’s reluctant to judge Vick’s sincerity from afar.

Troy said the 18 months Vick served of his 23-month sentence was too short, in his opinion. But he also believes in second chances.

“If someone comes out of incarceration, man or woman, they should be allowed to seek employment. That’s his profession. Someone’s got to be willing to offer you employment.”

Troy explained that Vick’s signing wasn’t surprising. And that—in the face of a sporting culture focused on winning—animal lovers might view it as a victory that so many teams refused to sign a player with such promise.

“All that matters is winning. That’s the culture of professional sport. Winning is it.”

Because managers’ heads land on the chopping block if a team doesn’t nab the wins, that means anything goes, Troy said. “There are rapists and murderers in the NFL. Any means justifies the end in professional sports.”

Troy wasn’t surprised to hear about Vick’s dog fighting involvement, because he’s heard locker room chatter about the blood sport before.

“For the past 15 years, I’ve heard guys from the southern states talking about it. It’s cultural,” Troy said.

I asked him: Is it even possible for a man who spent five years inflicting torture and suffering upon dozens of innocent animals to have the ability to change after a short stint in jail?

“The answer to that question only Michael Vick knows,” Troy said.

Whether Michael Vick plays or doesn’t play, repents or doesn’t repent, I know this much is true—his arrest has been a godsend for bringing dog fighting and its inherent cruelty into the public spotlight.

And while sports fans will be watching Vick's performance when he's on the field, animal rescuers around the nation will be watching him, too—for how he plays outside the stadium.

Photo courtesy of the Winnipeg Free Press.

Troy and I were on our way to his uncle's wedding when this shot was snapped. I was 16. Yes, it's true it took some guts for me to post this. I'm cringing at my '80s big hair and the shoulder pads. There are some trends that should never make a comeback.

Seeing red results in bloody posting

2009-08-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Trixie the pit bull begs for a home at the Richmond Animal Protection Society in British Columbia.

After two decades of toiling in the trenches of animal rescue, I’ve finally learned that it’s wise to keep my cool if humanly possible. And not just for the sake of my own personal safety—it’s a more effective way to present my message.

Whenever I feel the heat of rage rising, I chant a mantra to myself: “Remember the mission.”

Well, most of the time.

This week, when dog fighting felon Michael Vick was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles for a two-year contract worth nearly $7 million, my cool rose to red-hot in a matter of moments. And the boiler was cranked up even higher when I talked to members of the general public about the issue, particularly sports fans. Most said he deserved a second chance. That he had served his time, paid his debt to society, and now it was time to let him play.

I was mad. So I uploaded a photo of one of Vick’s victims as my Facebook profile photo. And I put the photo on this blog, too. My rationale was this: if we can’t even bear to look at just one of the survivors of his Bad Newz Kennels compound, how could we endorse allowing him to play?

The picture was gory. In retrospect, the posting might not have been the best course of action. The animal lovers were supportive, but they didn’t deny the photo was upsetting. I ended up feeling conflicted about making them look at something they’d rather not see.

Sweeter than sheet cake

2009-08-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I posted a photo of my cat Sugar Paw, formally known as Henry Pissinger because of his compelling duality: a zest for spraying urine coupled with a knack for negotiating spats between cats.

In the picture, he was peeking out from between the sheets. But I failed to tell you the whole story. On several occasions, Sugar Paw has found himself mid-flight, snatched from his warm nest when I've decided to change the sheets. Keep in mind I do this task every couple of days. When you have nine cats, the bed quickly turns into a fur-infested litter box.

Today he came rushing out as soon as he felt the covers rustling, so he didn't take a trip on the flying carpet.

The eyes belie

2009-08-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Who would believe this sweet face could cause so much destruction?

Ménage à meow

2009-08-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

There's always some cuddling going on in my nine-cat household. The biggest cat bundle I've ever seen is five. Here's a threesome that gets together on a regular basis.

I know why the caged bird sings

2009-08-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

This is the cage I found myself inadvertently trapped inside when the locked door slammed behind me.

I was scrubbing my warehouse from top to bottom last weekend when I decided to give the outside of the doors a much-needed washing down. It was going fine until I got to the back door, which is screened in for a makeshift porch that surrounds it. It was built for Madison, one of my cats who has lived here on and off.

One side of the enclosure used to have a screen door. Unfortunately I forgot that the door had been removed and replaced by plain screening after a burglar broke it down last summer.

But that realization didn’t hit until the locked door banged closed behind me.

The screen’s not the flimsy kind, either. It’s the heavy-duty nylon-coated polyester advertised as “indestructible”, designed for pets and guaranteed to be impenetrable. Even against the most determined paws and claws.

Or fingers, in my case. I squeezed them through a small hole in the screen and tried to open it wider to no avail.

In this nearly vacant industrial park, no one could hear my pitiful, somewhat sheepish cries for help.

Standing inside the screened box, I knew how a caged animal feels. Helpless. Nervous. Powerless. And uncertain. About how much time would elapse before rescue.

Some minutes passed before I concluded no one was coming to help. It was up to me to take action. A short 2 x 6 piece of wood used to prop the door open would make an ideal battering ram. Slamming it against the edge where the staples met wood, I was able to pop the staples loose from the beams. I scraped my body through the sliver of an opening. It felt like crawling through barbed wire as the metal points scratched and cut my skin.

But I barely noticed the scrapes in my rush to get out into the open again, where the air seemed fresher.

For a few moments, I had been trapped like a bird in a cage, giving me new perspective on what the animals go through at the hands of human beings. How it feels to be at the mercy of people standing outside the cage walls.

Whether animal or human, there's something we have in common. We all just want to be rescued, freed from the cages that close us in.

Writer's note: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is poet Mayo Angelou's 1969 autobiography about her childhood.

