Hey Rescuers! CR Rescue Pet here with our first guest blogger.

Please welcome Janelle and hear the cool things she has to say about her recent experience with a litter of kittens!

    Hello pet lovers! My name is Janelle from BeginnerRigger. My cat Junie just had a litter of six kittens. Currently the kittens are a few weeks old and still eating from Junie.

                Junie would have been spayed, but the process can be anywhere ranging from $100 to $200 (Costhelper, 2012). My family could not afford to produce that much money on her after all the shots and other necessary procedures when getting a new pet. Due to circumstances beyond my control, my sister currently cares for our cats and Junie escaped while she was in heat. Soon we found ourselves with six cute and ever lovable kittens.

                 According to the ASPCA, the kittens need to be on their mother’s milk for three to four seeks. You should start them on soft, gruel type food at four to five weeks. The site states that you should give them canned kitten food or warm, soggy dry food. This is not really for nutrition. The kittens need to learn to eat something besides milk since their mother cannot support their nutritional needs as they continue to grow. The kittens should also at this time start learning to use the litter box. They do not need much teaching. If you leave a kitten in a litter box, they usually get the idea (ASPCA, 2012).

                Once the kittens are old enough to leave their mother, we are going to give them away because we do not have the resources to care for them. We have been contacting friends and family to see who might be interested in a kitten. After we have exhausted everyone we know, we will go to a shelter like Texas CARES because they are a no kill shelter (Adoptapet.com, 2012). Junie will be fixed as soon as the kittens are gone.

Thanks, Janelle! You can check out Beginner Rigger at http://beginnerrigger.blogspot.com/

Sources:

Adoptapet.com. Cat Adoption. Retrieved from: http://www.adoptapet.com/adoption_rescue/69082.html

ASPCA. Newborn Kitten Care. Retrieved from: http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/cat-care/newborn-kitten-care.aspx

Costhelper. Cost of Cat Spay or Neuter. Retrieved from: http://pets.costhelper.com/spay-neuter-cat.html

Best Inexpensive Dog Foods

Hey rescuers!

Adopted a new waggy friend? Looking to feed him well and - well, frankly don't have $60 to shell out for a week of food?

I've got your back. Here are some moderate options that aren't packed with gunk or priced to break the bank.

These four foods came highly recommended on findthebest.com. By checking prices on Amazon and comparing them with FindTheBest's ingredient lists, I decided to do some digging and see how much nutrition I could get for a hungry pup on a tight budget.

Science Diet:

I'm sure you see this stuff everywhere and wonder - is it SCIENCE? or is it marketing? Well, it's a little of both. I was wary of buying this stuff myself for a while because I heard about vets being paid to push it to patients at small practices, but that shady story doesn't change the fact that this stuff is actually quite better for your pet than some of its competitors  With real meat instead of mystery leftover bits, and whole grains instead of corn meal, it gets the feeding job done well (FindTheBest, 2012). At about $30 for a 15lb bag on Amazon, the price isn't bad, either (Amazon, 2012).

Purina Pro Plan:

Price wise, this is a little more what I'm talkin' 'bout! At around $35 for 55lbs of dog food on Amazon, this hits the wallet at a solid reasonable (Amazon, 2012). It contains no yucky preservatives, and real chicken is the first ingredient of many of the Purina Pro Plan foods. However, this chicken is stretched with meat by-products and corn (FindTheBest, 2012).

Purina One:

Similarly to Pro Plan, this food is moderately priced and contains real meat, such as lamb, as its first ingredient. It's stretched with things like oat meal and fish meal, but hey, I know what those foods are (FindTheBest, 2012). It sells at around $8 for 16lbs (Amazon, 2012). It's a moderate choice without mystery bits. I'd say it's a solid choice.

Iams Premium Protection:

Iams Premium Protection dog food, at about $30 for a 22lb bag, comes in as the least expensive of the moderate dog foods (Amazon, 2012). It contains real meat as its first ingredient, but, of course, comes stretched with corn meal (FindTheBest, 2012). It's not a bad, but not the best, option.

Sources:
Amazon.com. Search - Dry Dog Food. Retrieved from: www.amazon.com

FindTheBest. Search - Dry Dog Food. Retrieved from: www.findthebest.com

Consider Adopting a Less Adoptable Pet

Hey rescuers! Enjoy my first video update.

I mostly get this information from what I've suspected all along from interacting with rescuers and working various animal welfare events, but to not take my own word for it, I reviewed the two sources below to find that they confirm my empirical observations.

Have you seen some of the same discrimination in a shelter near you? Let me know.

Sources:

Don't be so fast to judge a cat by its color. Yasmin Anwar. UC Berkeley. Retrieved from:  
     http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/10/23/cat-color/

Are black pets less likely to be adopted? Terri Pous. Time. Retrieved from:
    http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/10/12/are-black-pets-less-likely-to-be-adopted/

Do I Want to Rescue a Puppy, or an Adult Dog? Infographic.

