Feathers, Fur & The Occasional Fang

Happy at Home

2012-01-27T20:47:00.000-08:00

As promised, a post about the opposite end of the rescue spectrum: happy updates!

Moppet and Snowshoe were just adopted a few weeks ago, but we already got a lovely update:

When my mom had to go in to renew my dog's license, she mentioned we had just lost a Lionhead bun. The girl told my mom that they had a beautiful Lionhead at the downtown location. She showed their pictures to my mom, and it was love at first sight. When my mom came home, she said, "You need to see these bunnies!" When she showed me them, my heart melted. Something just clicked. I said, "We have to go get them!"
We ventured to the depths of downtown Toronto to rescue my future fur babies. The girl at the shelter said that the buns could be separated, but in my mind, they didn't need to undergo any more trauma! Being abandoned was enough. In the bottom cage, nearest to the back wall, I saw them. I sat down with them and started bonding instantly. Unfortunately I couldn't take them home that night because I had to disinfect my home because Fu had had snuffles.

On January 7th, I finally brought them home. They adjusted so quickly to their new home, I was very surprised. After a week, I can't imagine life without them. I'm so happy they are together. There's nothing sweeter than watching them kiss and groom each other, they are never apart. Snowshoe, as expected, doesn't like to be handled much. He does like to sit on my lap and be pet though. Snowshoe pretends to be a big bad brute, but he's really a gentle bunny. Moppet is an absolute sweetheart. She loves to be brushed and cuddled, and is always happy to receive new toys and cardboard tubes. They both seem to be happy bunnies who binky and flop to let me know they're content. Moppet has also started giving kisses, which is something Fu always did.
Hopefully they will continue to be happy and comfortable in their new home, where they won't have to experience any more abandonment or trauma. They're awesome fur babies. Fu would be happy that with his loss, I saved two bunnies. Cheesy, I know, but it's the truth!

So sweet. These two were a really lovely pair, I'm glad they got an experienced, loving home that can see through Snowshoe's grumpy ways.

This absolutely hilarious photo was sent by Marbles' new owner. I love it so much! She also sent a nice email:

Marbles is adapting well to his new home and he always runs over to see me, and even allows me to pet him when he's in the mood. When he's running around the apartment, he likes to check in with me every so often before going back to acting hilarious - jumping, running, twisting in the air, exploring - sometimes he even gets going so fast that he can't quite stop in time before hitting the wall. Marbles is a little interior designer whose favourite activity is determinedly and systematically rearranging everything in his cage. He never seems to be satisfied with its fung shui. He is a very fun bunny with a healthy appetite and I am glad he is my pet.

And finally we have this adorable Christmas photo! I just looked it up, I never posted about Frosty the rabbit. He was a gorgeous Jersey Wooley rabbit, a long-haired poofy breed, and he was adopted into an absolutely wonderful home last year. Here he is with Rosie the cat, who was also adopted from TAS South.

I'm very glad to say that we had two important adoptions this last week. Jellybean has been rehomed - third time's the charm! Her new home is experienced and were very patient waiting for her to finish treatment for an eye infection. I think this time she's found the right family.
And best of all, Topaz has finally found a home! That poor boy has been through so much in his short life - born in foster care, transferred to Scarborough, adopted, returned for "strange behaviour", back in foster care, back to the shelter. But at last, after 7 months, he's found a great home where he will be free-range and well loved.

Neglect

2012-01-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of different ways to be cruel to animals. Volunteering at a shelter allows you to see a depressingly diverse number of ways in which an animal's home can be sub-par. With small animals, it's almost always neglect, and that has been on parade in the Room this week.

Aurora is a young Rex rabbit who was surrendered to the shelter along with her brother Indigo and an abundance of excuses about how she didn't really belong to the surrenderer. The Rex breed is very popular, partially because of their typical laid-back personalities, but mostly because their beautiful fur feels like satin. Aurora's fur has that trademark feel, but it's dry and thin from poor nutrition. She's also under 2 pounds. Now, she's not fully grown yet, and I'm not saying she's on the brink of starvation. But she is underweight and there is no way she was getting proper nutrition in her last home. Poor thing stuffed her face as soon as we gave her hay and pellets.
I'm very glad to say there's already interest in Aurora and I suspect she will be adopted as soon as she's spayed, hopefully to a home that knows how to feed her.

This is her brother Indigo. He's in better shape than she is, but he could certainly stand to gain some weight and I'm sure he will at the shelter. Considering their poor care and their abandonment at such a young age, these two are remarkably good-natured. Indigo in particular loves people and I'm sure he won't last long.

Rabbits must have pellets, greens and hay daily. The greens are not, as so many people think, optional. The hay, as well as cool, clean water, must be available 24/7. Occasional papaya is a good idea, as is the occasional fruit as a treat. Their diet is a bit complicated, but five minutes on Google will tell you what you need to do. I will never understand why people don't use the Internet. I've certainly seen rabbits in worse shape than Indigo and Aurora, but I would be utterly embarassed if any rabbits of mine ever looked like that.

The same day Indigo and Aurora arrived, these two bundles of cuteness were transferred from North York. Rosemary (on the right) and Sage are almost identical and just as cute as buttons. Like the Rexes, these two are under a year old. They are rather skittish, especially Sage, but once you get them to calm down a bit they're quite affectionate.

This is Sage's leg (I apologize for the gross photo). It has lost all of its fur and is red and raw from urine scalding, due to the poor sanitation in their last home. The skin has even broken open in some places. This leg is worse, but both her back legs have lost their fur. Rosemary is in much better shape.

Nutrition and housing are always the two things that get rabbits. An incredible amount of people think it's fine to leave a rabbit in a cage and clean it once a month. For one thing, rabbits need to run and exercise. Young rabbits especially need lots of exercise, because their hearts are still developing. But for another thing, if they are caged, their cages must be clean! An unclean cage is gross, uncomfortable and leads to health problems.

And finally we have the old "abuse-and-abandon" one-two. A small cage of hamsters was found, abandoned in a Walmart parking lot. In the middle of January. The little guys are damn lucky it's been a warm January. Cripes.
The real kicker? They were left in the parking lot in a duffel bag. What is with bad hamster owners and duffel bags?!
They were also left with this charming bowl of food. I don't even know what it is. Raisins and couscous, soaked in water? It was disgusting and unsurprisingly the six hamsters were underweight.

Also unsurprisingly, the group was made up of both males and females. That's the two boys up there, we've named them Cracker and Biscuit and they're now at Pet Uno waiting for a home. Again, despite their mistreatment, they are sweet and gentle. Animals have an amazing capacity for soldiering on.

This of course means we have four female hamsters on pregnancy watch. They're at my house and in keeping with the theme, they've been named Triscuit, Ritz, Breton and Soda. Triscuit and Ritz are looking quite round in the middle, so I'm just waiting for that familiar squeaking sound!

The point of this post is that people suck, but never fear! The point of the next post will be that people rock, because I have a bunch of updates!
I guess it's a cliche to say that rescue is an emotional roller coaster, but nevertheless, it's true.

Almost Famous

2012-01-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Nicola at TAS asked if I'd join in her on Animal House Calls to showcase volunteer work at the shelter. TAS has been trying to put the spotlight on volunteers lately. Fred went on the show last week to promote our dog walkers and his hard work, and this week it was my turn to promote small animals (and cats).

So yesterday I picked out two rabbits (Topaz and Abeline) and off we went!

I'd been to the studio before, when we brought Raven and Melody on the morning show. The security guard brought me in just as they were practicing for the show with an absolutely gorgeous Great Horned Owl. The security guard and I both snapped photos, naturally.

We had our makeup on, the bunnies had their harnesses on, and we were in the waiting lounge when the host ran by shouting, "All officers meeting! Newsroom now!"

Not very promising.

The waiting lounge is full of TV screens, so we were treated to the view that was causing all the excitement. Turns out hundreds of protesters had started swarming city hall - police were arriving, pepper spray appeared, people were being kicked out of council for chanting. It was all very exciting and all very poorly timed, as far as our show was concerned.

The producer came in and told us the first half of the show was being cut (naturally we were part of the first half), but a few minutes later the entire show had been bumped as CP24 covered the protests. And so we packed up the bunnies and went home. And that is the story of how Topaz, Abeline and I were thwarted from stardom by an angry crowd of protesters. So close, yet so far!