New meaning to the words "cat box"

2009-08-17T17:48:00.002-07:00

Little Carreen and Sam recline in the makeshift furniture they dreamed up.

From Bad Newz to worse

2009-08-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

A message to the Philadelphia Eagles and Roger Goodell: If Michael Vick had committed these stomach-turning acts on dozens of human beings in his Bad Newz Kennels torture compound, would we even be having this debate? Animals have less power than human beings. And they are just as deserving of compassion and humanity.

It's not about the right to earn a living. It's about the privilege of earning millions to be a role model. Is this the person we want our children looking up to?

Someone who can torture helpless animals exhibits darkness of the heart that shouldn't be allowed to shine on a football field, or anywhere else for that matter.

Michael Vick's actions reveal dramatic disrespect for innocent lives.

Fuzzbag

2009-08-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Clearly the cats don't like me to travel, and will do anything in their itty-bitty power to come along for the ride.

Love is...a summer kiss

2009-08-13T18:03:00.001-07:00

What a strange way to sit

2009-08-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I've seen cats lying this way, and it always stops me dead in my tracks. I feel compelled to watch -- they usually don't do it long -- until they change position. In my experience, very few cats seem to be flexible enough to attempt this.

A deerly held moment for flora and fawn-a

2009-08-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

First, I have to apologize for the less-than-stellar photos, but it's worth it. Check out the treat I had tonight!

Two deer -- I presume a mom and baby -- stopped by for a snack of dandelions, clover and buttercups. They love the field that surrounds my home because it's completely indigenous, which to manicured lawn lovers might seem distastefully overgrown. But the indigenous vegetation feeds the flora and fauna (or in this case, fawna) that are native to the region. That alone makes it appealing to me. And the fact that I'm hopeless as a gardener doesn't hurt.

I couldn't risk walking outside to scare them, so you're looking through my windows. The little one came closer went he saw me watching him, gazing intently as if wondering what I was up to.

I didn't even notice this wormhole into the forest until I saw the deer disappear into it. There must be animal-shaped trails all over this place. I don't traipse through there because it's thorny, but these animals are designed to travel through brush.

Indelible ink spells love and devotion

2009-08-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

Kyra's dog Phantom is gone but not forgotten. The mock-up of her desired tattoo includes the words "We all have a guardian."

I’ve never considered getting a tattoo.

It's not the pain that bothers me. It's the permanence. The pretty pictures might mesmerize me now, but the thought of watching the ink stretch and wrinkle while the years tick by is depressing.

So when the 12-year-old daughter of a university chum pronounced she was going to get one when she was old enough, I tried to talk her out of it. The three of us had been hanging out in a Whistler Mountain hotel room watching L.A. Ink, a television program that centers on the comings and goings at a Los Angeles tattoo parlor.

My explanation of the beautiful tattoo turning ugly one day held up until she presented me with her line drawing. Kyra Lambert wants to pay tribute to her dog Phantom, a Bouvier who died when she was five.

The thought was so touching that even I had to admit her tattoo would be beautiful in any format, at any age.

If only homes for animals were as permanent as tattoos. About eighty percent of companion animals won’t get a forever home, and will instead wind up in the incinerator or at a rendering plant to be turned into tires, fertilizer and cosmetics.

I have a feeling that when Kyra grows up, she’ll get her tattoo and some animals of her own to nurture.

And I’m confident that she’ll have both for life.

Kyra Lambert lost her Bouvier Phantom, but now she has her beloved poodles Diva and Shiraz.

Here's Kyra and her mom Kimothy Walker chilling on Whistler Mountain. Kimothy is an anchorwoman for CTV News in Ottawa, Ontario. We graduated from Carleton University's renowned School of Journalism together.

A lucky Penny resurfaces

2009-08-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

Penny plays with Miracle, a dog featured in next year's Whatcom Humane Society calendar.

In a previous post, This Penny brought me good luck, I wrote to you about Penny Cistaro’s departure from Whatcom Humane Society. I’ve watched her work for almost a decade.

She left northern Washington State to head up the City of Sacramento’s Animal Care Services Department. It’s an important job -- she’s in charge of the animal shelter for the capital city in the most populous state in the nation.

And unfortunately, Sacramento doesn’t just host a large people population. About 60 percent of the animals who come into the shelter are euthanized.

Penny is a nationally renowned sheltering expert, and her arrival in northern California hasn’t gone unnoticed. Reporter Cynthia Hubert of the Sacramento Bee wrote an intelligent and illuminating article about her called Sacramento animal shelter aims for happier tails.

A bored meeting

2009-08-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

When it's hot, the cats don't want to do much except lay around. The record heat wave in the Pacific Northwest leaves them pretty lazy. I can't blame them.

A hot dog boils to death in a police car

2009-07-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

A desperate dog trapped in a NOPD car this past May destroyed the interior in a futile attempt to escape. Photo by the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

I’ve worked hard to build up a tolerance for viewing horrific scenes of animal neglect and cruelty. If I didn’t thicken my skin, I couldn’t do my job writing about these chilling subjects. I’d simply have to stop, or fall apart.

But despite all that I see and read, there are still times when a story makes me recoil with sheer horror. Tears prick to my eyes, my heart starts hammering, and I feel physically sick to my stomach.

Today’s blog update was one of those moments. For days, I dreaded opening the link emailed to me by Shelly Patton, information technology manager for the Louisiana SPCA. Her shelter is helping to investigate a case of neglect that is typical in some ways. But highly unusual in another.

It’s the identity of the perpetrator that makes this incident of negligence noteworthy. He’s a New Orleans police officer from the K-9 unit. Someone hired to serve and protect. Someone who should have known better.

