Fall Jewelry SaleFundraiser

2012 Year-End Update
From
Heather Hines
Saving Lives Preventing Births
Building our Future
never, never, never give up
In reviewing some of our rescues over the past year, I was
reminded of something I’m very proud of: that Indigo Rescue
never, never, never gives up. There are dogs and cats we take into
rescue who aren’t dying, who don’t have behavior issues, and
who aren’t disabled. But what is wrong with them still makes
them unadoptable. For example, who is going to want to adopt a
150-pound obese dog who can hardly
walk? More importantly, who is going
to take on the responsibility, cost
and time commitment required to
make some of these dogs adoptable?
The overweight dogs take four to
five months of commitment to lose
the weight. Butters was our success
story from last year, losing 58 pounds
before finding his new home. Now,
we have Trusty, the 150-pound Blood
Hound, who is well on his way to
Penni Layne
losing 60+ pounds.
•
13th Annual Penni Layne is another example. Hardly six months old,
she came to us covered with Demodex mange. Her skin was
bright red, hairless and covered with scabs. It was going
to take months and months of treatment to kill the mange
and restore her skin to normal before anyone would want to
adopt her. Luckily, our foster Emily, was up to the task. Penni
is a sweet, happy, and entertaining little pup, and eventually,
the swan will emerge from Penni’s mite ravaged body and
someone will want to adopt her.
ASHLEY: Earlier this year, Suzanne, a wonderful, kind woman
who had adopted her cat from us 17 years ago, passed away from
cancer. The night before she died,
Suzanne called and asked me if I
Saturday, November 3
would take Ashley back.
Sale Fundraiser
•
Fall Jewelry
Our fosters are so full of love and willing to commit to these
dogs and cats, for however long it takes. In some cases they have
lived out their lives in their foster homes. No, it isn’t practical,
because it ties up valuable space for other homeless animals, but
it’s the right thing to do, and we are proud of our commitment. We
do it for love.
Come shop for a cause! Your money goes further and helps make a difference when
you buy our recycled jewelry. Our 13th annual sale will be Saturday, November 3,
from 9am to 4pm at the Cedar Hills Recreation Center at 11640 SW Park Way in Portland.
The jewelry (new and previously loved) has all been donated by supporters across the country. All proceeds
help us save more homeless pets.
We have everything from beautiful pieces for evenings out, pretty pieces for work, fun and funky for out and
about, hobby jewelry for getting creative, to inexpensive costume for little girls’ dress up fun!
We know you’ll score some great pieces at great prices for a great cause. Grab your friends and meet us there!
We have gold, silver, gems, fine and fun costume, vintage, holiday and ethnic jewelry at really fantastic
prices. Everything you can possibly imagine.
A HUGE thank you again, to all of the terrific, generous people from all over who have donated jewelry
for our sales. Your donations are beautiful, unique and amazing. Our jewelry shoppers LOVE them and they
help us continue our work!
PO Box 554, Beaverton, OR 97075
503-626-7222 • www.IndigoRescue.org
www.IndigoRanch.org
ASHLEY
Ashley was now approximately
19 years old, and as far as I was
concerned she was still our charge, so
of course I took her back. I hope that
it gave Suzanne some peace knowing
Ashley was going to live out her life
with love, from the people who had
rescued her 17 years earlier. Board of Directors
Jennifer Nelson
President
G. Mark Norman DVM
Heather Hines
Christy Caplan
Kristina Herb
Matt Carty
Kim Carty
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
In last year’s newsletter we told you the story of
Imann, the tiny German Shepherd puppy who had
a heart defect that required major surgery. Imann
had also developed a secondary Mega Esophagus
condition, which turned out to be very atypical. Over
the past year, Imann has become one of the most challenging, yet rewarding rehabilitations I’ve ever taken
on. I admit, at times I’ve wondered whether she (or I!)
would make it through, but we’re still at it. Bit by bit.
You can read the entire story and see lots of pictures
on our website: www.indigorescue.org under Rescue
Stories: Imann.
The update on Imann
September, 2011: After her heart surgery, Imann
grew increasingly hungry, but every time I tried to
increase her food, she would vomit. But we kept
trying. I rolled wet puppy food into little balls, and
would hold her upright to let them go down, but she
would vomit them up within a minute or two. We also
tried meds to coat her esophagus, but she just didn't
seem to get any relief. The worst part is that she was obviously in pain before
she would vomit. She would wail and cry for a minute before the food would all
come back up. Torture!
