Page 28 - Sonoma County Gazette - May, 2018

What’s Best for Our Best Friend?
By Kimberly Burr
As we know, Fido mostly yearns to be noticed, to give and get lots of attention, and to eat! Sleeping, running, and rolling in the cool grass are some more of the normal activities for which our best friends are built.
He makes friends easily. He’s helpless and kind of pitiful in a strangely irresistible way. He never complains. He just purrs and purrs and purrs. He’s just a little kitty purr machine.
If Fido could read, Fido would read this.
He makes friends at the emergency hospital, and they treat his pain, give him
a dose of ultra-long-acting antibiotic, and bandage his wound, but they are required to turn him over to the local animal control agency. It’s the law and it makes sense: How else could his owner ever find him?
Because most Californian’s understand the makeup of pets and wish that the normal and simple ways of our animals be the standard to which industry and owners live up to, a few laws were passed to help maintain that normalcy where it is not well understood.
But no one is looking for him, apparently, so he sits a few days in a cage until he’s placed on the euthanasia list. And that makes sense too. His injuries are serious and require extensive treatment, but he’s a homeless kitty and there is no one to take care of him. He can’t just sit there. Still, he purrs and purrs and purrs.
Where did he come from? No one really knows. A “Good Samaritan” found him on April 8th and brought him to an emergency hospital. He’s been run over by a car. He can’t walk because both of his back legs are broken. There’s a bone showing. He’s
ten months old, maybe. Gray tabby. Not
neutered. No microchip.
One such guiding principle is that dogs must not be chained
for more than 3 hours in any 24-four hour period. This makes sense insofar as dogs are four legged bundles of energy and are very sociable. Chaining
D’Artagnan
It just so happens that one of the Nine Lives volunteers is a woman named Margo, who happens to be an old High School friend of mine. She contacts Barb and me to see if we can help. We’ve helped Nine Lives Foundation in the past, and agree to take a look. The FHO is something we can easily handle. Before you know it, D’Artagnan is staying with us in Bodega Bay. It’s April 15th. He purrs and purrs and purrs.
urine, flies and other bacteria. Among other things, this makes Fido smell bad and unattractive to the owner increasing the isolation of Fido from the attention and interactions Fido needs and wants.
For some reason, the volunteers name him D’Artagnan. (No, I really have no idea. He’s not French, he’s not a Musketeer, and he’s not a member of a group of three. Go figure).
a dog is not only not normal for Fido, it can have a bad affect on Fido - including claws that grow into the foot pads causing pain and crippling, severe loneliness, and even aggression.
Word reaches the Nine Lives Foundation in Redwood City. He’s so sweet. He purrs and purrs and purrs, and they just have
to try to save him. Nine Lives volunteers pull him out of the animal control facility (in the nick of time). They present him to their veterinarian, who x-rays him. (Finally! Something more than bare minimum care!) It’s April 12th.
In addition, chained extensively, animals live in their own feces,
But he’s a mess. His right tibia is fractured into four pieces. His left femur is fractured just below the hip joint. To make matters worse, they remove his bandage to discover that the tibial fracture is an OPEN fracture. The bone has been wrapped, but exposed
to the elements for FOUR days. This is not good, but he purrs and purrs and purrs.
If a running line or trolley line is utilized while Fido is briefly chained up,
it cannot have a choke or pinch collar around Fido’s neck. This is probably obvious. Such devices are very painful and potentially lethal to Fido. Working with Fido to get Fido used to a trolley system, that allows Fido to move around much more, will help Fido learn to slow down when the line is reaching the end rather than have Fido snap the line and the throat unnecessarily.
That tibial fracture is a big, big problem.
Usually, a fracture of this nature would be
repaired with metal implants, but an open
fracture makes this extremely dangerous. The femoral neck fracture is usually repaired by surgical removal of the femoral head (the ball part of the ball-and- socket joint) called a Femoral Head Ostectomy or FHO). D’Artagnan is looking at not one, but two pricey orthopedic surgeries, and this at Silicon Valley rates. Amputation is a much more affordable option - but he’ll still need an FHO surgery. The Nine Lives veterinarian closes the wound over his fracture, and the volunteers start looking for donations. They need all the help they can get. Meanwhile, D’Artagnan purrs and purrs and purrs.
In case you were wondering about dogs on leashes, “nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prohibit a person from walking a dog with a hand-held leash.” (Cal. Health & Safety Code § 122335). Although not a requirement, nothing would make Fido happier than going out on a leash with YOU, romping around with buddies at the dog park, or tearing around a big field,
a lake, or river once in a while. That of course would not be a bad day for Mommy or Daddy either.
Additional interesting information for pet owners can be found at https://
www.animallaw.info/statutes/us/california.
28 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 5/18
FAMILY PET cont’d on page 29
PHOTO by Nancy Arata