On May 27, officer Jason Lewis left his 6-year-old Belgian Malinois partner Primo locked up in his police car. Temperatures in New Orleans that day peaked at 88 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a desperate attempt to escape the sweltering torture chamber he found himself locked into, Primo ripped apart the interior of the vehicle, reducing its seats to shredded yellow foam.

By the time Primo was admitted to a veterinary clinic, his temperature had reached a shocking 109.8 degrees. Before he died, he collapsed and endured three seizures. Normal body temperature for a dog is 100 to 102.5 degrees.

"Those photos confirm the horrible and excruciating death this animal suffered," said Rafael Goyeneche, the president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission in New Orleans. "Police officers are supposed to treat these dogs as their partners."

The necropsy -- the animal version of an autopsy -- determined Primo's likely cause of death was "shock due to heat stress," according to the report compiled by the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.

Primo wasn't the only dog to die in the care of the NOPD K-9 unit recently. Around the same time period, a canine named Phantom didn't survive the fall down an elevator shaft during a training exercise at a hospital. And a police dog named Carlos died from heartworms, a serious but treatable disease.

Thankfully, Lewis won’t be tasked with caring for another police dog. On June 21, he was transferred out of the K-9 unit to another district.

The NOPD has launched its own internal investigation through the Public Integrity Bureau, according to spokesman Bob Young. And the Orleans Parish district attorney's office is considering charging Lewis under Louisiana’s cruelty to animals statute.

Just like a human police officer, Primo risked his life to protect ours. And in exchange, he suffered a painful, terrifying death at the hands of his guardian. If the officer couldn’t even protect his dog, how could he be expected to protect us?

The word “Primo” means the best of its kind, and no doubt this police dog was one of the best of his breed.

Now it's time to get him the best justice.

Photo of Primo by Matt Rose of the Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.

I've seen dogs locked up in hot cars on many occasions. People run into the grocery store for a few minutes thinking their dogs will survive. This card is handed out at Washington State car dealerships warning people of the dangers. It can be placed under an offender's windshield wipers.

When temperatures have reached only the low 80s outdoors, your car will become a furnace in minutes, even with the windows cracked.

In 10 minutes, the inside of your car can reach 102 degrees Fahrenheit, or hotter.
By 30 minutes, it will have heated up to 120 degrees.
At 110 degrees Fahrenheit, your animal may have only minutes to live -- heatstroke will result in brain damage and a horrendous death.

The road is paved with good intentions

2009-07-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

As you have probably figured out already, most of my worldly -- and wordy -- attention goes into covering animals.

But once in a while, I come across a story about interesting human beings that I can’t resist telling.

Today I was cruising along on the Sea to Sky Highway, which connects Vancouver to Whistler Mountain. I was thinking about the Olympian athletes who will be jumping, twirling and triumphing at next year’s Winter Games.

The highway is home to many projects this summer as the province spruces up its trail into the mountains, getting the route into shape for the expected onslaught of visitors.

That’s when I came upon a stunning and unusual piece of artwork. Stunning because of its massive size. Unusual because of its location and the probable identity of the rebel artist.

Most likely a construction worker.

The giant boulders -- much too heavy to lift without a piece of heavy machinery -- had been carefully placed in a pattern along the roadside, arranged as if to delight the motorists driving by. The renegade rock art reminded me of England’s Stonehenge, or an Inukshuk built by Inuit to mark trails.

It will probably be gone by the time the Olympians get here. But at least I got to see it.

Look at the surveyor on the left side of the photo to give you perspective on the size of the boulders.

A spontaneous game of pickup

2009-07-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

This is Marley, a Weimaraner, but not one of the ones I saw riding in the pickup truck. Photos courtesy of his dad Seth Goldberg.

I was already an hour late on my way to pick up an out-of-town friend in Vancouver when I happened upon a distraction that was too distressing for me to turn a blind eye.

I was about to turn into the gas station near my home when a woman pulled out driving a battered white GMC pickup truck.

She wasn’t traveling solo. In my community, it’s illegal to drive with a dog loose in the back of a pickup truck. They must be crated or tethered. But she didn’t have one loose dog.

She had three.

In big cities, responsible people usually wouldn’t consider engaging in this high-risk behavior. But in the rural area where I reside, this is common practice. It’s so prevalent that I drive with pen and pad on the dashboard’s ledge to write down the pertinent information. Then I email the shelter with the infraction: license plate, type of vehicle and type of dogs, date and time of day, location. The offender gets a warning letter in the mail.

This time -- because I was astounded by the three dogs bobbing and swaying loose in the back -- I diverted from my standard procedure. Instead, I decided to take chase.

Granted, it was a slow chase. She wasn’t driving like a maniac or anything, coasting slightly below the 35-mph speed limit. But no matter how carefully she was driving, her maneuver wasn’t safe. Besides the danger of flying debris hitting the dogs in the eyes -- pebbles, litter, bits of blown-out tires -- there is also the possibility of animals being dislodged from the back, and subsequently rolling around in traffic.

A sudden stop by her, or a careless rear-end accident caused by someone else; it’s not uncommon for dogs to be launched into the path of traffic. Even if you aren’t an animal lover, this is dangerous to people, too. Just imagine. What would you do you saw a dog propelled in front of your vehicle in traffic? Instinctively slam on the brakes, of course. And the domino effect of a multi-car pile-up begins there.

I drove for several miles, further and further out of my comfort zone, before we ended up at her house.

When I crept my vehicle up behind hers in her long private driveway, I was made. She knew she was being followed. She stepped out of her truck already in a defensive body stance. And she was burning mad.

To give her a wide berth, I stopped several car lengths behind her vehicle and got out, declaring my intentions weren’t nefarious. I smiled in the hopes of disarming her, and told her how beautiful her dogs were. That I was here to deliver a message.