October, 2011: Several more weeks passed. Imann continued to only be able
to eat a liquid diet through a syringe. I mixed A/D wet food into Clinicare (like
Ensure) and she would eat 120–150 cc per feeding, about every four hours. She
went almost two weeks without vomiting on that routine, but then back to
vomiting for a few days. Poor, sweet girl was so hungry, but absolutely could not
keep anything down.
But, we finally got a good routine going. I stood her in the sink and she rested
her arms on my arms while I filled her with one 60cc syringe, then chucked the
empty in the other side of the sink and quickly started on a second pre-filled 60cc
syringe. If she vomited, she was already standing in the sink!
She was full of play and loved to drag my cell phone, my home phone, and my
glasses off the sofa and into her bed with her. She hardly chewed on them, just
liked to have them with her. Took me a while to figure out where my missing
phones were. I would call them and follow the ringing sound that was coming
from her bed. *Note: Some very kind person anonymously built and left on my
driveway, a “Bailey Chair.” It took me a few days to figure out what the contraption on my driveway was! Finally Wilma and I were looking at it and contemplating how a cat could use it when she suddenly said, “Maybe it’s for the puppy”,
and that was it! I realized it right away. Thank You!
She was always very good spirited, even though she was really always starving and eating was her priority. But I could never get her to play with toys, which
made me sad. I dressed her up for Halloween and she seemed happy trotting
along wearing her sheep costume.
November 2011: Imann and I had a rough ride for another month. She would
do really well on her liquid diet so I would get bold and feed her more gruel (A/D
mixed into the liquid) and she would do really well and start to put on weight,
then suddenly, just as I would be about to graduate her to the next step, she’d
start to vomit again. NO!!! She’d vomit and vomit for days.
Even when we’d go back to just liquid nutrition, she would vomit. I finally got
her on an anti-emetic for vomiting and she would still vomit, but much less. I
2 Indigo Rescue • Fall 2012
Everything !
started feeding her protein shakes, made from Ensure
with extra protein powder. I also fed her baby food.
A few days of that and she started to do better so I
introduced gruel again, and she continued doing well.
So, I tried gruel in a bowl, and although she would still
vomit, it wasn’t as much.
I fed her canned puppy food in a bowl and she
whined and belched a lot afterward, but she kept it
down! She ate that way for three days and only vomited about once per day. She was four months old and
only weighed seven pounds. We tried her on various
anti-emetics for nausea and vomiting, and that would
help for a couple of days, but she’d end up vomiting,
and all of the weight she had gained would disappear
in two days.
I cleaned up more vomit in those months than any
human should have to clean up. She wouldn't just
vomit her meal up in one regurgitation, she would
vomit a big puddle, and I would crawl around cleaning
it up, then disinfect the floor and carry the mess out
to the garbage. When I came back in the house, there
she'd be, looking sad and depressed, and there would be two more large puddles
of vomit on the floor.
That was better though, than the cleaning if she vomited in her crate. I'd
have to hose it off outside and disinfect it. I'd bring the crate back in the house
and within minutes, she'd vomit in her crate again. I couldn't put her outside to
vomit, either, because there was a risk she'd eat something on the ground and
start the entire nightmare all over again. There was NO easy solution. I would call
Dr. Mark and sob with frustration and sadness.
The next few months were a blur. Imann decided she was going to
get more nutrition through sources other than food. She started vacuuming up
anything she found on the ground. Hair, leaves, dirt...and of course, all of those
things clogged her esophagus and caused her to vomit more. So, I had to walk
her on a leash in order to monitor everything that went into her mouth. I was
crating her, but discovered she was eating her own poop (which also clogged
her esophagus—ick!) So I had her wear a basket muzzle, but we quickly realized
she was still vacuuming, right through the muzzle. She also started eating the
blankets in her crate—even with the muzzle, and even after I put a metal grate
over a towel in the bottom of her crate. She would find one tiny string and pull it
through and that was all it took to get it and chew it up.
Needless to say, as soon as she would eat more of her liquid diet, up would
come the liquid—and the pieces of towel! I never had to use anything to induce
vomiting if she had eaten something she shouldn't have, all I had to do was feed
her. And all of this time, she continued to lose weight from all the vomiting.
