Help the Horde.

Things have been happening behind the scenes and now more than usual the Horde needs your support. Our supporters have done so much to keep the old dogs in kibble, and we hate to ask for more, but we desperately need funds as well.

Each year The Humans pay for a vaccination farm call and the Sanctuary's liability insurance by donating a portion of their tax return. This totals about $120.

This year, however, the Humans have discovered that The Scribe's employer checked the wrong box when they put in her tax information and have been withholding at the lower married filing jointly rate. She has, for the entirety of her working life, always withheld at the higher single rate, so she is certain that was what she requested when joining her employer last year.  Because of the error (it reduced her withholding by a significant amount) The Humans will owe money rather than receiving a return.   

In another year, The Humans would shrug and cover the donation with the stimulus they've received, but due to additional circumstances, they can't do that.

The Human Scribe works very hard for the Sanctuary, doing half of the Sanctuary chores, and acting as the primary content creator and photographer for the Sanctuary's social media accounts. She has recently been diagnosed with a serious degenerative spinal condition in her cervical and thoracic spine. She has had damage to her spine for almost 30 years, but in the last 8 months her spine has essentially collapsed in at least two places. This condition has caused nerve damage in her cervical spine that is impacting her arms and upper body, and could potentially lead to very serious problems. Functionally it has already required some changes. She can no longer drive longer distances, and her art must be done in short bursts. She can no longer lift dog food bags, or move heavier objects. She has the constant very strong pins and needles "asleep" sensation along her upper back between left shoulder blade and spine. It's been consistent for the past ten months, and while manageable by medication, it never completely goes away.  She has had x-rays, a thoracic MRI, and is currently doing PT. A cervical MRI is pending. She has been referred to a neurologist and an orthopedic surgeon, neither of whom could help, and is scheduled to see a pain management specialist.

Unfortunately, as you can imagine, this is expensive. Each diagnostic is $225. Each physical therapy visit, and each specialist visit is $50. These are after insurance prices. If she attends physical therapy twice a week, for 6-8 weeks, she is looking at $600 to $800. She has had 3 diagnostics with at least a 4th to come. She doesn't know how many specialist visits are in her future or what additional diagnostics and treatment they will want to pursue. She doesn't know if she's looking at surgery.

Along side this, The Humans have been trying to get into a financial position where they can build a new Farmhouse. The current Farmhouse complicates dog care and it cannot be made fully accessible, should the Scribe need it. 

If you love the Horde, and they bring you happiness, we ask for your assistance in raising as much of the $1200 as possible. Donate if you can, retweet and share if you can't.

Donations Needed for Sir

We need donations for Sir if anyone can spare a few dollars. He is still not doing well, and we believe that one of the few floating bone chips in his jaw is trying to come through his gum. If we can get him comfortable today he will go to the vet tomorrow. If not, we will be making an emergency vet visit. We hope it won't be a final vet visit, but if it's time, then we will help him across the bridge with all the love in our hearts.
Because of the immediacy of the visit we are asking for PayPal donations to pughollow@gmail.com.

Holiday Recipe One - Kara's Bourbon Pecan Pie and Cream Cheese pastry

Cream Cheese Pie crust: Make 1 day in advance

• 1 1/3 cups of all purpose flour (if you have Celiac substitute arrowroot flour)
•  8 tbsp salted sweet cream butter, cubed and frozen
• 1/8 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla 
• 4 oz cream cheese cut into 4 pieces
• 1 1/2 tbsp cold water
• 1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

 Using a food processor blend the flour, and baking powder, for 10 seconds. Add the cream cheese and process until the flour looks mealy. Add the vanilla, cold water and vinegar. Process again to mix. Add the butter. Process until the butter has been rendered to pea size at largest.

Remove the mixture from the food processor and knead until becomes a homogeneous single ball and is slightly stretchy.  Form the ball into a disk and refrigerate overnight.

Lay the ball out onto a flat floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll the disk into a large enough circle to slightly more than cover the inside of your pie tin. Trim the crust to fit the pie pan, and flute the edges lightly.