But she didn’t wait to hear it.

The moment she started yelling at me, her Weimaraners jumped off the truck bed, and a few more bolted out of the house. They surrounded me, barking and growling. They had picked up on her agitated state, and they were there to protect. They were doing their jobs.

I wasn’t scared. There isn’t an animal on the planet who frightens me more than the average human being.

I got down on bended knee and stretched out my right hand, cooing to the lead dog to disarm the pack.

It worked.

The dogs started to lick my hand. But she wasn’t so hospitable.

Ordering me off the property, she screamed at me as my car inched down her long driveway. I went, but not before explaining that it wasn’t her driving that was the problem.

It's the others who follow. Not paying attention, perhaps sending a text.

She yelled that people aren’t supposed to text while they’re driving.

What they are “supposed” to do isn’t relevant. When you are the guardian of a helpless animal, it doesn’t matter what people are supposed to do.

It’s up to you to anticipate what people will do, and act accordingly to keep your animal safe.

It’s not just the animals who rely on it. Those of us out on the road with you depend on it, too.

Safety in numbers

2009-07-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Coyotes prowl the perimeter of the property. I keep my cats safe with an enclosure that screens in the porch facing the forest. All day, they go in and out to lounge around, cuddle up together, or just watch the creatures moving in the forest -- birds, mice, grasshoppers. It's all TV to them.

Cat (bird) on a wire

2009-07-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

Little C is still searching for the purr-fect sleeping spot. This cord doesn't look like a comfortable pillow to me, but she tucked herself in neatly.

Little C is wired with energy most of the time, so her new bedding is fitting.

Cat on a computer

2009-07-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I told you about Little C's penchant for finding sky-high perches, causing me to bite my nails to the quick.

I get nervous every time she picks a new spot. On the crisp Pacific Northwest evenings and early mornings, she's started settling in for a nap on my warm laptop keyboard. I tried to foil her efforts by placing the laptop on my desktop tower when unattended. Obviously she's outsmarted me.

Fortunately, her latest sleeping spot isn't death-defying. At least not for her -- just for my laptop.

Cat on a ledge

2009-07-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

I never dreamed any of the cats would sit on this skinny ledge when I built the house. If I had, I would have re-designed to thwart their craving for high perches.

When you live with cats, you don’t get to decide where they’ll be taking their naps.

They choose. And the places they pick aren't always where you want them to be.

You’ll think it’s all been squared away, that you found the perfect comfortable and appropriate place for your cats to sleep, and then they decide to seek change.

Take Little C, for example. As the newest cat to join the clan, she’s been moving her napping place every couple of days, trying to figure out where she feels most comfortable.

A few days ago, she finally settled on a favorite place, and I'm not happy about it.

This isn't over.

Clearly Little C doesn't share my concerns, and is quite content with her birds-eye view.

Pups in the park

2009-07-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

I spotted this furry pod in White Rock, British Columbia, an oceanfront city just north of the Washington State border. Do you see the family resemblance?

A dolphin's tail tells the tale

2009-07-15T12:55:00.001-07:00

Look closely at the bottom right corner of the photo to see the ball of fishing line trailing behind this poor dolphin. Note the resulting damage to her tail. In this shot, she waits for Larry to free her. Photo courtesy of Cheryl McClure.

This dolphin chose her rescuers well.

Larry McClure had been hanging off his boat's swim ladder treading water 30 miles into the Gulf of New Mexico when an indigenous resident of the seas came calling.

The Atlantic bottlenose dolphin circled the boat for 45 minutes before the retired United Airlines pilot and experienced diver figured out what she was angling for. A ball of monofilament -- more commonly known as fishing line -- had wound around her tail, and the rest of the ball still trailed behind it. The flukes on her dorsal fin were being shredded by the synthetic fiber, and parasites had started to take root in the decaying flesh.

"She came right up next to me and stopped," Larry told me when I was in Sarasota, Florida recently. "I really feel like she came to ask for my help. It had to be a hindrance to her ability to catch fish. Conceivably she might have starved to death."

The 1,400-pound creature depends on her tail to help her catch small fish and squid.

Larry was wearing full diving gear. He and his wife Cheryl have been diving for 15 years, and each have more than 500 dives under their belt. While Larry dove underwater and went to work on freeing the dolphin's tail, Cheryl -- a professional photographer -- captured the moment indelibly on film.

Larry held the tail with his left hand while he hung onto the swim ladder with his knees. With his right hand, he began to slowly unwind the fishing line from her tail. She didn't move and watched him work. As he got near to the end, the last bit was embedded. The dolphin began to get nervous as if she was in pain, and decided it was time to take off.

Larry grabbed hold and pulled as she swam away.

"I felt confident I got most of it off."

Dolphins are famous for showing curiosity towards humans who are in or near water, and have been known to rescue people. There are stories of dolphins using their bodies to bob injured divers close to the surface to save them from drowning.

This time, the people returned the favor.

Mowed down by progress

2009-07-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

I watched in helpless horror as this poor deer kept trying to get up
and cross the road, despite her broken back legs.

Some days I'm scared to leave my house. But not because of agoraphobia.

It's the animals.

Everywhere I go, I find animals -- dumped, lost, frightened, injured. I regularly encounter horrific suffering that doesn't escape my mind once I leave the scene.

I'm not the only one who has this affliction for finding animals in trouble. Most of the rescuers I know report the same phenomenon.

It's gotten so I can't leave the house without a carload of rescue gear.

Today it was a deer who had been cut down by traffic. As I drove by, I spotted her lying marooned on the grassy center median of the busy freeway. She was crawling and trying to get up, but her disabled back legs kept failing her and knocking her back down again.