Finally, we decided to put a food tube down her nose and so it would bypass
anything in her esophagus and let the liquid go straight to her stomach. This
worked—sort of. The end of the tube that I was using to syringe the food
through was stitched to the side of her muzzle and I had to pull it through the
basket muzzle in order to feed her. She would sneeze and much of the food
would shoot back out of the tube and all over me.
I was so discouraged watching her waste away, and at 10 months old, she
weighed in at a scant 16 pounds. Dr. Mark and I were finally to the point of
considering euthanasia. Her protein albumin level was so low that he felt she
|
Recycling Used Shoes for $$
Your monthly
contribution makes
Indigo Rescue has joined a new fundraising/recycling program called ShoeBox Recycling.
This fundraiser is all about shoes! If you have shoes you no longer wear, we want them!
a big difference!
We’ll take any shoes or boots, adults or kids, as long as they’re in wearable condition. The
shoes are recycled into programs in third world countries and we get 50 cents per pound
of shoes we send in. Another win/win program. We love it! If you have shoes you can
donate, please let us know—email us at [email protected]. Thank you!
Please consider making a tax-deductible
monthly contribution to Indigo Rescue via
Paypal. It’s easy, and much less painful
than contributing all at once. AND, it
enables us to keep doing our important
rescue work as we innovate and work
toward our goal of self sufficiency. Thank
you in advance!
Update on our DigMyDog.com custom vinyl decals
As you may know, we launched DigMyDog.
com, our web-based business earlier this
year. You email us a high-resolution photo of
your animal friend, and we make a custom
decal that you can put in your car window.
Orders had been trickling in. And then
without warning, FreeKibble.com featured
Indigo Rescue and DigMyDog.com as their
trivia question of the day and—whammo—
the orders started rolling in!
Over the next few months we produced
Decal of Oscar on his dad’s car window decals for people in 32 states and 4
countries—it was amazing! People love our decals and have even re-ordered after
they’ve sold their car, or when they wanted a second decal of their pet.
Be sure to visit the gallery on www.DigMyDog.com to see some fun examples of
our work. Our decals make a fantastic gift for your friends or family, so consider
giving one to someone as a gift. We also have www.DigMyKitty.com, www.
DigMyHorse.com and www.DigMyBuddy.com.
Remember, 100% of the profits from
www.DigMyDog.com fund our non-profit rescue work!
Imann, continued
was about one point away from dying. I went home and contemplated what there was left to try.
I just couldn’t bear the idea of giving up on her. I took a can of wet puppy food, put it in a
blender with some water, and turned it into what I called a “meat shake.” It looked just like a
chocolate milkshake. I found the tallest elevated food dish I could find and started with a cup
of the shake in the dish. She lapped it up hungrily, and 15 minutes later, she had not vomited. I
was shocked and somewhat hopeful, but I had been down this road before. I waited another 15
minutes and finally gave her another cup of the shake. It was working! She had kept two cups,
equal to one can of food down for half an hour without vomiting. After that, I tried to feed her
that way in increasing amounts, but any more than one cup and she would vomit. So I kept it to
one cup at a time: two cups, 15 to 20 minutes apart, every four hours. There were still bouts of
vomiting, but it was only once every week or so. MUCH BETTER!
When she was one year old, Imann finally weighed in at 21 pounds! An average female German Shepherd would have weighed between 60–70 pounds by then, but I didn't care. She was
alive and growing! I cried when she picked up a toy for the very first time and threw it high in the
air, and then pounced on it. At one year old, she was finally feeling like a normal puppy!
At 14 months, we finally felt Imann was strong enough to be spayed. She weighed 23 pounds.
Dr. Mark said she had a huge uterus, which didn't really surprise me. She has the organs of an
average sized adult German Shepherd, in a miniature Shepherd's body.
Imann is now 15 months old and weighs 26 pounds. I continue to feed her the “meat shakes”
four times per day, along with a high calorie liquid supplement, and she continues to be a super
skinny, mini Shepherd, but she's a happy girl, and that's what matters most. Imann has been
the single most difficult rehabilitation I have ever done. And what's love got to do with it?
Everything.
Go to: www.indigorescue.org click
“Donate” and follow the prompts to set up
your monthly Paypal donation.