Weekend Plans to Reconsider: Greyhound Racing, Part 2

Hey rescuers!

Today I'm going to get right back into where we left off last week.

Inadequate Standards of Deplorable Care:

There is nothing okay with how racing Greyhounds live on the track. Dogs that survive the culling process as puppies to make it the track often fall prey to conditions on rocky tracks or substandard kennels. According to Grey2kUSA's recent study, snapped spines, broken legs, and even severed toes are common, "acceptable" track injuries. Heart attacks from overwork, and upper respiratory diseases aquired in packed kennels are equally common (Grey2kUSA 2011).

When injured, these animals are generally not treated, as their owners find it cheaper simply to destroy and replace the injured dog than to care for it properly. Many states do not require the reporting of racer Greyhound injuries or deaths. Available data collected by Grey2kUSA from kennels that do report death by track or kennel acquired illness report that injury is very common. There have been several reported cases in recent years of dogs simply being left to succumb to their injuries or starve. As veterinarians seem to be too much of a cost to these cruel dog owners, if animals are helped along towards death, it is generally by gunshot or electricution (Grey2kUSA 2011). 

The Law is on Our Side

Thankfully, extreme animal cruelty is a felony charge that can net a maximum of five years jail time that is, conventionally, doled out per animal. For instance, a case of two abused animals on the same property is considered two counts of felony abuse that can lead to a maximum of ten years jail time. Grey2kUSA reflects on this with optimism. You can imagine how quickly Greyhound racing would stop if good people like you would report abuse any time it is practiced (Grey2kUSA).


Sources:

Grey2kUSA. (2011). Grey2kusa.org. In Grey 2k USA. Retrieved from http://www.grey2kusa.org
     /pdf/FLreport.pdf

Weekend Plans to Reconsider: Greyhound Racing, Part 1

Hey there rescuers!

Thinking of having some fun with awesome animals this weekend? If you're thinking of heading to the track to bet on a racing animal, you may want to think again. Here's some facts about Greyhound racing that might surprise you.

What They Say:

The Greyhound Racing Association of America claims that Greyhound racing is "the cleanest sport in America" I'm not quite sure what sports they have been comparing this cruelty to!

Even on their own website, they admit that many of the Greyhounds bred for racing are destroyed before they make it to adulthood, and that the ones that do make it live out their lives in kennels at tracks instead of getting to have the experience of being someone's pet.

GRAA seems to think that the dogs enjoy racing and that it's okay that they lose a dog to injuries every now and then. They claim that it's all humane and for the good of the breed (GRAA 2011).

What Really Goes Down:

According to researchers from the ASPCA and nonprofit Grey2kUSA, conditions for these animals are incredibly grim. Feel free to check out the sources below to read their research that I will be summarizing, but be warned; they have photographs all of this. I would hope that conditions for Greyhounds are improving to this day, but before you shrug this off as an old problem, consider that these studies were done in 2011.

A Young Greyhound:

The ASPCA warns those who might be interested in going to a dog race that a racing Greyhound begins its life on a Greyhound breeding farm, which is not unlike a puppy mill. At these facilities, the ASPCA goes on to describe, thousands of pups are born a year, of which only a few ever become racers. The rest are destroyed or sold to laboratories as test animals. A pup making it to training is no guarantee of a long life. If a pup makes it to training and does not measure up, or is somehow injured, it is also destroyed (ASPCA 2011). 

According to Grey2kUSA, a Greyhound pup that survives to become a racer can look forward to a life in a kennel at the racing facility. Investigators representing Grey2KUSA cite case studies from December 2011, where they found Greyhounds stored in warehouse-like conditions, living in stacked cages for 23 hours a day with nothing but shredded bits of carpet and newspaper to sleep on, in their condemning report of the sport. Some of these cages, they describe, are as small as three by three feet. The study goes on to posit that this is why many former racing Greyhounds have difficulty transitioning to home life with an adoptive family. They often exhibit issues such as bumping their heads into sliding glass doors, or trying to walk on swimming pools, as in their life they have rarely seen a surface that isn't paved, or a door that isn't chain. Some Greyhounds come to adoptive homes afraid of grass, as, because of the conditions they grew up in, they have no idea what it is (Grey2kUSA 2011).

Don't want to participate in this cruelty? Don't give your hard earned money to anywhere that races Greyhounds or other animals. It's as easy as that.

Since this is a topic very dear to my heart, next week I will cover:
Deplorable Standards of Inadequate Care
What The Law and You Can Do


In the meantime, check out the sources I referenced in this post:

ASPCA. (2011). Greyhound Racing FAQ. ASPCA. Retrieved from http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-
     cruelty/greyhound-racing.faq.apsx

Grey2kUSA. (2011). Grey2kusa.org. In Grey 2k USA. Retrieved from http://www.grey2kusa.org
     /pdf/FLreport.pdf


GRAA. (2011). Greyhound Racing Association of America homepage. Greyhound Racing Association of 
     America. Retrieved from http://www.gra-america.org/