At least I got this incredibly adorable photo of Topaz out of it:

This is actually the second time I've had an appearance on Animal House Calls cancelled, although last time it wasn't quite so last minute. I'm bad luck!

We're rescheduled for January 31st - hopefully third time's the charm! And if you happen to be planning any protests, please try to work around that date. Much obliged!

Mix & Match

2012-01-15T23:12:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012! I realize we're two weeks in already, but I've been away and then wrapped up in re-starting classes. My New Year's Resolution is about this blog actually, because I am terrible at remembering to post so this year - at least every three days! I realize I may lack credability already, considering I haven't posted in three weeks, but from now on!

First off, I wanted to share some photos of Northern Ontario over the holidays, because it was a winter wonderland and just gorgeous. Like a postcard! This is what a Canadian winter is supposed to look like. I hate the green winters we've been having lately. Give me freezing temperatures and snowy inconvenience any day!

The shelter has, of course, been chugging along, although there is a great deal of worried whispering that it won't be chugging along through February. Toronto may be facing a city strike or lockout within a few weeks and that, of course, includes the shelter. At this point, I'm not sure there's much hope of successful negotiation, but all my fingers are crossed. Closing the shelters, even for a month, puts a lot of animals in danger.

The Room is down to - are you ready for this? - five rabbits, plus two at pet stores. That is a pretty great change from Boxing Day. We are very lucky, because three nearby humane societies worked with TAS South to transfer some rabbits out. Small animals don't show up much in smaller city shelters, and since we were overflowing, we were happy to oblige. Cashew went to Orangeville, Cascade and Rocket went to Stratford, and my boys Silver & Emerald went to Cambridge. Huge thanks to those shelters for the helping hand!
Even better, Moppet and Snowshoe were adopted just a week after arriving - together! They were adopted to a great home and I've already received an update. I'm so glad two big, bonded bunnies were able to get a home so fast! Marbles has also been adopted (along with Pancake the rat, Pete the guinea pig, and Chip, Patches and Penelope the hamsters). We haven't been doing too shabby!

Thanks to this burst of adoptions and transfers, we had room to bring back every animal from foster. Boris and Abeline (from the hoarder) have finally found a place in the Room, after three months of waiting. Grace Kelley the rat is also back, and that blossuming family of 21 hamsters have been cleared out of foster care through adoption, except for six which are waiting at two Pet Valus.

Latest count? We have five rabbits, one guinea pig, and three rats in the Room. We have six hamsters at our Pet Valus, one rabbit at PetSmart, and one rabbit at Pet Uno.
And how many in foster? That's right, count 'em - NONE.

Well, except Poe. He's still with me.
But he doesn't count.

Never mind Poe! For the first time since the rabbit hoarders in the summer, we are at a manageable number and we can finally take a breather!
I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts!

Have a Holly Jolly...Boxing Day

2011-12-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

Happy Boxing Day everyone!
I had the most ridiculous Christmas, starting with a 5 AM visit to the emergency vet clinic with my boy Giles. Thankfully he is doing much better, but the whole thing made me miss my flight, so the last 24 hours have been a flurry of reorganizing and scheduling. Hence the Christmas post on Boxing Day!

Because I thought I was going to be on a flight on the 25th, I wasn't able to make my annual Christmas Day visit to the shelter. Instead, I went in on Christmas Eve armed with the makings of a bunny feast:

They ended up being spoiled rotten with a ridiculously over-the-top salad o' treats. It was Romaine lettuce and mixed garden greens, with a baby carrot, slice of apple, banana chip and dried cranberries on top, along with a sprinkling of these fancy lavender/chamomile treats.

The boys approve.

I also made up little Christmas presents for everybody in the room, and left them for the next day. They were paper bags filled with hay, with a few cranberries, banana chips and lavender treats in each one and a toilet paper roll on top.

The staff gave everybody one on Christmas and apparently they had a blast playing with them, so hooray!
Sadly, I never had time to do a Christmas shoot this year, but I always like to review who's in the Room over the holidays. So I went a little crazy with Picnik and made a bunch of incredibly cheesy Christmas-themed photos. They're hilariously bad, in my opinion, so enjoy!
Presenting the Room's holiday residents (are you sitting down? It's a loooong list):

Can you believe Cashew's still waiting? He's six months old, for crying out loud. He is a rather strong-minded individual though - I think he intimidates people. But so handsome!

I really can't believe Silver's still waiting, he's a sweetie. He's six months old too! Sheesh.

Emerald and Silver are brothers, but for whatever reason, I have decided Emerald celebrates Hannukah. Happy Hannukah! I'm really sorry there wasn't latke clipart.

Cascade here looks like the leader of the candy cane mafia. It's a little intimidating. I did not mean to insinuate that she is the member of any crime family, I swear.

I love this boy. This is Finn, and he is just such a sweetheart. I was hoping he'd find a home for the holidays, but he's rather unassuming and I think he often goes unnoticed. Hopefully he'll have better luck in the new year!

Marbles looks kind of intimidating too, I just noticed. Maybe he's the leader of the stockings mafia, and he and Cascade are in cahoots.

Sawyer is just the cutest little guy. I think he's rather dashing with a hat on - I'm going to have to try it in real life. This little dude, who hasn't been on the blog yet, was found outside, completely filthy. He sure cleans up nice!

Pancake the rat was rescued from being eaten by a snake when he was a baby, but his near miss doesn't seem to bother him much. He's a sweet boy, and he went absolutely bananas for the Romaine.

Pete arrived in a pair, but he was a bit of a bully to the other pig so now he's on his lonesome. He doesn't really seem to mind, to be honest.

Peaches & Pippa are two of the kids from Popcorn's second litter. They are a packaged pair and make fabulous substitute Rudolphs.

Patches and Penelope are also from Popcorn's second litter, and this photo is just embarassing. I could not get a decent photo of these two together, but everybody else got in this post, so I didn't really think it was fair to leave them out.

Mr Rabbit (the name, I know) always looks a bit uptight but he's actually quite lovely. I spared him the shame of Rudolph noses and Santa hats, and just gave him a cup of cocoa and stuck him in the snow.

Jellybean, who was adopted a few months ago but returned last week, also got a cup of cocoa. The adoption was a bad match and despite the family's best efforts, it was in Jellybean's best interests to try and find her another home. Still, poor girl's not too pleased about being back and I rather wish I could give her an actual cup of cocoa.

I actually kind of love this one, not going to lie. This is Chip, the only boy out of Popcorn's four youngest.

And our last two arrived as a pair, dumped outside the Veterinary Emergency Clinic the week before Christmas. Happy holidays to you too, owners! Moppet is an incredible Lionhead and just gorgeous. She arrived with Snowshoe (below, also gorgeous), but they don't seem particularly bonded so they will probably end up finding separate homes.

Snowshoe reminds me of Alice's looks with Giles' "I'm-going-to-pretend-I'm-a-grump-but-I'm-actually-a-suck" attitude. Obviously, I totally love him.

And that's all! Just, oh, 18 animals. I left out the 6 at various pet stores and the 14 in foster care for everyone's sakes. Man, if you got through that, you deserve a whole plate of holiday cookies.

Happy holidays everyone!

An Abundance of Updates

2011-12-20T10:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it seems like all I ever say on this blog is "Oh no we have too many animals" - and as true as that may be, it's nice to change things up every once in a while. I had a really depressing post all written and ready to go, and then I thought "It's Christmas in six days, nobody wants to hear that". Besides, I have wonderful updates piling up in my inbox. So let's have a feel-good post!

First, an update on the actual Room. For the first time in ages, we had some rabbit adoptions! I'm pleased to say two of the rabbits from the recent hoarder have been adopted! Raven and Blackjack were adopted right after each other. Otherwise adoptions have been slow (as per usual at holiday time), but senior citizen Bugsy was transferred to rescue, where he will have a much better chance.
Now how about some adopter updates?

