Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Follow-Up Friday

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I’m deviating slightly in the format of my follow-up Friday post.  Normally I start with earlier posts and work my way forward, today I am starting with yesterday’s post, “Has The World Gone Crazy?” 

First I have to apologize to you, I saw the article on facebook and read a blog, which got me fired up and I wrote my blog post.  What I didn’t do was my research.  I should have looked to see if there was more to the story and unfortunately there was. 

My dear friend at 2 Brown Dawgs who lives in Michigan and apparently not too far from Royal Oaks, found the following two articles.  Feel free to read them yourself and make your own conclusions. 

Banish, euthanize or what?

City of Royal Oak, The People vs Spalding

Here is a quick summary. 

Apparently there were two dogs being walked by the girlfriend of the owner’s son.  While they were outside a store a man approached and asked if they were friendly and the girl responded they were.  As the man walked past the dogs (according to the police report) the dogs jumped on the man and bit his face.  The man was assisted by store employees and then went to the hospital.  He had bite marks on his nose and below his mouth.  His wounds required stitches and at least one surgery.

The owner was cited for the dog bite and for not having either of her dogs licensed.  The petition leads one to believe the dog will be euthanized on February 9th, which is not the case at all.  Heidi is currently at home with her owner and will reside there until a decision has been reached. The 9th is the date scheduled for the pre-trial hearing at which point a settlement could be reached.  

City attorney Dave Gillam “disputes claims that Royal Oak is out to destroy the dog. He said the city did present two options: euthanize the dog or move her outside of Royal Oak. However, the issue could be resolved by sending the dog to obedience school, muzzling her whenever she is outside the owner’s McLean Avenue home, or some other action.” 

The dog is not in danger of being euthanized next week as the petition suggests. 

First I’m mad at myself for not looking into the case.  Usually I am the first to research something I hear. 

Second I am really pissed off that the owner is manipulating the situation and making it seem like the city is out to destroy her dog.  She is preying on the emotion of dog owners everywhere,  IMO she needs to take responsibility for herself and her dog.  The dog bit someone, really bit someone, she should not be classifying it as “Heidi popped up at the same time that the stranger bent over to pet her.”  According to the reports the stranger wasn’t even trying to pet the dog.

I certainly don’t want the dog to be destroyed, but I’m thinking perhaps the dog needs to be re-homed.  IMO this is not a responsible dog owner.  She didn’t look out for her dog and she didn’t own her responsibility.

A visit to her website today has HUGE red letters across the top, “PLEASE DO NOT CALL OR EMAIL THE CITY OF ROYAL OAK.  THINGS ARE PROGRESSING WELL.  THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.”

I’m still thinking I may send the city an e-mail and let them know I felt deceived by Ms. Spalding and while I don’t believe Heidi should be destroyed, I think she may need re-homing. 

Please accept my sincerest apologies for misleading you in this cause, I promise to check facts next time I hear something that infuriates me and educate myself before going off half-cocked.

Death By Chocolate – Part 2 – Update

Delilah came away from her experience with a one time vomit, a tiny bit of diarrhea the next morning and a healthy fear of Mr. Honey Bear.  (A lot better than most celebrities who take a handful of pills.) 🙂

Since I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know why Mr. Honey Bear came out, I’m pretty sure she will still eat stuff she shouldn’t, which just means I have to be more conscientious of what I leave lying around.

Drew Barrymore’s Bump – Update

My euphoria that Drew Barrymore adopted a shelter dog turned to dismay the next day, when I read that Prince William and Princess Kate adopted a Cocker Spaniel from a breeder.  And don’t forget I am not against responsible breeders, just those crazy puppy mill people.  When they see a demand for Cocker Spaniels they’ll start churning them out.

That’s it for me, I think I’ve done enough damage this week.

Book Update: My book has 8,457 words.

Has The World Gone Crazy?

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I JUST FOUND OUT THAT WHAT IS PRESENTED HERE IS NOT THE TOTAL FACTS.  I WILL BE UPDATING THIS POST TONIGHT SO PLEASE WAIT BEFORE YOU TAKE ANY ACTION.

I know the Aztec calendar stops in 2012 and Doomsday predictors say the world will end, but did any of them mention the world would go crazy in the meantime?

Last week I wrote about Justice For Putz, you may remember Putz, he was the pitbull that was euthanized in Michigan for biting a man who was going to harm his mistress.  Rather than choose a number of other options, the town decided to go with their original plan and euthanized poor Putz.

As I posted about Putz, 2 Brown Dawgs left me a comment making me aware of another pitbull euthanized in Michigan.  Ace was picked up in an Ace Hardware store, and due to liability issues, the City of Detroit will not release pitbulls to anyone but their owner.   While several people came forwarding claiming ownership of Ace, none could provide proof.  Rescue groups rallied and petitioned for Ace, but in the end the city of Detroit euthanized the dog.