When I see an animal in trouble, all thoughts of personal safety evaporate.

I slammed on the brakes and hugged my car into the guardrail as the road's shoulder was rapidly disappearing. Just before it tapered off completely, I was able to lodge my car out of the path of traffic barreling at me from behind. The 5 Freeway is the main thoroughfare from Canada. All day, it rumbles with massive trucks.

As the vehicles rolled by, I tried to figure how I was going to travel the 500 feet or so backwards to get to her.

But first I fumbled with my cell phone and called 911.

With breaks in traffic coming in short bursts, I was able to back up close to the deer. I waited for my moment to shoot across, and drove my car onto the median.

I was careful to park a good distance away from her, because when I tried to get near, she struggled to get up and away, and back into the path of danger.

Like all wildlife, she was more scared of people than cars.

I stayed hidden behind my vehicle and watched her while I waited for the police to arrive. When the male and female officer got there, they kindly explained to me that there was nothing that could be done for a deer with broken legs.

I already knew that. All I wanted to know was when would this be over.

They got on their radio calling for wildlife rescuers to respond and perform the euthanasia.

But it didn't seem like they would be there fast enough. Again and again, she tried to get up and fell back onto the grass.

I begged them to shoot her and put her out of her misery, and they admitted that if they didn't get a rapid response, that's what they planned to do.

But not while I was there.

They wanted me to leave so they could stop traffic and do what needed to be done, without the tender eyes of the general public to witness it.

In rescue, there are cases that blur together, and those that stick out. The ones you don't forget haunt you because you couldn't do anything to help.

It doesn't matter that you did all you could.

Sometimes that's just not enough.

Fur baby on board

2009-07-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

Loki winged her way across the country to find a better life.

All photos courtesy of Kelly Baxter-Osborne.

I was waiting to catch a Southwest flight out of Kansas City when I had a familiar sensation.

I’m referring to the uncanny magnetism between animal rescuers recognizing their own kind. It could be called animal attraction, this bond cultivated from common experiences in the trenches.

This time, it was Kelly Baxter-Osborne who crossed my radar. The 32-year-old was traveling back to Seattle from her hometown in Missouri, and we promptly struck up a conversation while people milled about at the gate.

When animal rescuers get together, it’s not long before we lapse into our own vernacular. We speak rescue. Our insider language springs from the assumed knowledge we’ve picked up from years working in the system set up for discarded animals, whether at shelters, sanctuaries or independent rescue groups.

Kelly, who has been riding horses since she was just a toddling two-year-old, gave me some fascinating tips on equine rescue. And she talked about her volunteer work as a member of the Cowgirl Spirit Rescue Drill Team. The organization buys horses from slaughterhouses, then trains them to be adoption-ready with the help of choreographed drill exercises. The drills balance out the horses’ skittish natures by building up their confidence.

Kelly gave me a peek inside her duffle bag, which contained a nine-week-old Husky-Australian Shepherd puppy she had rescued from dire circumstances. Even though Kelly had been out of town on a family vacation, she couldn’t turn her eyes away from an animal in trouble.

Fortunately Southwest doesn’t pre-assign seating, so Kelly and I stowed the pup and ourselves into an exit row and got to work.

As is usual, we knew people in common, and we began trading information. We talked about groups we knew, rumors we had heard, and all the gossip -- disputed and credible. We discussed projects we had worked on. For example, Kelly had rescued a dog from a hoarder house I was planning to penetrate to survey the conditions of the animals. Rumors described the place as a putrid mess, but Kelly said it checked out fine.

As it turned out, it was lucky that Kelly and I were traveling together for another reason. The pup went down so hard on sedatives that we were worried she might never wake up. That’s when I was able to share something with Kelly that I’ve learned as a rescuer. I don’t sedate animals because I get nervous about their drug reactions in the air when I’m far from a veterinary clinic.

I've taken pet CPR, and Kelly's spent her share of time around animals too. We were both concerned. We brought the duffle bag up from under the seat and kept a close watch over the puppy. Periodically, we checked her breathing, looked to see if her gums were healthy and pink, and pulled her eyelids back to see if she was responding. She stretched and gave a couple of yawns, so we got back to rescue speak.

Upon arrival, the puppy's head popped up right on cue. She was just fine.

When Kelly and I parted ways at baggage claim, she hadn’t yet decided if the dog she had called Loki would be staying with her permanently, or moving on to another home.

Either way, I don’t doubt that Loki will end up somewhere safe.

Whether traveling by plane or pony express -- or should I say puppy express -- Kelly will make sure of that.

Kelly takes the lead in the Cowgirl Spirit Rescue Drill Team procession.

Loki lounges on the lawn before her big adventure in the friendly sky.

Joy to the world

2009-06-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

Joy presents me with a Recovery Buddy appropriately named Stormy.

When I'm interviewing animal rescuers, I've stopped asking if something horrible happened to them in the past.

Instead, I ask what happened.

Was it abuse? Neglect? Violence at the hands of human beings?

That's because I've noticed that people who risk their livelihoods, their health, even their own lives to save animals have usually been victims of trauma themselves, often from experiences that stretch back to their tender childhoods.

Whether it's because they identify passionately with the underdogs, or they have lost hope in human beings, the rescuers I've encountered turn to animals instead of people to find safe, rewarding, unconditional love.

My kind friend Joy is a dedicated animal lover. We first met when we landed on the scene of disaster in New Orleans in September 2005 following Hurricane Katrina's history-making devastation. We had both self-deployed to rescue the emaciated, injured animals left behind to die in a flooded wasteland devoid of people to care for them.

Like many of us, Joy has found a dangerous way to cope with her inner demons. Her soothing behavior of choice is self-injury. She began the behavior as a teenager.