Bourbon Pecan Pie

This recipe makes a very rich, custard style pecan pie with a slightly darker flavor than most. If you can get your hands on fresh pecans this recipe will complement them extremely well. 

• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/4 cup molasses (1/2 cup dark Karo can be substituted if you don't like molasses)
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 1 1/2 cups pecan halves
• 2 tablespoons good quality bourbon

Preheat the oven to 375°.

In a bowl, stir together the sugar and melted butter until well mixed. Add eggs, molasses, bourbon and pecans and mix until all pecans are well coated. Pour mixture into an unbaked pie shell, and place on a heavy-duty cookie sheet. 

To prevent over browning of the pie crust, cover the edges with aluminum foil by following the instructions here: lay out a sheet of aluminum foil slightly larger than the diameter of the pie tin. Fold the aluminum foil into quarters and cut an arc out of the middle. Unfold the aluminum foil (the center will be missing in a circle) and place over the pie. Fold the foil over the edges.
Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the foil.

Lower the oven temperature to 350°, and continue to bake for an additional 25 minutes, or until pie is set.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack or trivet.

October State of the Dogs

Alright... starting something new. We're going to do a monthly update on our dogs who are under treatment or watch for various health conditions. It's a long list but here it is:

Sir - chihuahua - Still stumping along. He has good days and bad but the good still outnumber the bad. Organ function is good.

Trundle - yorkie - Still blind, but her personality is blossoming. Lots of playing and pissy hedgehog noises. She's got a couple of lumps that we're keeping an eye on, but they seem to be maintaining. Organ function is good.

Joe - chihuahua - His heart is doing ok for what it is. We've had to start him on 37.5 mg of Lasix per day due to fluid buildup in his abdomen. It's come down a lot but not as much as we'd like. He may have an enlarged liver. He's still proud that he managed to pinch Liz.

Julia Fang - chihuahua - Nothing wrong with her except her eyes and her age. She's still opinionated and stinky, and loving life.

Sneaser - chihuahua - Still doing well. He's maintaining on 25 mg of Lasix. He's going through his twice yearly cough as the seasons change, but we will set him right with cough syrup and allergy medication. Organ function is good.

Sophie -Frenchie x dachshund - Still doing great, and still under watch and wait for a lump on her side. No re-occurrence of the mammary cancer so that's great.

Hugh - pug - We just discovered a lump on his side that we need to get checked out. He had a growth on his scrotum but there's no regrowth there.

Cleo - pug - She's gaining weight, and doing well. Her bladder infections have subsided due to a combination of diet and medication. She doesn't appear to have any masses in her bladder. Still wobbly but that won't ever go away.

Hope - chug - the mass on her leg is regrowing. We are keeping an eye on it so that we can remove it when needed. No other masses have come up.

Lovepug - pug - We are still giving her tacrolimus for her eyes. It's expensive but the only thing that keeps her eyes lubricated. She's still got opinions and a lot of sass.

Newman - pug - We are still watching several masses on Newman, but they don't seem to be growing. He hasn't has a seizure in a while and his appetite is good.

Lopug - pug - We need to get Lopug started on enzymes. We did a run of metronidazole but it didn't clear his loose poop up, so the only thing it could be is a pancreatic insufficiency. Otherwise he's doing well.

Peaches -greyhound mix - We are still medicating Peaches for her severe anxiety and monitoring her for the lump on her chest. It's a fatty tumor and while it is growing slowly it isn't impeding anything so we aren't worried about it at this time.

Cubby - chihuahua - still hypoglycemic but his organs are working well, which is good.

Fiona - pug - Her heart hasn't enlarged any further and she's not having problems with her deviated trachea. If she'd stop snarling with Tank and Patience we'd be 100%.

Harry - chihuahua - Still treating him for his allergies. His hair is growing back as the grass dies.

Artie -chihuahua mix - still treating him for his irritable bowel.

Rotten, Mattias, Remy, Mika - chihuahua - still doing well. Matty and Remy have made huge strides in conquering their anxiety as poster dogs.