Sharpie (the black one in the photo) was adopted from us two years ago, just before Christmas 2009. He was known as Shrek at the shelter (haha check out my terrible 2009 photos), and we got a lovely update from his family last year. His family sent this sweet photo last week to show that two years later, he's still doing well! I love getting long-term updates. Obviously Sharpie (and his best friend Sabrina) lucked out with their forever home!

How cute is this? I got this photo a couple of weeks ago. Clairabel was adopted from an adopt-a-thon at Pet Uno in October. The young girl who adopted her also sent this email:

Hey, I'm the girl who adopted Clairabel the hamster in October! So Clairabel is doing GREAT she loves the home and her new cage, she is adorable. We just figured out she LOVES apples! She loves to play in her wheel and all. She is doing very good and I will for sure send you guys more updates!

Sam (now known as Tayto) was a baby guinea pig adopted from Pet Valu in September. His new mom sent me this fantastic update, along with the beautiful photo above:

My parents got me my first guinea pig when I was three and I've loved them ever since. I have now been keeping guinea pigs as pets for about 24 years and adopting exclusively from rescues and shelters for 5 years. I adopted Sam from TAS at Pet Valu and wanted to update you and share his story.

We currently have 4 piggies in all, including Sam. Legend has lived with us for about 4 years now and is the oldest guinea pig in our home. We lost his best friend and cagemate of 4 years to sudden heart failure. When he passed away I found myself questioning whether it might be time to stop adopting new pigs, but I realized fairly quickly that Legend simply couldn't cope with being alone. He sulked, he started being really picky about food, and all he did was lay around the cage. He was clearly sad and missing his friend.

I started looking for a new pig. A week or two later I was taking my lunch break and walked past the Pet Valu on King. In the back, there was a tiny little brown ball of fluff named "Sam". Immediately I thought he was cute (big surprise, I think they're all cute). Abyssinians are my favourite so definitely caught my attention and I watched him for a while. A sales associate came back with a bag of treats and explained that she'd been spoiling him extra that day because he seemed sad, when I asked why she explained that his brother had been adopted out alone and that he hadn't been himself since. Well, that just hit a sore spot and broke my heart a little. By that point I'd already made up my mind. She asked me if I'd like to meet him before leaving and I couldn't refuse. By that point on the rest is history. Any hesitation I'd had about adopting a new guinea pig had just melted away...I knew from the moment I picked him up that I wanted to snuggle him all the rest of his days.

We renamed him Tayto and after a few weeks of quarantine he was ready to meet Legend. I wish I could say that their introductions were easy but in reality they were a bit rough. But after a few hours of roughhousing on the kitchen floor they both got tired and decided to make peace. They have been living happily together for almost a month now and Legend has never been more active and social, I guess he is motivated or inspired by all of Tayto's energy. I love Tayto's vibrant personality and I also enjoy how much he likes to snuggle. We're so happy to have found him and so grateful to have him as part of our family.
Thank you, Toronto Animal Services, for taking him in and for caring for him. Thank you also for all that you do, please keep up the GREAT work.

What an amazing update! I always worry about babies, as I'm always afraid they're adopted for the cute factor. But obviously Sam/Tayto lucked out!

And finally, an update on two of Circe's babies! I love getting updates on my foster babies! This wonderful, rabbit-experienced couple adopted Achilles and Hercules together, and the boys are just getting spoiled rotten.

Hi Laura,

I thought you would like to know how Hercules and Achilles are doing. In less than two weeks, they have managed to settle in perfectly and have taken over our home and our lives (and we couldn't be happier!).

They are doing very well with their litter habits, so you should be very proud. They've been to the vet and have been given a clean bill of health. During the day they have the run of our bunny-proof spare room, and take full advantage of the space running like crazy in the morning and sleeping all afternoon. In the evening we've got them in our TV room with us where they have tons of space to kick up their heels. They are not shy of jumping up and down off the couch and anything else they can get up on! We are really happy we ended up taking both as they get along great and keep each other company!

They're growing fast, and already weighing in at 5 pounds each. They're still getting along great, with only one small fight since we've had them. Otherwise, they play together and groom each other whenever they're not napping or eating.

It's sad to hear that you are seeing so many rabbits surrendered; I can't believe some of the stories. I'm happy we were able to help out by taking Oscar and Leroy. They seem to really like it here and are becoming a couple of cuddle-buns.

They renamed Achilles to Oscar and Hercules to Leroy because the names were a bit too much of a mouthful to say all the time. Can't say I blame them, haha!

So there we go - a nice long, positive post. Huge thanks to all the wonderful adopters who take the time to send updates! They really make it all worthwhile.

Exponential Growth

2011-12-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

Why does this always happen with hamsters?
We can never just get one, or even just one family. I mean, look at what happened with the duffel bag hamsters. This is nowhere near as bad, but still.

This is Popcorn, and I'm fairly sure it all started with her. She arrived at the shelter with a nursing litter of 7 pups. They were already about two weeks old, so I took them home to foster for the last week or so. She also arrived with 6 young adults that I'm fairly sure was her older litter. The six older ones stayed at the shelter and went up for adoption.

Barney (right) and Ted are the only boys in the older litter, and super sweet. Actually, all six siblings are friendly, social and gentle, which is rarer than it should be with dwarf hamsters. Their sisters Salt & Pepper are also available as a pair. The family also has pretty patchwork markings that I've never seen in dwarves, it's neat.

Their sisters Sunny & Luna, above, were also available for adoption. I say 'were' because they are no longer available. I went into the shelter one day and, hearing a familar squeaking sound, looked under their little hideaway house.
Behold!

Turned out Sunny'd given birth a few days before, but since she'd built such a nice nest and no one had looked under the house, no one had noticed. Oops.
Sunny didn't seem to care. Even with three little ones, she and Luna were as friendly and social as ever, and were completely at ease with us wrapping up their cage and sending them off to a foster home.
I can't say I'm surprised though. Because a week after she arrived at our house, Popcorn delivered the same surprise!

As you may or may not be able to tell from that over-exposed photo, she had four little ones. Poor Popcorn - that means she probably had three litters back to back. In other words, she had 17 kids in about two months. I'm surprised she's still alive, to be honest.
Anyway, she is a very good mom and her four newest ones are fat and happy, and just started tumbling out of the nest today.

Her seven older guys (I guess they're the middle kids) are now split into three groups and ready to go into adoption. There's two pairs of females (Patches & Penelope, and Pippa & Peaches), and a trio of boys: Panda, Percy and Pablo (above). They're all nice enough for their age except for Patches, who is a bit of a chewer.

Basically, we ended up with 21 hamsters overnight. Right before Christmas, when adoptions are always slow. Honestly at this point, I'm not even surprised.
Hooray for hamsters!

Lights, Camera, Action!

2011-12-02T22:54:00.000-08:00

Today was rather exciting!
Every Friday, CP24 Breakfast has a little adoption segment. TAS was featured yesterday, and partially thanks to my frantic exclamations about our many rabbits, we featured some bunnies! I got to go too - one of these days I must put 'rabbit handler' on my resume.
So at 8:30 this morning, staff member Nicola (media person extraordinaire) and I showed up at the CP24 building with Raven and Melody.

That's Raven on the table in the break room as we waited to go on. I've been on the news several times but this was my first time inside a TV studio and it was kind of cool, not going to lie. On the other hand, I've never really been one to get super excited by media or anything - when it comes down to it, a studio's just somebody else's workplace, right? But any exposure of our adoptable animals is good!

And hey look, there we are! My mom took a photo of the screen, much to my amusement, but it actually turned out okay. Poor Raven suffers the fate of all black animals in that he's hard to see, but Melody showed up quite nicely.
The segment was short and sweet and the hosts were very nice. Both rabbits behaved themselves, although Melody almost got a little too friendly with Raven while on camera. I thought I was being all smooth in pushing them apart, but my mom called me right after and laughed about it, so I guess I wasn't as smooth as I thought.
It also turned out that Raven is rather attached to me. Colour me astonished! I haven't been a very attentive foster mom, so I can only assume he just attached to the only person he knew. He kept jumping into my lap and clinging to me. It was cute but it didn't sell him very well!

I think my favourite part of the segment was when Nicola told the hosts that Melody was surrendered because her owners were going on vacation. We'd actually told them that beforehand and they'd been suitably appalled, but when she brought it up on camera the host said angrily, "We're not going to name them, but SHAME on them." It was lovely! I hope her old owners were watching.
And then it was all over and they moved on to the news or the weather or something else non-animal-related.