Self-injurers might cut, burn, hit or scratch themselves. It's a disorder that mystifies many laypeople, who can't fathom inflicting pain on their bodies to bring comfort to their minds. But I understand Joy's actions. The physical pain she inflicts causes her to forget her mind's pain for a moment, and the distraction brings relief. It might also be an attempt to ease feelings of emptiness or numbness. The pain allows sufferers to feel alive because they are feeling something.

Joy -- who works as a veterinary technician -- recently spent a 30-day stint at a recovery clinic in Texas. That's where she discovered that a small item gave her big comfort.

Upon arrival at the clinic, she was handed a Recovery Buddy to help her through the difficult moments. Joy recalls clutching her yarn-covered soft toy as she weathered the lonely times away from friends and family.

Before I made the trip to visit Joy near her home, she asked me what my favorite colors were. I said black and blue. That's appropriate because I'm notorious for being a clumsy oaf.

And so, over a leisurely lunch, she presented me with Stormy, a black-and-blue Recovery Buddy she had knitted herself.

I was touched. The Buddies are knitted by survivors like Joy, who donate them to clinics around the country. The toys provide comfort to people battling a variety of mental health disorders.

The doll's appearance was apt on more than one level. Stormy sums up my circumstances right now. And don't forget -- Joy and I crossed paths in the aftermath of the most devastating storm in American history.

As I write this, Joy is madly knitting up a batch of 50 Recovery Buddies that are destined for an eating disorder clinic in Florida. She plans to enclose encouraging notes with words to comfort the recipients. Like them, she's been there.

Joy's found a way to make herself feel better. Instead of hurting herself, she's helping others.

And she's figuring out that this storm, too, will pass.

Catch and release

2009-06-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

He was almost a cat's mouseful, but now he's free to roam the forest.

Recently I was telling you about all the mouse casualties I’ve been encountering around the house.

And then, when I least expect it, there comes an unexpected save.

I wandered into the bathroom a couple of mornings ago and immediately noticed something was amiss.

Little Carreen -- who spends her nights safely tucked into this room -- was sitting on the countertop watching me as I investigated. The fleecy brown blanket that feathers her wicker bed was in disarray, and bunched into itself.

I started to straighten out the blanket, surmising that she had decided the bed was a convenient litter box.

But when I pulled out the blanket to fluff it up, I was surprised to find a tiny field mouse bundled and trembling inside.

This pipsqueak was too small to have engineered a self-bundle. There was only one possible explanation.

Little C had her fun with the mouse, then put him safely away like a plaything in a toy box. She showed species-defying compassion.

I took him outside and sat him on the grass. He didn’t run away. I petted him a little and offered some soothing words, but he just sat there shaking, too terrified to leave my side. Finally after an hour I left him alone. When I came back 15 minutes later, he was gone.

I left Mr. Mouse a dollop of peanut butter. A snack for the road.

Kids summon words to save animals

2009-06-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Buddy the Beagle gives Alex Bezugly a sniff.

Right on schedule, Buddy pads into a guest appearance that’s going to save his life. But the Beagle-Basset mix is completely oblivious to the significance of the meeting. Instead, he concentrates on sniffing his way around the room, as hound dogs tend to do.

The lack of focus on his future won’t hurt Buddy’s chances. He’s free to be himself. His sniffing habit will be presented to potential adopters as an endearing quality.

Meet Buddy’s promoters: Mrs. Davis’ fifth grade class.

Buddy is more fortunate than most shelter animals. He’s got 26 Kendall Elementary School kids on his side, and they are dedicated to finding him a responsible new home. These mini marketers are special for many reasons, not the least of which is their age. At 10, these children have a more sophisticated knowledge of animal welfare issues than most adults I encounter.

While Buddy does his hound dog thing, the kids look him over and pepper Whatcom Humane Society community outreach director Laura Clark with questions about the low-lying canine. Laura tells the children that Buddy was given away twice in two weeks before he landed at her shelter. She describes him as friendly and mellow, and a bit overweight.

“Would he be a good dog for a jogger?” Laura asks the kids.

“Maybe a jogger, but not a runner,” pipes up one boy.

After the kids get the scoop on Buddy, they mobilize into action. Some spend time getting to know the dog better. The rest break into small groups and head for the circular bank of classroom computers. They settle in immediately, and start hammering out Buddy’s tale of woe on the keyboards in a variety of formats -- news stories, advertisements, fictional accounts, songs and poems, even a drawing or two.

The format of their pieces and the partners they choose to work with is up to them. More rules aren’t required, because rules aren’t the motivation for these kids to work hard and turn in first-rate projects.

It’s the animals’ lives that are at stake.

“This has made writing important,” says Alex Bezugly, 10.

Each week, Laura brings a kid-friendly shelter animal to Judy Davis’ class for about 45 minutes -- dogs, cats, even a chicken. It’s the saddest cases that resonate most sharply.

“They would see the abandoned animals, and they seemed to really relate,” Laura says. “They would really identify with that animal, and have empathy for the hard-luck stories.”

Kids who used to hand in two or three sentences just a few months ago are writing pages now. That’s because they know their work will immediately be posted on Whatcom Humane Society’s website along with the animal’s photos. And that drives them. They are compelled to put the animal’s best paw forward in the quest to find them a responsible new home.

“These animals are amazing,” says Ridge Buecking, 10. “It’s cool to write about them and have people read our work.”

Recent test scores from this class reflect the fervor with which the kids are attacking their mission. Writing and reading marks have dramatically improved from where they sat in October when the humane education program began. Even math marks are better when essay answers are required for the questions.