Hot on the paws of Ace’s death, comes the tragedy of Heidi.  I found this information courtesy of The Elka Almanac’s post on facebook, I then went to her page and read the story.

Heidi is a Doberman Pinscher in (dut dut duh) Michigan who has been ordered put to death.  Heidi and her owner were out walking when a stranger approached and asked if he could pet Heidi, as he bent to pet her apparently Heidi jumped up.  The man claims that Heidi broke his nose and reported the incident to the police.  The police in the City of Royal Oaks is prosecuting this as a dog bite/attack and will only drop the charges if Heidi is destroyed or removed from her family of four years.

Her family has started a petition requesting the city allow them to keep Heidi  restricted to her family’s private yard.  Would you take a minute and sign the petition?  If you tweet or blog, could you include a link?

I’d like to think if it was one of us, that people would help.  We couldn’t save Putz or Ace, but maybe if we all work together we can save Heidi.

Book update:  Still the same. 🙁

Mr. Chewy

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A little over a week ago I agreed to do a review of MrChewy.com.  Mr. Chewy is a website where you can order dog and cat food and treats and have it delivered to your door.

Of course I didn’t agree to do it for nothing.  In exchange for my honest review of the website I get a gift certificate for $50 to use on the website, which I in turn will pass on to you.   We’ll get to the how you can win in a minute because truthfully, I’m still working that out.

I sat down last Saturday to check out the website and then I wanted to kick myself.  I feed raw.  What the heck was I thinking?  I don’t buy bag dog food so how can I review it?

Then I became a little creative.  I called my sister and asked her about the food she feeds her dogs.  Her little Bandit is on a limited ingredient food.  I also  went to Sara’s store and checked out prices of her dog food so I would have some comparisons.

First what I liked.

MrChewy.com has free shipping for orders over $49 and if the order is less than $49, it is a flat shipping fee of $4.95.  All orders are shipped UPS and should be received in 1 to 2 business days.

In my opinion MrChewy offers good quality  foods and treats.  The website makes it very easy to find what you are looking for.  Once you get to the website you can click on Dog Food, you then get a variety of options as to what kind of dog food.  You can search by brand, form, life-stage or speciality.  They carry grain-free, gluten-free, natural and organic dog foods.  It works in the same manner for cat food and treats.

I compared prices for Taste of the Wild, Blue Buffalo and Natural Balance.  In most instances MrChewy was $3 to $4 less per bag in all sizes.  Which can save a significant amount of money if you are qualified for the free shipping.  Even if you don’t qualify for free shipping, depending on where you get your food and how far you travel and factoring in the price of gas, it may still be a good savings to you.

They also sell cat litter and puppy training pads.

The flea and tick area is a little light, as they only sell Frontline, and they have nothing natural in the flea and tick categories.

MrChewy also has a referral program you can sign up for, when any of you order from MrChewy and use this code AUNT9209 you will automatically receive 10% off your first order AND when you sign up for a MrChewy account, MrChewy will donate $10 to Best Friends Animal Society!  How cool is that?

But of course, me being me, there had to be something I didn’t like about MrChewy.com.

Our little cat, Bob had a urinary blockage and can only eat a good quality, non-fish wet food.  Personally I feed him Wellness and I fluctuate between a beef chicken, chicken or turkey.  On MrChewy the Wellness only averages out to be about 15 cents cheaper per can and you have to buy by the case.  I usually buy about 12 cans at a time, but in three different flavors.  So that was a negative for me.

MrChewy has an 800 number with operators available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  They also have an online chat.

I felt if I was going to give a proper review I should at least check out their customer service, so I clicked online chat.  Within a minute I had someone on the other end.  My question was this, “Is your shipping done by weight or is it a flat rate (in case you don’t qualify for free shipping?)

I waited.  After five minutes I said, Hello (with the person’s name)?  And I waited.  Meanwhile I decided to click the “learn more” link under the free shipping ad and that is where I found the $4.95 flat rate information.  but I left the window up anyway because I wanted to see how long it took.

It took about 10 minutes before the person came back with my answer.  Of course they apologized for the wait and I let them know I had already found the information and that I was simply checking their service for a website review I was doing for my blog.  They apologized again and that as they say, was that.

So there you have my review of MrChewy.

Now for the fun part.  I’m going to give away the $50 gift certificate to one of you.   The contest will be open for one week and will end at midnight on February 8th.   I will choose the winner using random.com.

Here’s how you enter, I’ve told you some of the crazy stories that my dogs (well mostly Delilah) have done over the years.  In the comment section tell me the craziest thing your dog has ever done.  Don’t worry, if your dog has never done anything crazy, you can leave me a comment telling me the sweetest thing your dog has every done, or something your dog does to make you smile.  If you don’t have a dog, then you can feel free to pass the coupon code on to someone you know.  Sound fair?  Fun?

I can’t wait to hear what you all have to say.

Book update is the same, time has been short so I haven’t worked on the book, but I have been mulling things over in my head and I’ve also been doing a little research as well.  I hope to write tomorrow!

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