I couldn't resist taking a photo with this sign in the break room. What is Toronto talking about? Hopefully Melody! She looked so cute in her blue blanket, even tough, hardened animal control workers couldn't resist.

And then we were out of there! Since Raven had to go home with me for foster, and I had class, I dropped him off to wait at my mom's office, which is conveniently close to campus. He had a lovely time running around on carpeted floors that actually gave him traction, unlike our apartment. He actually showed off much more in the office than on TV, silly boy.

And after all that, I was even on time for my 10 am class!

What is Wrong With You

2011-11-26T10:08:00.000-08:00

Everyone in rescue at some point has thought about the owners who leave behind their animals, and thought, "What is wrong with you?" Well, yesterday was a hat trick. We had three new arrivals leaving me asking the same thing.

This is Donald (the big fuzzball) and his presumed son, 2-month-old Dexter. Both of them are super cute, and very skittish. But then I can't really blame them, seeing as they were left at a bus stop. In November. Who leaves any animal at a bus stop, much less a baby?

We also got a transfer from Scarborough of 14 dwarf hamsters. Yup, fourteen! Someone surrendered them to Scarborough last week: a mom with seven newborns, and six older dwarves whom we suspect to be her previous litter. I understand accidental pregnancies happen all the time, especially with pet store animals. Still. Two litters? Learn to sex your animals, people!

The babies are about 14 days old, but still a bit too young for shelter life, so they're staying with me for the next two weeks. The upside is that they'll all sweet and remarkably gentle, except for the mom. In my experience, dwarf hamster moms are always nasty when they have little ones, and who can blame them? She's had to deal with raising her kids while being brought to a shelter, kept in a shelter, transported to another shelter and then moved to a foster home. It's a tough life.

But this is what really burned me yesterday. We got two new rabbits from an owner surrender. Bugsy (in the photo) is seven years old. That is an old rabbit. He may only have a few more years in him. He is an affectionate, gentle boy, moves a little slower than most of our others, and is utterly confused by the shelter. And why did his owner give him up? Her new roommate owned cats, and didn't want rabbits because that would be 'too many pets'.

So she gave them up, just like that. Not only her old boy, but her younger boy too. This is Spirit, who is five years old. He came in with the name Precious, which is ironic, because clearly these two were not precious at all to their owner.

Spirit is one of the most loving rabbits I've met. As soon as you touch him, he starts to tooth-purr, grinding his teeth lightly and happily. He pushes his face under your hand to get attention and just melts once you start to pet him. He reminds me a lot of my boy Giles, actually. He just needs people to love him.

Bugsy, on the other hand, just looks sad. He's very sweet, but he is confused and scared in the shelter, and he just seemed depressed.
We almost never get older rabbits at the shelter. Usually we get young rabbits that were bought on a whim, or that grew up and stopped being cute. Who gives up a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old? And to a public shelter?
What is wrong with people?

It's a Family Affair

2011-11-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

We got a family of rats from TAS West a couple of days ago. I don't know what the story is, but I assume someone got two rats without realizing they were male and female, then six babies later, decided to give up on the whole thing. And this is why I'm strongly in favour of learning to sex whatever animal you own - it is an invaluable skill, people.

Here's the dad, Clark Gable. As always, I couldn't resist naming the family in a theme. I think it's nice to give them a connection to each other, and it also makes it easier to keep track of who is related to who. Clark Gable here is a dashing gentleman, as befits his name, and quite an easy-going fellow.

We also have momma, Grace Kelley. It's funny, we don't normally get to see both parents, but in this case it didn't help much because the kids look almost nothing like either of them. Mrs Kelley is looking very round around the middle so it's probable she's pregnant again (of course), which means she is off to stay with the amazing Grace and Casey for a little bit.

And then we have the kids! Bogart here is the only one who looks like mom at all, and the easiest to pick out of the litter. He's a super active boy and it was a pain trying to get a photo of him, which is why he looks like he's being strangled (I swear he's not).

Pacino is the other easy one to spot. He's the only Berkshire rat in the litter, and stands out easily from his brothers. I think he's probably the smallest - he's a sweetie but fast as lightning!

And then we get into the hooded boys. The other four brothers are all hooded rats, although their markings make them easy enough to tell apart when you take a closer look. This is DiCaprio, who has almost no markings on his back, and is probably the shyest in the litter (based on the five minutes I spent with him taking his photo!).

You can't really see it in this photo, but Nicholson here has a thick black line running straight down his back that is pretty unmistakable.

I left the names of the last two up to the Facebook page - this is Sinatra, who can be ID'd due to the big patch on his back, and also the incredibly offended expression he gives you if you stop him from crawling off a chair.

And lastly we have Hoffman, whom I ID through process of elimination. No thick line, no big patch, but still has markings on his back? Must be Hoffman!

In the days of yore, receiving this many rats would have been a big problem for TAS, but now it's no sweat. Someone is supposed to adopt two today, I'll post them on the rat rescue forum, and we'll send half of them to Pet Valu. I bet they'll be gone in a week! Hey, even Jiminy & Cricket, who were older and quieter, were adopted within a week.

Speaking of adoptions - our "Fall in Love" cat campaign was CRAZY successful! We basically cleared out the shelter. For a day there, we actually didn't have any cats available. Every cat in this post has now been adopted! So awesome.
I can't wait for our Christmas campaign!

Pressure Cooker

2011-11-15T16:52:00.000-08:00

Recently, there has been talk about a by-law in Toronto allowing people to keep chickens in their backyards. It might have already passed, actually, I haven't been following it very closely. It was certainly expected to pass, and because of that, TAS started to prepare to receive surrendered chickens. This preparation involved building a chicken coop at North York, which is all well and good, because these chickens do need somewhere to go. Unfortunately, the trade-off is that the North region is no longer accepting small animals.

In all honesty, North never took many small animals and they weren't very successful at adopting them, despite some excellent efforts by a few staff. Still, this development means there are only two shelters in the entire city that are open admissions for small animals - East region, and us.

We were already feeling overwhelmed long before this happened. Our rabbit intake in particular has been skyrocketing over the last year. Is this because rabbits are becoming more popular? Or is it because we now have a reputation as a small animal shelter? Whatever it is, it's too much, and with North's small animal intake shrinking rapidly, it's threatening to overflow.

A couple of weeks ago, we got 14 rabbits from a hoarder. The staff asked me about the foster situation, and I said we could keep six. We ended up keeping five.
When I asked why, the staff member shook her head. "We only got 5 out of that bunch. They were in terrible condition - teeth growing out of their mouths and everything. This one kind of went after me, but he's really cute and he was good for the vet, so we saved him - maybe it was just stress."
So we kept five out of fourteen.

They are nice rabbits. They're actually in fairly good conditions, although that is why they're the survivors. Their nails were disgusting when they arrived - I took some pictures (above), but they were much worse than they look there. They are pretty good-natured (with one exception) and somehow, without explanation since they lived in filthy cages, they are perfectly litter trained.

Almost all of them are Netherland Dwarves (or Netherland mixes), so they are incredibly tiny with itty bitty ears. Blackjack here is staying with another foster home. He is a sweet boy although a little shy.

Boris is his twin, basically, except in grey instead of black. He's also a total bully to other bunnies and had to be shipped off to the amazing Grace because he was beating up his companions. With people, he's perfectly nice and laid back, he'll just need to go alone. He's ridiculously dominant considering I can fit him in one hand.

Raven breaks the mold a bit. He's a tiny bit bigger, his fur is thicker and fluffier, and his ears are a little larger. Raven is still with me, although I'd like to get rid of him because I've run out of big cages and the poor guy is stuck in a little cage. He's a sweetie, much quieter than the other two and very gentle. Anyone want to foster him for a bit?

Then we have Abeline, who completely busts out of the mold. She's the only female who was saved, and she's about twice the size of the boys. No Netherland Dwarf here. She's a big, chunky girl with absolutely beautiful eyes. She is so sweet and so timid, I just love her. Poor thing will not show off well in the shelter, she's so easily startled, but she really is just lovely.