It’s the brainchild of two animal lovers -- Laura Clark from Whatcom Humane Society, and Judy Davis, a veteran schoolteacher with 25 years in education. Besides being friends who share a love of animals, they are also neighbors who live on acreage not far from the elementary school.

I asked Laura how the program, which is just finishing its first year, took flight.

“Judy and I cooked it up while we were hiking in the woods,” Laura says. “We solve the world’s problems when we’re hiking.”

It took two years for them to turn their glimmer of an idea into a real live program.

“It’s hard to find a principal who’s willing to take a chance on it,” Judy says.

She’s found a supporter in principal Charles Burleigh, who views it as a rich experience for the kids, particularly given the school’s demographics. Kendall Elementary is in the foothills of the Mount Baker National Forest, which is a relatively remote location, “so it’s important to have experiences that come to school as opposed to kids walking out the door and having experiences in a city,” Burleigh says.

The region also has the cheapest housing in Whatcom County, which tends to draw poor families. Three-quarters of the kids who attend Kendall receive free or subsidized lunches, and all get free breakfast.

“They’ll never forget this,” Burleigh says. “This helps them have a more well-rounded education.”

Besides boning up on their writing abilities, the children also develop social and communication skills, teamwork, empathy and compassion.

The power of compassion is evident. There has been an overwhelmingly positive response from everyone the program touches. It’s already the most talked-about item at parent-teacher conferences, Judy says, and it’s nearly always the first thing the parents mention when they sit down with her -- that it’s their child’s favorite time of the week.

And it’s pretty sweet for the animals, too.

Just ask Buddy.

The Kendall kids get to know Buddy. He's since been adopted. Their hard work helped find him a home.

Buddy puts his nose into smelling his surroundings.

Love means size doesn't matter

2009-06-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

Zoey nuzzles her little pal Lexi.

Lexi the Chihuahua snuck into her home the way many animals do -- she started out as a foster dog. Then Zoey and her human mom fell in love with this bitty dog, and couldn't bear to say goodbye. She's become firmly entrenched as part of the family.

In dog lifestyle vernacular, Lexi's hit the jackpot. Her guardian Beth just opened a doggie daycare called Go Dog LA. Life will be endless socializing and constant fraternizing for this wee pup.

Special thanks for this photo goes out to Kim Rodgers, Bark Pet Photography proprietor and shutterbug extraordinaire. Kim's also the animal rescuer who brought me the story of Sugar the pit bull (Can you adopt this torture survivor? May 18, 2009).

You can expect to hear more about Kim's animal-saving efforts next time I visit Los Angeles.

By the way, Sugar's still looking for a home. Time is running out for this sweet girl. If you know anybody who is interested, please get in touch.

Sugar offers a paw to her foster mom Jane Simon.

Hoo-hoo knew?

2009-06-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

An owl checks me out from his perch.

Sometimes I power down all the modern sounds inside the house and just listen to nature playing outside. Without stereos, TVs, telephones, microwaves, and vacuum cleaners, I can hear a whole other world happening out there.

My favorite birds to listen to are the owls, who don’t just stop at a simple “hoo-hoo”. It always sounds to me like they’re chattering out a conversation.

Tonight the little birds were trilling so enthusiastically that it sounded like an aviary out there, and I swear I heard a husband and wife owl nagging at each other.

Back and forth they went for 20 minutes. One would call out, then there would be a short pause, and I would hear the other one respond from the opposite end of the forest. I guess commitment can be a challenge, even in the bird world.

To me, it sounded like their conversation went something like this:

“Get back here and clean out the nest. It’s a mess in here!”

“Why don’t you do it, I’ve been out hunting for food all day.”

“And what do you think I’ve been doing? Do you think the owlets are raising themselves? You come and pick up after yourself!”

I don’t think the husband gave a hoot.

These two almost became the deer-ly departed

2009-06-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

The young deer I encountered have run back from the road and are contemplating their next move.

I was headed into a pristine snow-capped Pacific Northwest mountain range today when I came upon an accident waiting to happen.

I slammed on the brakes when I noticed two young deer shoving their noses through barbed wire looking very much like they wanted to jump the fence.

But it wasn't the barbed wire fence that foreshadowed danger.

It was the highway they were trying to cross.

Mount Baker Highway, a winding two-lane road leading out of Bellingham, is known for its two contradictory characteristics: beautiful scenery, and gruesome accidents.

The last time I traveled this route, it was barricaded because of a terrible accident. I took the wrong detour and came up a back road, only to find myself smack in the middle of a horrifying car crash scene. It was like something out of the evening news. Glass, twisted metal and blood were what I saw as I soaked up the sights of what was left from the three-car high-speed demolition derby.

This time, I thought it was going to be the deer who ended up as casualties of this twisted mountain highway

I stopped my car in the middle of the road and hit the flashers. I stepped out and motioned cars, trucks and semi-trailers to stop dead. To my surprise, they waited patiently.

When I get into an animal rescue situation, I try to anticipate how the animals will react. I stood a distance away, waiting to see what the deer would do next.

I didn't want to frighten them into the road. Nor did I want to drive them back if they preferred to cross. If they needed to get over, I wanted to be there to stop the cars that could potentially hit them.

The two deer eventually decided against crossing and ran away, taking flight through the field like two nimble Springboks. When I finally drove off, I still felt uneasy. I didn't know whether these deer had it in their minds that they needed to cross the road, or if it was just a whim.

I'll never know. But I do know this: they didn't die on my watch today.

And that will have to be enough.

This deer was the one most determined to cross. I motioned traffic to pass slowly, and they did. He had trouble jumping the barbed wire fence.

Newsroom staff scoops orphan kitten from danger

2009-06-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

Inky -- who now goes by Maddy -- has come a long way since her days spent dodging traffic as a stray kitten. Maddy photos courtesy of John White.

