 A bi-yearly publication of the Central Illinois German Shepherd Dog Rescue Fall-Winter 2001 From the Alpha: Its been a great year and we've had a lot of changes. We'll talk about a lot of new things in this issue. There will be news from our Webmaster about our outstanding web page, a section from our veterinarian on GSD health issues, information on volunteer opportunities, future intentions of our rescue, and current events and needs of the rescue
This month we would like to cover a situation that we've had to deal with several times in the last couple of years and a situation that is 100% avoidable. Canine Heartworm Disease. Those of you who have or have had dogs are hopefully familiar with the prevention of heartworm through preventative pills, but even in experienced pet owners, there seems to be a lot of confusion about the contraction, testing, prevention, and treatment of the disease. CANINE HEARTWORM DISEASE Heartworm disease is a debilitating and often fatal disease caused by a parasite, Dirofilaria immitis, which invades the dog's circulatory system causing damage to vital organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and blood vessels. Heartworm is primarily a disease of dogs but occasionally infections are seen in cats, ferrets and other mammals. The heartworm's life cycle starts with transmission of the infective larvae from a mosquito to a dog via a bite. It takes approximately six months for a larvae to grow to an adult in the dog's heart. The adult heartworms breed and create the juvenile form, the microfilaria, which are seen in the blood. Clinical signs of a heartworm infection occur when the disease is well advanced and considerable damage to the dog's body has probably already occurred. Common symptoms are a chronic cough, exercise intolerance, weight loss, episodes of fainting or collapse, and shortness of breath. If left untreated, the dog will die of heart failure. Since this disease is so serious, the treatment is so difficult, and the symptoms are not seen until late in the disease, the best method of control is with heartworm preventative medication. Every spring, the dog should have a blood test, performed by a veterinarian to be sure that he is not already infected with heartworm. Once a negative heartworm test is obtained, the dog should be started on either a monthly preventative (Interceptor). In central Illinois, it is best to give the preventative from March or April thru December. An alternative we recommend is to keep the dog on preventative year round. If a dog becomes infected with heartworms, he can be treated successfully, but the treatment is prolonged, expensive, and can involve some side effects.
All Parts of the therapy are necessary for a successful treatment! Dr. Welle is a Veterinarian at All Creature's Animal Hospital in Urbana, Illinois. She is one of the wonderful doctors at this animal hospital that looks after our Shepherds. Visit Our Booth! Showings at Petsmart
Showings at Animal Outfitters
Volunteer Needs
Short term: Other education projects include: Therapy works with senior citizens in nursing homes. Anyone wishing to learn how to brush their dog up for this type of work, please contact us. We will be starting soon with visits. Long Term: This summer hosted another annual picnic. We will probably aim for fall next year, as summer weekends are apparently very busy with competition from local events. Thank you to all of those who attended, it was great to see our babies!!! The web site is absolutely remarkable thanks to Deborah , Web goddess, who is a professional web designer during working hours and uses her vast skills to aid us in her off time. It is a great accomplishment and has resulted in rocketing our rescue efforts up to greater heights than we ever could have achieved before. We have survived another year in rescue! The Shepherd Rescue is having its 4th anniversary this November. I'm working on 16 years in canine rescue, Rick is still here after 3 years of nonstop effort, Rachel Beard is past her 1 year anniversary, and we've added Deb, Carol, Peter, Ellen, Bea, and Mike to our consistent roster. We look forward to another year. Please join our volunteer staff and help us celebrate our upcoming anniversary! Sally Bernie Mister & Queenie Thank you to those that made these and other rescue and adoptions possible! Below are some of these wonderful people Christopher Farris and Target Stores for
working hard for our German Shepherd friends and feeding them a lot
of good food and treats! Those at Prairieland Feeds for inviting us again to their annual Pet Fair, which was very successful. We thank them for at least one adoption, many volunteers, and other very helpful contacts. We also thank them for an adoption from the previous year that came to visit us this year on his one-year anniversary with his loving family! Richard Riddle for 24 hour care of our rugrats. Head cuddler of doggies, Head Chef, Head Maintenance Engineer, Head Sanitary Engineer, Head Groomer, and every other little thing that could possibly need to be done. Ashley Riddle for putting up with both of us running around for the puppies. Often leading to long road trips, long showings, and barking puppers. Terri and Amanda Farris for their help throughout the year at many events! Rachel Beard, Carol and Peter Maloney, and Ellen Dee for their many hours of volunteering for events and daily tasks. Deborah for her countless hours
with her camera and computer savy to create the best website ever and