And then we have Poe.
This tiny little scruff is the one who 'went after' the staff on the first day. It wasn't just stress. Poe is a territorial little bugger. He also fits in one hand, and he has beautiful colouring although his coat's a mess and good nutrition is doing a slow job of clearing it up.
It's not really his fault. From what I understand, he lived in a tiny cage on his own, probably for most of his life. It's not surprising he's territorial. Hell, it's more surprising they're not all territorial.

Poe is an angry little rabbit. He grunts, he kicks and probably the only reason he hasn't bitten is because I'm much experienced at avoiding bites.
Part of me asks why I'm bothering to try and fix this guy when there are rabbits being turned away at the door. Why spend the time to calm this one down when there are perfectly nice rabbits who don't get the chance to find a home? But for whatever reason, I'm trying. I think there's a nice rabbit in there somewhere - once you get him out of the pen, he really likes to give kisses. As long as you don't upset him, which is ridiculously easy to do. We'll see what happens.

All five of these guys are still in foster care. Abeline and the delightful Poe are at my house for the long-run, Raven is also at my house but hopefully leaving soon (?), Blackjack is at another foster home and Boris is living the sweet life with Grace.

They're not in foster care because they're waiting for anything. Blackjack and Abeline need to be fixed, but Raven, Poe and Boris are all neutered and ready to go. They're still in foster care because there is simply no room for them in Room. There hasn't been room for them for three weeks now.

I think my posts are becoming gradually more gloomy and negative, but the Room feels like a pressure cooker these days. It's meant for on average, 6-8 rabbits, but these days we regularly have over 15. Who knows when these guys will get a chance to find a home?

Quack

2011-11-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

Guess what showed up at the shelter the other day?
Okay, the title might have given it away.

Yup, a lost little duckling! And she is cute as heck.
I'm not entirely sure where she came from, although she's marked as a 'stray'. She's pretty freaked out in the shelter and when I touched her, she tried to scare me off by nibbling my fingers.

It was terrifying.
Luckily, this little one will be leaving on the weekend to go to a nice farm where she can grow up and live a happy duck life.

Less unusually, but still exciting, we recently had two white doves at the shelter. I always enjoy doves, even though they're one of those species that takes forever to get adopted. They are gentle birds, and while I love parrots, doves are so much less drama.

I named them Snowbell and Sunrise. My naming lately has not been up to par, I must admit, but I'm not totally crazy. Sunrise got her name because her eyes were a beautiful red/gold colour. I've never seen bird eyes like that, it was really neat.

They were a very sweet pair, super gentle and easy to handle. They really liked that swing, which was kind of neat because we've given it to pretty much every dove we've had and none of them ever use it.

I'm happy to say Snowbell and Sunrise were adopted just yesterday, which is amazingly quickly for doves. They were adopted by friends of staff, so I know they're in good hands!

All in all it's been a pretty good week for the birds!
Now if we could only move the rabbits out the door this fast...

By the way, we're having an adopt-a-thon this weekend at Petsmart Laird & Eglinton! Thanks to the $25 campaign, we have pretty much run out cats (how crazy is that??), but there are a handful left, plus three bunnies and I believe some dogs. If you're in the area, stop by and say hi!

Jiminy Cricket!

2011-11-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

"Do the rats have names?" One of the staff members asked me the other day.
"The brown one's Jiminy and the white one's Cricket." I replied. She groaned.
"What?" I demanded. "It's like Jiminy Cricket! From Pinocchio!"
"Yeah, I know." She said in exasperation.

You know you've got good names when you make the staff groan. I am immensely proud of these particular ridiculous names, however, so they're staying.
In case you haven't guessed, we have two rats at the moment. Non-rabbits at last! Meet Jiminy and Cricket:

They are older than our rats usually are, at about one year old each. Accordingly, they are a little less full of frenzied energy than our usual rats. They actually have quite lovely personalities, which is lucky for them, because they aren't the most attractive rats.

I mean, I think they're very handsome. However, to the general public, these guys just aren't the beauty queens of the rat world. Cricket is a pink-eyed white, and they always have a tough time, while Jiminy bears an unfortunate resemblance to a sewer rat.

On the other hand, they are marvellous at posing. I mean, look at that!
All kidding aside, they are super sweet boys. They aren't too active, but they like being picked up and they're very easy to handle. Their personalities can pretty much be summed up as 'laid back and gentle'. Jiminy is a little more outgoing than Cricket, but they're pretty much even.

I don't really worry about rats anymore; since we tapped into the rat rescue comunity in Ontario, we've never had to wait too long for rat adoptions. Still, I hope these two middle-aged guys don't have to wait around the shelter too long!

Worth a Thousand Words

2011-11-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

It's commonly accepted in rescue, I think, that cats get the short end of the stick. They don't enjoy quite the cherished position in society that dogs have received, and while small animals are even less valued, the number of homeless small animals is dwarfed by the number of homeless cats. Cats are rarely claimed, rarely fixed, and constantly multiplying. It's hard for them to stand out in the mewing, cage-climbing crowd.

Recently I was at the shelter and I was all up to date on the small animal photos and I thought, why not do the same for the cats?
With dogs, they get their photo taken by the incredibly talented Fred, and the staff do a write-up on the website for each one. For small animals, I do a photo and write-up for each one on the website, and I write a printed bio to attach to each cage.
People looking for a dog or small animal get to know each one individually before they even reach the shelter. But the cats are a blurry mass of intake photos, with no bios - most of them are lucky to get names on the site. This is certainly not the fault of staff. They are way too busy actually caring for these animals to write bios or wait and wait for the perfect photo.
That's why we have volunteers!

I've done cat photos here and there for a while, but a few weeks ago I decided to try and get photos of every available cat, make sure their names are on the site and even write some web bios for the ones I knew.

It's really amazing what a difference a photo makes. When someone is looking for an animal, a good photo can catch their eye. People can connect to a cat through a photo alone. Intake photos are not great for this:

How can you resist this cat???
Intake photos are quick, taken for the purpose of letting people see if the cat matches their own cat who is missing.
Then hopefully when they move into adoption, volunteers update the photo. This cat in particular is absolutely gorgeous, I'm not sure my photo did her justice:

People also tend to make judgements on a cat based on a photo. If the cat looks angry in the photo, it must be an angry cat. It's a silly thing but a human tendency. This photo of Rose, for instance, could leave a very negative impression:

She looks simultaneously angry and scared out of her mind. And while Rose is a shy cat, and not the cuddliest girl in the world, she's not that bad. Plus she's absolutely gorgeous! She wasn't too pleased with posing for a photo but I think it turned out okay:

The point of this post is not to give myself a huge pat on the back or anything. My photos aren't mind-blowingly professional - the point is that they're an upgrade on the intake photos. They're more likely to catch adopter's eyes. They form a good impression before they even come to the shelter, and they say "these cats matter." They have names, photos and sometimes bios - they matter as individuals and they should be valued.
It's very easy to do photos at a shelter if you have a camera. You have more time than staff, so you're pretty much guaranteed to get some upgrades. A lot of people say they don't have time to volunteer weekly, they wish they could get involved, etc etc. Well here you go - take a couple of hours out of your day and head down to the local shelter with your camera. It doesn't take long and it might make a huge difference.
Out of the 27 cats listed on the website for TAS South, 17 of the photos are mine, and it only took a few quick sessions. They aren't great, but they're an improvement and maybe they'll catch someone's eye.
Anyway, enough preaching. There's another reason for posting cats right now:

TAS is having a big campaign for cats! Until November 13th, all cat adoptions are just $25. And of course they still come microchipped, spayed/neutered, licensed, dewormed and vaccinated. With that in mind, why don't we meet some of South's cats:

Cisco is a huge cuddler. He's only a year old, and such a lovebug. He also has his independent side, but pick him up and he'll melt in your arms.

Rosemary here is about 4 years old and has a lovely dignified way about her. She likes people (although she seems iffy with other cats) but she also likes to be on her own.

Czar looks magnificent, but is kind of a wimp. He has the most pathetic meow if you're not paying attention to him. I've actually photographed him twice - I did his photo at West a few months ago, and now he's at South because he was returned for some stupid reason. I think his owners got divorced? Anyway he's not very happy about being back. Plus he needs a shave now, poor guy.