There was something fateful about how the mother cat died.

It was a rainy morning and she was trying to cross a street with her kitten when when she noticed the little one wasn't following. So she turned back.

That's when the vehicle struck and killed her instantly, according to horrified witnesses. And that's when the fatefulness started.

There were witnesses.

She died on Mountain Avenue, a bizarre name for a roadway on a Canadian Prairie landscape that's as flat as a floor. It's located in the north end of Winnipeg in an area called Inkster park that's home to snowshoe hares, gophers and feral cats. The ‘ink" in Inkster is fitting, because the industrial park is also home to the sprawling headquarters for the province's legendary broadsheet newspaper the Winnipeg Free Press.

I have some history with the Free Press, which is known for being a gutsy paper covering a gritty news town. Winnipeg is my hometown. I was hired for my first newsroom job there in the late 1980s. Besides the excitement of writing daily news, there's something else I remember about my time at the Free Press. The newsroom is populated with avid animal lovers. In fact, I've written about their animal-saving antics before on this blog. (Three generations of animal rescuers, April 29, 2009 and Library in the sky is a lookout post for animals, April 19, 2009).

So when I heard about this rescue, I wasn't surprised. Nor was I surprised to hear Margaret McMillan's name associated with it. Margaret, who's now the executive assistant to another Marg -- editor Margo Goodhand -- used to drive me home from work when I was a teenaged cub reporter. At the time, we both lived far outside the city. We'd wile away the driving time having long chats about cats.

Naturally, word of the accident traveled quickly among the newshounds. Margaret, Margo and many other Free Press staffers couldn't bear to stand by while one tragedy turned into two. A man had covered the dead cat's body with a piece of plastic. But at least one kitten was still out there somewhere. Scared and alone.

Suddenly the search for the little kitten became the biggest news of the day, at least inside the newsroom. Small search parties of people began abandoning their posts to look for the palm-sized survivor who had been spotted fleeing the scene, and perhaps a whole litter who hadn't.

After an hour and a half, Margaret and editorial writer Catherine Mitchell finally found the black and white kitten where she had buried herself. Under a pile of leaves at the base of a pine tree not far from the accident.

"Her eyes were so goopy that I doubt she could see out of them," Margaret told me.

Margaret and Catherine brought the frightened kitten back to the newsroom and settled her into a 9 x 11 inch box in a small side office where she was expected to cuddle in with one of Margaret's sweaters. They turned off the lights to create a relaxing environment.

But the kitten had other ideas about where she'd be convalescing from her tragic ordeal.

"She sat on Margaret's lap for a few hours - she just bawled if you tried to put her down - until we finally took her to a nearby vet to get checked out," said Margo Goodhand. "She loved Margaret, and Margaret was really good with her. She was exhausted, and hungry, and Margaret put some food on her finger and got her to lick it off - her first solid food, it looked like."

Initially, Free Press staff called the sole survivor Inky. It was a good name considering her roots in Inkster Park, the occupations of her rescuers, and her appearance. Her white fur coat is marked with black splotches.

Margo Goodhand recalled how Inky appeared in another way.

"So tiny and so cute and so sad."

The rescuers quickly decided they had to get Inky assessed by a vet. To get there, they had to pass the mother's body tucked close to the curb.

"We drove past that poor sodden display twice when we went to the vet that day," Margo said.

The veterinary bill came to more than $200, and was initially covered by Margaret and Margo. But soon money started flowing in from anonymous donors.

"Every time I left my office I found more money on my desk," Margo said. "All day it kept coming,"

The posse that formed the animal search party didn't give up, though. Staff continued searching for survivors until 7 p.m.

"We walked up and down -- there were groups of people walking around looking for them," Margaret said. "They would have been crying."

Any more time on the streets and Inky likely would have grown up to be a feral cat, untamed for human touch and companionship. In a busy urban area like Inkster Park, feral cats typically run into myriad dangers and have short life spans.

But at six weeks old, Inky probably wouldn't have survived alone.

And that's where Fate stepped in. What saved Inky's little life was the attention drawn to her mother giving her own life. Because in that moment, Inky became the news of the newsroom.

Free Press city editor Paul Samyn summed up how the hardened newshounds felt about the helpless kitten.

She was "black and white and loved all over."

Resident cat tamer Margaret McMillan had Inky cuddled in as snug as a bug all day.

Inky's got a new name, a new home, and her own blog

Who can resist nurturing a tiny orphaned creature? Not the Free Press staff, that's for sure. They lined up for a chance to adopt this little survivor.

"The whole office was coming around all day to see her," editor Margo Goodhand said. "Everybody wanted to take her home, but because of the [eye] infection, and the possibility she might have some other problem we didn't know about, I thought I'd take her home to give her meds until she was all better.

"So I took Inky home that night but got an email within a few hours from John White, our deputy editor online, who said he and his wife would really like to have her. And it seemed like the right thing to do, because we already have a cat and John and Rosanne didn't."

But Margo admits it wasn't easy to part with Inky, since renamed Maddy by her new family.

"We had this series of email exchanges. I said ‘Sure, I'll bring her in tomorrow.' And John said ‘Hey, it's OK, we're in the neighborhood' (they live MILES away). And I said, ‘Could you give me an hour more with her?' And John replied, ‘Whenever you're ready, let me know.' And after about 20 minutes I felt stupid so I emailed and they were on our doorstep in about 5 minutes!"

John is taking his new parenting responsibilities seriously. He promptly went out and purchased a video camera to keep co-workers apprised of her milestones and activities with a cuter-than-cute blog he set up for Maddy. To view photos and watch videos of this charmer, go to Maddy's Second Chance.

Maddy puts on a show for her new project, a blog created in her honor. Quite the fancy kitty!