Faith - chug - doing well. Her eye hasn't seems very steady and not inclined to fall out recently.

Ivan - Pom x pug - healthy and happy

Fizgig - pug - Being treated for allergies. Otherwise healthy.

It's been a while since I've posted an update. Life around the Hollow got busy of the summer with adoption events and other such things that tend to happen more during the summertime.  And things quieted down on the medical front for a bit.

As usually happens though things have swung back the other way and now we have a run of medical bills to cover.

This month was Sneaser's 6 month blood work. He has to have regular checks of his renal function to ensure that his heart medication isn't hurting his kidneys.

At the same time Byron developed an aural hematoma. An aural hematoma is when the ear gets bruised and the blood causes it to puff up, pulling the skin away from the cartilage.  His ear looked like a sopapilla.  This requires minor surgery to drain the ear and re-attach the skin to the cartilage with small stitches.

 

Just after that, Lopug injured his eyes. He scratched one cornea, causing a traumatic ulceration, and developed non-ulcerative keratitis (an inflammation of the cornea) in the other.  So off to the vet he went to have his ulcerated eye sewn shut. 

 

Within the next week we will have to have Cleo the pug in to the vet for blood work and diagnostics to determine why she has started not thriving. She doesn't feel well and she's failing to gain needed weight back.

All totaled we are looking at at least $500 in vet bills for this round, so once again we are reaching out to our awesome supporters for help with the sudden rush of vet bills. If the dogs would spread them out over a couple of months it would work much better, but they like to do things in groups!

You can donate via mail, or paypal via the address and links on our website.
You can also donate via Gofundme.

Be aware that our paypal link and our Gofundme account take a percentage of the donation in fees. If you want to be sure that 100% of your donation reaches us, you can donate via paypal to pughollow@gmail.com and choose "send money to friends and family".

Any donations above our current need for vet bills will go into the Hospice fund for future vet visits.  You know we'll have plenty more of those!

 Aaaannnd here's Vinnie!  This little man is a cup of sugar with a tablespoon of spice. A package of sweet cuddly lap warmer wrapped up in playful, spunky Chihuahua attitude.

And the best part?  After consulting with our vet, we've determined that Vinnie is adoptable!

He's had a spinal cord injury that has impacted the use of one of his right front leg, but it doesn't slow him down, and it isn't getting any worse.  He may need a sock or boot to help keep him from rubbing his foot raw, as he does occasionally knuckle under on his bad foot.

Because of the injury and his size we'd prefer he go to a home without children or larger dogs. However a home with another friendly Chi or Chi-sized dog would be possible.

Vin is neutered, heartworm negative and up to date on shots.  He picked up a little bit of a cough from the vet's office, so it will be a week before he's ready to place out, but after that he's ready to go. His adoption fee is $45

If you're interested in adopting Vinnie, email us at pughollow@gmail.com!

Random science lesson of the day... One of the things that you learn when you're involved in plant science is the "disease triangle".

After a while you also realize it applies to pets and humans as well. Whether it's West Nile, Parvo, fleas, ticks, heartworms.... There are three factors that contribute to an outbreak of disease or pests/parasites. You have to have the pathogen or pest, the host (and a vector if the disease is transmitted by something other than the host) and a favorable environment. They all have to be present in the right amount or you don't have the problem. Outside of that magical combination you never reach critical mass, and you don't have the disease or the pest never becomes an issue. So the key to controlling an outbreak or infestation is to alter the contributing factors to break the triangle.

This year our magical combo has been perfect for fleas. We can't get rid of the hosts and our control over the environment is limited so we have to focus our integrated pest management strategies on the pest itself, and what little environmental control we do have via lots of lawn mowing, flea treatments for the house and dogs, frequent bedding washes, and diatomaceous earth where we can use it. It requires a holistic plan of attack with coordinated application of the various control methods to get ahead and stay ahead of the problem.
Something to think about the next time you have a disease or pest problem in your home or garden....