Jewels is one of my favourites. She too looks magnificent, but her personality lives up to her looks. She is quite aloof and rather queenly, but she's a nice girl who will lie beside you to get her ears scratched, and she has a great deal of patience with being picked up or brushed.

This post is kind of all over the place but to sum up: If you have a camera and you want to get involved at a local shelter, offer to do photos. If you want a cat, there's a great deal at TAS and our cats are awesome!

That Same Old Story

2011-11-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

One of the staff members calls me to the desk to ask me if we have room for a new rabbit.
"I guess, we have an empty cage. I guess my fosters can wait a while." I shrug. "What is it?"
"A really cute Lionhead." The staff member replies. "Go check him out."
There's a little girl and her mother standing in the lobby, next to a blue carrier. I go to investigate.
"He's a really nice rabbit," The woman says immediately. "He's very nice with my daughter. It's just these allergies, you know..."
"Is that why you're giving him up?" I asked. I always try to be careful not to offend surrendering owners, although sometimes I don't know why.
"Well, you know, I'm allergic and the landlord's not too happy about him." The woman pulls up a sleeve, showing me an angry, red, bumpy arm. "You see? It's really the allergies. We'd keep him if it weren't for the allergies."
She looks expectantly at me, her arm in my face. "See?"
"Uh, yes." I say. "Allergies do happen."
I turn away to look at the bunny and she pulls her sleeve back down. "So how old is he? How long have you had him?"
"Oh about 5 months." The woman leans forward, watching me as I pick up the little fluffball. He's certainly cute. "You get bunnies adopted right? They find homes?"
"We do our very best." I say, lifting up the rabbit and staring into his eyes. He stares back, wide round eyes filled with anxiety, but not the stark terror of most new rabbits. He seems almost confident in the humans around him. Even though I have little patience for surrendering owners, this was clearly a bunny who was loved. He feels no fear toward me or his owners. But then, he has no idea what's just happened to him.
"People adopt rabbits, right?" The woman asks again as I stare at her rabbit. She wants me to say we won't euthanize him. We probably won't, but no one can say for sure. Such is the reality of shelters.
"It's slow but steady." That's my standard answer. "We try to get as many adopted as we can."
She wants me to clarify and spell it out, but she doesn't ask any more questions. Probably because her daughter is standing there. I always feel bad for the kids in these situations.
"What's his name?" I ask.
"Thumper." Says the girl firmly. "His name is Thumper."
Of course it is.
"Is he neutered?" I ask, trying to keep a straight face. The answer has never been 'yes' unless it's a return.
"We don't know how to neuter rabbits." The woman says with a bit of a laugh. "Is he a boy? We think he's a boy."
"Uh, yeah. He's a boy." I say.
"Oh we really wouldn't be giving him up except for the allergies." Says the woman once again. "You know, we did research on the Internet before we got him, and no one said anything. Nothing said people could be allergic to rabbits."
Of course it didn't.

We take the little one upstairs and set up a new cage for him.
"Oh, bigger than at home." Says the woman.
Of course it is.
The little girl, silent and solemn, helps me put him into the cage. She is hard to read and very stoic. The woman asks one more time about adoptions, then they go.
"You okay, hun?" The woman asks as they leave. The girl gives a solemn nod.
Thumper, who is due for a name change, sits in his new cage and munches on his hay, looking as solemn as the girl who has just left.
I never know how I feel about these surrenders.

News from Abroad

2011-10-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't been posting over the past few days, but I haven't gone missing again - I think I have a pretty good excuse.

I'm in Iceland!
I will be back in a few days however, and will resume posting. I have some exciting news to share, plus an adopt-a-thon is coming up and according to the website, a bunch of new animals have shown up since I left. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to share some non-rescue-related photos of Iceland, because it is a breathtakingly gorgeous country.
I just wanted to make a quick post to share some cheerful news:

Freckles, Fiddlesticks and Ghost have all been adopted since my last post! Fiddlesticks and Freckles went to great homes. I was not at all confident about Ghost's adopter, but the truth is, not every home can be perfect, and I just hope that his adopter becomes a little more educated about rabbits and gives Ghost a good home.

Even better, Snickers finally got adopted! Poor girl waited five whole months to get a home for some reason, but she has finally found a family of her own. Her new owners are bunny-experienced and are in the process of bonding her with their neutered male. Go Snickers!

So that's four less rabbits! And, Amethyst, Topaz, Spice and Almond were all transferred to Pet Values in Scarborough, so even with some new additions, we are approaching a normal number of bunnies (knock on wood).

See you (Internet-wise) in a few days!

Thankful

2011-10-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We were at the shelter yesterday to do a Thanksgiving shoot but ended up having to do website photos instead. Ah well! Instead we used our two remaining foster babies, Emerald (above) and Silver.

These are the last two left at our house, but we don't really mind - they quite enjoy each others' company and seem happy enough to be left alone until there's room at the shelter.

So, I hope everyone's had a nice Thanksgiving so far! What are you thankful for?
I am lucky enough to be thankful for many, many things. I'm thankful for my incredible mother, my wonderfully eccentric dad, my grandmothers, and the rest of my family. I'm thankful for our landlord, who never seems to care about our revolving door of fosters. I'm thankful that I get to attend the University of Toronto and follow my passion for science, and that I can tutor to earn money, a job I truly love with clients I really care about. I'm thankful I could continue music outside high school, and that I have the shelter and a cause that gives my actions, however small, some meaning.
But this is a blog about animal rescue, not about saccharine Thanksgiving speeches. So what else am I thankful for? My animal family, of course.

I'm thankful that Jamie, one of my old men hamsters, is still as playful as he was when he was a baby. I cleaned his cage today and despite being beyond senior, he still had to explore every inch and chew on every toy.

I'm thankful that Ollie, my other old man, is still kicking. He was having trouble breathing the other day and I thought for sure that his time had come (he and Jamie are, after all, over two years old) - but today he's running around without a squeak. I'm glad he and Jamie still have each other, and that my first foster babies have been able to enjoy their full lifespan (for dwarf hamsters).

I'm thankful that Captain Jack is living with us, safe forever from the hoarder where he was born.

I'm thankful that Estel survived against all odds and is now a healthy, social, fluffy boy.

I'm thankful for my sweet boy Giles, who is always grumpy about everything except his humans and has the softest fur you will ever find on a bunny. Oh yes - and for the kind dog-owner who rescued my boy from a dog park, way back when he was first brought to the shelter!

I'm thankful for my baby Neville, whom I will always think of as a baby despite the fact that he's over a year old now, and whom I will always spoil outrageously - he is doomed to be a mamma's boy for the rest of his life.

I'm thankful my boys are both happy and get room to explore and run and jump, and (too many) treats and regular vet care and lots of love. I do wish they'd always get along like in the photo instead of being completely stu- wait, this is supposed to be the positive things about them. Never mind.

I'm thankful my birdies get along so well and I don't have to worry about them fighting, even if sometimes they get along too well and start laying eggs everywhere.

I'm thankful for our lord and master Bailey, and I am very thankful that I am the one person to whom he actually listens.

I am so very thankful for my beautiful girl Loki, who was my first bird and the most loving, cuddly cockatiel anyone could ask for, and who has been with me for 8 years.

So, who are you thankful for, animal-wise, this Thanksgiving?

Hope you all have a wonderful long weekend!

Experimental

2011-10-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

I knew it was going to be difficult to get the babies into the shelter. There were so many of them, it was going to take forever for enough space to open up for each of them individually. So I decided to ask if we could try something different.

We have this big window room downstairs in the shelter, across from the front desk. Other than that window, all of the animals are upstairs.
Normally, we have a litter of kittens in the window, but even though it's a fantastic little room, no one ever looks in there! I don't know why, but nobody ever stops to look in that window, they just go straight upstairs. Kittens enjoy themselves in there but they take ages to get adopted.
My idea was to put Circe's litter in the window when they were old enough. I would work to make sure they were litter-trained at home, we wouldn't have to worry about space in the Room, and hopefully the oddness of having rabbits in the window would make people stop and look.