Scrip Gift Card Program
and Chinook Books
Thank you again to everyone who continues to purchase
scrip gift cards from us! It’s so easy to have a portion of your
everyday shopping dollars go to Indigo Rescue by purchasing
scrip gift cards every month—and it doesn’t cost you anything
extra! Scrip comes to you in the form of regular gift cards,
spent dollar for dollar the same as cash, or any other gift card.
The big difference is that the vendors donate a percentage of
your scrip purchase to Indigo Rescue. You might be surprised
to see how many of your favorite restaurants, grocery stores,
department stores, book stores, theaters, home improvement
stores and much more, participate in the program.
SCRIP
Find the Scrip order form on our website at
www.indigorescue.org. Click donate and then scroll to Scrip.
Click on ‘Order Scrip’ to download an order form. You’ll fill it
out and follow the instructions on that page to return it.
The next deadlines for ordering Scrip are: November 9,
November 23, and December 7. Don’t forget your scrip
order for the holidays!
Chinook Book
This year we’re also selling Chinook Books (these are like
Entertainment Coupon books but the Chinook Book features
mostly local and sustainable Northwest businesses). Order your
Chinook Books for just $20, and Indigo Rescue gets 50% of
every book we sell!
We will be selling these through the end of the year, so take
orders from your friends and family too!
Chinook Books and Scrip gift cards make fantastic and
convenient gifts. Be sure to tell everyone that your gift to
them helped animal rescue efforts. Your gift will mean twice
as much!
www.indigorescue.org
3
Non-Profit Org.
US Postage
Paid
Beaverton, OR
Permit No. 470
PO Box 554
Beaverton OR 97075-0554
Ph 503-626-7222
www.IndigoRescue.org
[email protected]
www.IndigoRanch.org
www.DigMyDog.com
Never, never,
never give up.
Update
from the
Ranch
OCU at Indigo Ranch
We’re very excited to report to you that we’ve been
working hard this summer on our Memory and Tribute
Garden! A terrific group of volunteers from Intel
Involved came out and helped us stain wood boards for
a deck and dig the hole for our water feature (among
other volunteer projects). Bruce has almost single
handedly built the water feature and surrounding
deck and it’s going to be beautiful when it’s all done.
This fall we’ll be installing a lot of new plants. A HUGE
thank you to Portland Nursery for donating most of
the plants for our garden!
Our next step will be a rock garden where you can set a
personalized (engraved) stone with your family name
or your pet’s name, whatever you choose. We invite
you to come out and visit our Memory and Tribute
Garden this spring.
Trailer Can See!
Do you remember Trailer, the kitty who traveled across the country in the
freezing winter, trapped in a metal trailer for 28 days without food or water?
Wow! What a miracle story that was. He was even featured on the news across
the country! After a visit to the vet to get hydrated and checked over, Trailer
turned out to be FIV positive, semi-feral (extremely fearful of humans), and on
top of everything else he’d been through, appeared to be blind!
I spent months trying to get Trailer to come out from under
the bed, but it wasn’t until Houdini, another FIV positive
cat who’d been shot in the face and was missing part of his
jaw, was blind and hard of hearing, befriended him, that
Trailer finally started to emerge from under the bed. The
more often I was able to see Trailer (it was only for a few
seconds before he’d dash back under the bed), the more I
became convinced he was not actually blind, but suffering
from entropion, a congenital condition where the eyelid is
Thank You!
As 2012 comes to an end, we reflect on another year
that our tiny (but mighty) little network of fantastic
and committed foster homes has been able to rescue,
rehabilitate and find homes for hundreds of dogs and
who were out of time at the county shelter.
A huge thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers
and donors for your continued recognition and support
of our efforts! With your continued support, we look
forward to a future of continued growth, saving more
lives and preventing more births.
inverted, causing the eyelashes to scrape the
surface of the eyes. As you can imagine, this
irritation causes eye infections and plenty of
discomfort. In Trailer’s case, he could not open
his eyes more than just a tiny slit.
It took nearly a year before I was able to get
Trailer into a crate and up to the vet clinic
where my hunch was finally diagnosed. Trailer had bi-lateral entropion
(both eyes) and it could be surgically corrected! That was such exciting news! With a generous donation from the people who discovered
Trailer in the furniture trailer, we were able to have the surgery done by
Dr. Mark right away. Within days, this poor kitty, who had endured so
much and had beat so many odds to stay alive, was sitting in the window
watching birds and butterflies for the first time in his life. Let me tell you,
it does a rescuer’s heart good to see something like that.