Tag: dogs

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You can’t buy this kind of indepth analysis found on a stock message board:

There are many anecdotes about dogs smelling cancer incl. one in the news last week in which the woman had no symptoms and no idea she had cancer, but her dog sniffed it out, she got checked, and now credits the rescued dog for rescuing her back.

Can you imagine? Guided goes away, replaced by dogs sniffing crotches — they do have eons of ancestral experience at that!

Men meet women, wine & dine them, send flowers, dress up, cologne, spend lots of money while the brilliant canines just saunter up, sniff the bitches’ crotches, one whiff, “She’s for ME!”

Reference for completeness only:

http://www.investorvillage.com…

Best,  Terry

Sasha could surprise you.  She probably spent time in a hospital only for amputation of a leg from bone cancer:

http://lilisnotes.com/sashas-t…

In case you have trouble with the link, Sasha is claimed to be a twelve and a half-year-old American bulldog but she sure doesn’t look like any bulldog I am familiar with.

Three-legged Sasha runs, jumps, swims and catches frisbees which beats our two younger lunkheads who just watch a frisbie sail off, go to inspect it, chew it a bit and then wander off to fight and fool around.

Our 4-year-old, 106 lb. black German Shepherd only scares the wits out of people like the vet’s helpers [I would be frightened too BTW if I didn’t know him].   My wife promised to hold Coal tight while he was given a shot in the rump so he wouldn’t be muzzled.  She said the aide still seemed to be afraid Coal might kick or something.  Sure hope Coal doesn’t get none of that osteosarcoma.  Might be tough getting Coal into a study in an egghead university.

Truth be told Sasha’s prospects aren’t excellent.  One of four dogs in the clinical trial was sent off to dog heaven when the cancer metastasized to the lungs and other bones.  All got a low dose and aren’t eligible for Phase II [mean old investigators want the study to continue with the low dose] or Phase III or any Phase IV.  But inferior humans have done pretty well with low dose.

Be years yet before we will know if any such drug is good enough to be injected in cancer and other patients on an outpatient basis but it sure is pleasant to contemplate compared to the cutting, burning and poisoning of patients.

Obama has talked of shortening the gawdawfully long, expensive and torturous trial process and his appointees seem to be making some small progress in that. The primary enemies are mostly journalists and Nader-type liberals who sensationalize with reason to patients than help to afflicted rather than the usual suspects, Big Pharma.  

Coal, being the same breed as the top war dogs of all time – German Shepherds – should be used to the front lines but others are just collateral.  Veterinary medicine has a skeleton clinical trial system that tends to be much swifter to market than human trials.

Vast fortunes can be made with new and better drugs and for some that is all that matters.

But not for all.

In the hospital where I met my wife long ago, there were trials of a treatment for juvenile leukemia.  Diagnosis of juvenile leukemia was a certain death sentence for which there was no reprieve at the time.  “We are going to cure that sucker,”  a doctor told a callow youth.  Yeah, right, I thought.  

By golly, the doctor [and lots of other doctors and hospitals and researchers and scientists] dunnit.  At least for most little kids.

Sometimes life can be grand.  Even for dogs.

Best,  Terry

brisk and bold, the bracing east wind blows across the lowlands, drying the air and clearing the sky of its oft worn grey.

today it is bright. today there is cold sunlight. today is one for a long walk in the park.

^{cross posted at writing in the rAw and at daily kos}

Last week, the world was a bit more humane, more sane. Last week, Teodora Ristea was getting up every day to feed, clean, and tend to the hundreds of street dogs in her care. In 2005, at 60 years old, Teodora found her mission: saving stray dogs in her town of Slatina, Romania from slaughter and torture.

Teodora didn’t have pink ribbons for her cause… or a slogan. She didn’t have a board of directors, she didn’t worry about the politics of those she helped, and the money she collected went directly to the dogs………….

Last week, she was caring for upwards of 500 dogs at Prietenii Nostri, a daunting venture in a country where many of its human inhabitants face hard times and have scarce resources.

I imagine there is little left, in most people there, to worry or have empathy for the even harder life of millions of street dogs.

Seven days ago, Teodora woke up and, as she did most every day since opening the shelter, went to care her dogs despite her own ill health.

It was there, among her beloved friends, her dogs, that she collapsed. She was taken to a hospital in Budapest, where she lay in a coma.

This morning, I received an e-mail from her daughter, Gratiela, to let me know that Teodora has died:

She has died pfiore…

Im so down…

Teodora had me when she was almost 40 yrs old and  she gone so fast and let me to fight alone…

she is teodora, she is my mother, she is the soul and the heart of the shelter….She was every single day there, her body was exausted of too much work and stress. The attacked happened when she just arrived from the shelter…

The dogs are ok, very cold and lot of snow…

Some money have been raised with your help, i think somewhere about 500 euros.

The dog with 2 legs had 2 surgeries and will be adopted this month… I had also an update to send you but was not ready…

Thanks so much for all

Lot of love for you and bobby (my romanian dog) and thanks for all

Teodora is gone, but she is not an unsung hero. There are many humans and hounds who have benefited from her love, her belief in us to be better, to find better lives. She has graced this world with her strength and her determination, and on her behalf, I will continue to do what I can to help Teodora’s 400 cold dogs…

This link brings you to Prietenii Nostri and ways to help Teodora’s dogs.

^{cross posted at writing in the rAw and Daily Kos}

This morning, I saw two of the neighbor’s dogs standing on the lawn, uh, abutted, ass-to-ass, each in a “four-point stance,” pushing against one another like two football linemen trying to dominate some invisible line of scrimmage on the ground beneath their hind legs, except they’re both facing the wrong way. When one dog began to “win,” the other’s haunches and hind paws would lift off the ground.  Normally forepaw lift-off is voluntary, and it’s called “rearing,” as dogs can be trained to do to push shopping carts for “entertainment” purposes, and sometimes just do reflexively when excitedly greeting their masters, or when wanting to exit a walled-in arena.  I dunno what you’d call the involuntary reverse lift-off engineered by another dog’s will-power, but when it happens, the liftee’s forepaws angle-in sharper against the heightening scrum and the four-point stalemate once again ensues.  They were still holding their original lines, albeit considerably rotated, by the time I finished my cigarette.  Maybe it’s more like dog judo. I’d never seen it before in dogs, and could at best hazard a guess as to the ethological significance of this kind of K9 ass-backwards shoving match, so it was infinitely more interesting than the Iowa caucuses, I’m sure.

She was sitting on the street somewhere in Slatina, Romania. She was sitting in the rain and cold, with her feet cut away. And yet she lived, this sweet girl with a big desire to survive.

She could use some more help. The wonderful Prietenii Nostri is a shelter and haven for some 400 to 500 dogs. This dog was lucky, as she was brought to Prietenii Nostri’s founder Gratiela Ristea, who does what she can to feed and house and provide medical care for these creatures, our fellow earthlings. I found my dog, Bobby, there almost two years and she is my sweet sweet girl.

Bobby had her tail cut off and her teeth kicked in. But this poor one, well… she’s had two surgeries already. And Gratiela says her spine is not broken, which is very good news.

Perhaps there are some of you who could make a donation to help cover her care … or even bigger: offer her a home… this would be wonderful.

^{cross posted at dKos}