About a week ago, I brought Achilles, Zeus, Hercules and Circe in to give them the run of the window. I opened the carrier and let them take their time coming out. We had some worries they'd be too stressed in the wide open space. Unsurprisingly, Achilles was the first one to venture out.

Hercules soon followed him, and the two little ring-leaders were soon have a lovely time galloping around the room and exploring. Unsurprisingly, their mother and brother were a little less confident:

Those two are such wimps. Eventually Circe was drawn out by the promise of greens, but her littlest son was still too timid. Zeus was especially frightened of the slippery floor, as he couldn't get a good grip with his feet.

He ended up sitting like this for about half an hour, while everyone else explored and had a great time. What a goof. Finally I put a little rug in front of him so he could get traction, and he at last came out to explore with his family.

We tried to give them lots of places to hide, and lots of things to chew so that they didn't chew the caulking on the window. There were boxes, wooden arches, cardboard coffee trays and about a million paper towel rolls. (I love the twins Achilles and Zeus back there in that photo, they really do look alike)

We also left the carrier in order to give them a safe hiding place, although they didn't end up using it at all. They did thoroughly enjoy jumping on top of it for a better view, and even taking naps on top.

Once they'd made their way out of the carrier, the whole family seemed to thoroughly enjoy the window. They didn't hide or show obvious stress behaviour, and they explored every inch, doing binkies and happy dances all over the place. The kids certainly liked it more than their mom, but Circe didn't seem to mind the extra space.

It wasn't a perfect experiment. Their litter-training, which was so wonderfully perfect at home and a point of pride for me, seemed to be rather forgotten in the big room. They weren't terrible but they weren't perfect, and it gave the staff more work to clean up. On the other hand, they've improved with time and it's not really that messy. I don't know if we'll ever do it again, but I'm glad we gave it a try. It also left more room in the Room, which was very necessary.

The best news of all, however, is that two of the family were adopted the other day! I don't know if it's really because they were in the window, as this couple looked around quite thoroughly for a bunny, but it can't have hurt. Anyway, Achilles and his brother Hercules were adopted together! They were adopted to a wonderful, bunny-experienced couple (who, funny enough, were related to the awesome people who adopted Emma a year ago).We needed that adoption so much, and I'm so glad the boys went together. I hope they continue to get along fabulously as they grow up!

Of course, the way the Room is going lately, the ebb is always less than the flow. Three new rabbits have joined our adoption room. Ah well.

Pushed to the Limit

2011-10-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

We have too many rabbits.
In my three years at TAS, I've never seen us have so many rabbits. Right now, we have no other animals in the Room or Pet Valu - just bunnies. And that's the worst, because rabbits are slow adoptions; they don't get adopted en masse like hamsters.

It's not even just from the litters that are coming of age. It certainly didn't help that we had to deal with 12 babies from the condo hoarder, or that we found 7 babies under a porch. But even without that added pressure, rabbits have been pouring in, a steady stream of strays and owner surrenders. The staff are already overwhelmed, especially as we've had some sick dogs recently and an insane amount of cats, and it feels like the place is at a boiling point. What is this? Summer is over. It's supposed to be calming down, not spiralling out of control. I am generally an optomistic, look-on-the-bright-side-despite-the-stupid-people person, but lately every time I see a new rabbit I just want to scream!

Here's our line-up currently in the Room (not counting Snickers at Pet Uno or Cashew at Pet Valu, or Silver and Emerald still waiting in foster). Know anyone looking for a rabbit? Feel free to share - with 18 rabbits, we're just a little desperate for homes.

Almond is one of our hoarder babies (from Pistachio's litter). She's super squirmy about being held and a little shy, but very affectionate. She also has just gorgeous colouring.

Amethyst is also a hoarder baby, from Ruby's litter. She is so outgoing and loving! She adores attention and will do anything to get a good rub on the head.

Topaz (as you can probably tell) is Amethyst's brother. Strong resemblance in this family! He's a little quieter, certainly less active, but he too loves people and will lie right down if you stroke his forehead.

Freckles is a 6-mos-old lop brought in as a "stray". She is SUPER energetic and nosy, needs a space to run, and loves people!

Ghost was left behind in an apartment when his owner moved out (charming!). He is a very handsome boy, very confident and craves attention. Unfortunately he managed to injure his ear recently, but he's now healing well and waiting for that unsightly wound to go away.

Circe, the mom of the porch litter, is quite timid, especially around strangers. She does warm up to you over time and is super, super gentle. Just a little scared. She deserves a proper home after all she's been through.

Achilles is one of Circe's sons, and you'd never guess he was found under a porch at 1 week old. He is the troublemaker in his family, always sticking his nose where it doesn't belong! He is super curious about everything, not timid at all and he loves, loves, loves people.

Hercules is another one of Circe's sons. This beautiful guy may look plain black in the photo, but he has subtle silver flecking across his ears, rump and belly. It's pretty neat. Herc loves people and he is usually the first to hop onto your lap or run over to say 'hello'. He is very affectionate, and a big explorer who will need space to play.

Zeus is Circe's third son, and he's very attached to his mum. It'd be nice if they went together, although I'm certainly not holding my breath. The runt of the litter, Zeus is the shyest, but he's starting to really come out of his shell. He's a very gentle, timid boy.

Melody is one of our newest arrivals, she's only been at the shelter a few days and hasn't been spayed yet. She's a very cuddly girl, likes people but quite timid in the shelter environment. Her owner gave her up because he was "going on vacation" and didn't want to find a sitter. She's 10 months old.

Sugar arrived with his girlfriend, who is also a Lionhead and thankfully being spayed today. Sugar is just the cutest little ball of fur, look at him. What a face! He's also very sweet and laid-back, doesn't get too excited about anything and seems to like people despite being a little shy.

Spice arrived with Sugar, and she's getting spayed today so she'll be good to go in a few days. She's a sweet girl, a little freaked out by the shelter since she just arrived a few days ago. Like Sugar, she's quite laid back.

And finally we have Fiddlesticks, who just arrived yesterday as a "stray". He's a super, super affectionate boy, very in-your-face, pet-me-already kind of personality. He's very gentle and he has lovely markings and blue eyes.

That's thirteen in the Room alone. And there may or may not be more coming in today. So if you know anyone interested in adopting, PLEASE pass on the word - we're drowning in bunnies!

I'm Alive!

2011-09-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. I was away for a week, then I was sick for a week, then school started and City Council was voting on the budget, and then I'd simply put it off for so long that it was hard to get myself to post. My apologies for anyone still reading! I did get a lovely email from a reader asking if I was okay, so I figured I'd better post at last.

What an exciting month! (Too bad I never posted, haha!)Honestly, there are so many things to cover, so let's do point form:

I went to another City Hall meeting, to give another deputation, earlier in September. While this one also went on for ages, I somehow managed to the be the first person on the list of 300 speakers, so I was in and out pretty quickly. We also only got 2 minutes to speak, so I sounded like I was on speed. Ah well.

The situation wasn't quite as urgent as before, however. The City Manager, Joe Pennachetti, released his report on September 12, and barely mentioned TAS at all. He had no real interest in privatizing, or cutting significantly. So far, the issues haven't come up again as they move forward with the budget process. There will be changes, and TAS is going to have to adjust, but on the whole it's not as bad as we feared. Of course, we won't really breathe a sigh of relief until the budget's set in stone. In the meantime, thanks to everyone for the support!!

We had an adopt-a-thon at Petsmart the second week of September, and brought two bunnies, the gerbils, and two baby guinea pigs, including Ricky (above). It wasn't a roaring success, and I am always morally ambivalent toward Petsmart events, but it was worth it for two reasons - a big red-eyed white bunny from Scarborough found a wonderful home, and THE GERBILS got adopted! Hallelujah! It only took four months.

Poor Snickers has also been waiting over four months, but at least she got a change in scenergy recently. A new pet store on College Street named Pet Uno has graciously agreed to keep her in the store to see if they can find an adopter for her there. Since we are still packed with rabbits, this was very helpful! Pet Uno will also be hosting an adopt-a-thon for us in a few weeks. Thanks to them!
I don't know why Snickers is still waiting, because she's small, cute and friendly. But hopefully her adoption day is coming soon!