for walking the puppers. She is our Computer Goddess. Bea & Mike Hughes for taking one of our rescued puppies in as their own, volunteering countless hours of computer work, and any other volunteer need that we could ask. The Albright family now consisting of two "fur children" from our family and their generous donations to the friends they left behind. Thank You! The Stout family (fondly referred to as CI GSD Rescue South), consisting of three of our rescue children! Their house is a shepherds' dream and they are wonderful pet owner's! Thank you! As usual, the Leifer family for the Shepherds' vacation resort and continued support through the years for saving our puppies! Thank you to our colleagues in rescue for a lot of mental support, because we all understand what its like to be a 24-hour-a-day mommy and daddy to the needs of several homeless animals in addition to normal lives of family, friends, full time jobs, etc… Without each other, fewer animals would be saved, but together a huge impact is made every year. Please support all rescue. It matters to this one and that one and that one….. We all save a handful each year, and in the larger scheme of things, we barely make a dent despite the tremendous amount of work put in. But we all find love and satisfaction watching the sweet eyes of our Shepherds say 'thank you' as they climb into a car that will take them to their new home and family. This and the radiance of our alumni when they come to visit us at events or we receive their pictures in the mail makes it all worthwhile.. If you cannot volunteer for the daily grunt work, please get involved
in education programs for spay/neuter or no-bite programs, if there
isn't one in your area, start one. Over 23 million animals are put
to sleep every year due to overpopulation of pet animals. No matter
how many dogs the combined rescues save each year, that number continues
to rise. Our mission is to spay/neuter as many pets as we can and to
choose the best animals to save. But we cannot change the overall numbers,
because there is essentially a finite We are the grunts, but we really wish for more people to get involved in the prevention. Government animal investigators need to have greater abilities to follow through and convict animal offenders. Penalties need to be increased, privileges need to be extended to those investigators in the field, reinforcement and follow through needs to be mandatory, and penalties need to be stricter. Private party Humane Investigators need financial support and government backing. These people serve as the circulatory system for animal cruelty investigations, but often have to wait weeks or months to save one group of animals. They then may watch the offender get off scott free. Animals are bottom of the totem pole for support. we are all aware
that the priorities and money are directed toward human safety issues.
There isn't even enough money for that. This being the case, let your
local police officers know that you appreciate them, and ask them if
they would keep an eye out for animal cruelty offenses. Be active in
your community. Offer to help out, and educate!!! If we could avoid
the creation of animal cruelty offenders, we could avoid animal cruelty
offenses. Thank you to my personal friends and rescue colleagues: All Creature's Animal Hospital - Dr. Mary
Welle DVM, Dr. Ken Welle, and associates and employees that
truly love their work and all of the animals that they treat like
their own children. They fight for the lives of these animals and
suffer losses right next to us with a love and compassion that is
rare to find. Our appreciation cannot possibly be expressed in words,
but there is no doubt these people are listed as family and cherished
as friends. All of the veterinarians that provide care
and donate care to rescue groups All of the tolerant family members, husbands, and wives of rescuers:
Please forgive me if I left anyone out specifically. You are loved and appreciated. Gently remind me and I'd be happy to add you to the list. Webside Chat As Webmaster, I have been busy these last several months trying to create a website for the rescue that would serve the best interests of the dogs and those interested in adopting them. I eventually gave up testing the website on the dogs at the rescue (since they aren't as into technology as the rest of us) and moved on to human subjects. People were much more helpful in this endeavor. Listed below are some of the additions that have been made to the website based on the feedback I received. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) Community Dogs Events Calendar Suggestions? 
|
| Home | What
We Do | Contact Us | Adoptable
Dogs | Application | Policies | FAQs Sponsor a Dog | In Honor of... | In Memory of... Events Calendar | Newsletter | Training | Owner Give-ups | Links | Site Map | |
You
can also visit us at |
Central Illinois German Shepherd
Dog Rescue |
|
This
page was last updated
April 19, 2004
. All Contents Copyright © 2000-2004 C.I.G.S.D.R.
For questions or comments about the design of this website e-mail: |
|
number
of homes and way too many animals. Rescuers cannot begin to explain
the people and situations we have to deal with everyday. And every
year that make us sick. We get grief for doing the selfless acts only
a handful are willing to sacrifice themselves to do. We also have little
support from government. We receive verbal abuses if not physical threats
from animal mistreaters, neglectors, and abusers. This is then combined
with the daily frustrations of a strategically placed doggy pile, a
soiled "just mopped" floor, muddy pawprints on a favorite
pair of pants, broken personal items, barking at 5 am, barking at 11
pm, barking in between, and so much more.