In other partnership news, the Toronto Humane Society gave us a huge hand last week, when they agreed to take six of our numerous rabbits! They had initially agreed to take a pair, so I was quite astonished when I got the email saying they’d take 3 neutered males and 3 intact females! We sent Ruby, Artemis and Echo for the girls, and Pecan, Apollo and Jasper (formerly known as Pearl) for the boys. Huge thanks to the THS! We’re still drowning in bunnies but it was a huge help.

The same day we did the THS transfer, we did the spay surgeries on the remaining babies (and Circe). The vets really outdid themselves, I have to say – they got all 12 rabbits from the two litters done in a week! I was quite excited for Circe, Pegasus and Amethyst to be done, but sadly it was not to be. Pegasus never recovered from her anaesthesia, crashed during recovery and passed away. We think it was a bad reaction to the anaesthesia due to the stress of transport. Poor baby. She was my mom’s favourite, and we had even had interest in adopting her. The poor vet was quite upset, even though it wasn’t her fault at all.

I was much more grateful than normal to see that Circe and Amethyst recovered well and are doing fine!

Puppy Mill Awareness Day was a few weeks ago, and on the same day, a huge “commercial breeder” was raided in Quebec. Then a few days later, City Council announced that they were banning dogs and cats from Toronto pet stores, to fight mills. In other words, mills have been getting a lot of attention. Of course, no one thought of small animals’ disastrous breeding operations, which I complained about rather pettily on amazing foster mom Grace’s blog. She responded amazingly, as usual, by writing a post about it. She also inspired me to write my own post, which I’m still working on but will be posting soon (I swear!).

This past weekend, my friend Jenn (a staff member at the shelter) and I went to BUNFEST. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s an event just for bunny owners, and people bring their rabbits in strollers, wagons and harnesses. It was a hilarious event, and we got two adoptions out of it, so it was definitely worth it.

And finally, let’s have an adoption round-up! Since the last time I posted, Hazelnut, the gerbils, Pistachio, Jet and Jade have all been adopted! Also, ,three guinea pigs, two hamsters, a budgie, and two rabbits that I never got the chance to post (like Pikachu, above). I really have been slacking off!

Tomorrow I think I'll just do a roll call of the Room (it's been a while since I've done that!) to catch everyone up. And I have to say, I think Bunfest deserves it's own post, because it was a pretty singular experience.

Right, I think I'm all caught up now! I swear it will not be another month before I post again.

Out of Style

2011-08-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

Rodents are, generally, regarded as kids' pets. These days, most kids get a hamster as their 'first pet'. In the 1990s, however, the rodent pet market was pretty evenly divided between hamsters, and gerbils.

Gerbils were a fad pet. It happens fairly often - Dalmatians, for instance, were super popular for a brief time after the release of 101 Dalmatians. Soon enough, people realized that the breed was too much for them, and shelters were flooded with Dalmatians. Eventually it evened out and they're back to being the relatively uncommon breed they were before.
Gerbils were very popular in the 90s, as classroom pets and for children. I grew up with gerbils, not hamsters, and I still prefer them. They're smart, active, gentle, social creatures. But for whatever reason, they fell out of favour and most kids have hamsters now. Gerbils have become fairly rare. This means that when we get gerbils at the shelter, it's a nightmare trying to get them adopted - nobody wants a gerbil anymore.

Which brings me to these three boys. Larry, Curly and Moe were surrendered to the shelter back in May for whatever reason. They were only 6 weeks old at the time, so I assume whoever surrendered them had also bred them. Well done, you!
Gerbils are one of those species that take forever to be adopted. Chinchillas take forever, doves take forever, and gerbils take forever. It's just inevitable.

These guys weren't very sociable either. Larry here was fairly friendly, Curly was okay, but Moe was almost impossible to handle. Crossing our fingers, we shipped them off to Pet Valu and hoped that they'd have better luck than us.

They were at Pet Valu for almost two months, with absolutely no interest. Eventually Pet Valu asked us to take them back, as they were taking up space that they could use for hamsters or guinea pigs, who always get adopted quickly. The boys came back to the shelter.

The good news is that their time at Pet Valu really brought these guys out of their shells. I think I was too hasty labelling them 'skittish' when they arrived - after all, they were only 6 weeks old. It's normal for young rodents to be nervous. Now that they're fully mature, these boys are totally sweet. All three are easy to handle, gentle, curious, and happy to run right onto your hand.

They've now been waiting over three months. I wish someone would take them. Honestly, I have two very old dwarf hamsters right now, and if they were to pass away, I would take these three boys immediately. I still love gerbils, these boys are sweet and they deserve a home after all this time. (Note: I don't actually want my hamsters to pass away. Keep on trucking, my old men!)

I will never understand why hamsters emerged 'victorious' in the childrens' pet industry. I love my hamsters, but gerbils make better pets. They're awake during the day, they're less likely to bite, they're smarter, they're more active. But - and I do think this worked against them - they have tails. And tails make people think of mice. Hamsters are fluffy and tail-less.
Cute wins over practical every time.

Go West, Young Photographer

2011-08-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

About six months ago, I was at an adopt-a-thon at Petsmart, and there was a staff member from the West region of TAS working with us. She mentioned (jokingly, I think) that it would be great if I did photos for their shelter as well. Never joke with me about shelter photos! I immediately asked if I could go do photos for West every so often.

Since then, I think I've gone about four times. It's an interesting experience. For one thing, we have Fred at TAS South, so I never do dog photos. To be honest, I'm not very good at them, but I've taken a few stabs at it for West. Some of the results were nice, like that boy up there from a few months ago, and some were not worth posting (live and learn!).

TAS West is much smaller than South - it's the smallest of the four shelters. They don't house small animals, and they only have one adoption room for cats (as opposed to our 4 rooms + 4 windows). Thanks to the small number of animals, I can usually get through all the cats in a couple of hours, a task that would take me a couple of days at South.
My most recent trip was last week, and this time I asked if I could post a few results. So here are our guest cats of the week, all to be found at TAS West:

This handsome fellow doesn't have a name yet. He was quite an independent cat, not particularly cuddly but certainly amiable.

Kittens are usually a nightmare to photograph, but I usually have good luck with the West kitties. This little munchkin is named Dexter and he's 4 months old.

I'm glad I got a decent photo of Simba here, because his website photo shows him as a newborn. Adorable of course, but he looks a bit different now!

It's a good exercise, trying to get every cat done. Some cats require quite a bit of patience for them to calm down enough to stand still for a photo, but I got this shot of Lynx on the first try.

One particularly nice thing about West is that several of their cages are bright white, as opposed to the mostly metallic South cages. This means that for cats who aren't keen on coming out of the cage (such as Minnie here), you can still get a nice shot.

This was my favourite shot of the day, and this kitten was totally lovable - and of course, she got adopted while I was there! Of course, that's brilliant. But it does figure that my favourite photo wasn't even needed! Hey, I guess that's why I have a blog, right?

And finally we have Iris - a good photo of a black cat is the most satisfying shot to get. Black cats are infamous for having a hard time at getting adopted, and one of the reasons for this is that they don't photograph well at all. They might be gorgeous, but it's so very difficult to make them look like anything other than a bug-eyed mass of black fur. Luckily, I think Iris looks a bit better than that!

So if you're in Etobicoke, and you have a car (because it is seriously irritating to get there by transit, although not impossible), stop by TAS West!

Family Fun, Part II

2011-08-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

I should never say I'm going to do a post "tomorrow" because I inevitably end up doing it much later. Oh well.
Today I present my second foster litter! I haven't even posted these guys on the blog before, shameful.

This is Circe, the mom. Circe became quite well known in one neighbourhood a few months ago, as she was frequently seen running through people's yards, and many people took to feeding her. After a while of this, someone followed her, and found that she had a litter of babies under a porch.

They were pretty darned tiny when they arrived at the shelter, and only about a week old. It turned out she had seven little ones - I have no idea how she managed to keep them safe and well-fed out there in the wild, but she did it.
Circe's kits are two weeks younger than Ruby's family, but Circe is much larger than Ruby and the kits are almost the same size as their older house-mates. It's kind of nice to have a litter that isn't the Dutch breed! So here we go, introductions:

This is Achilles, the ring-leader (the Jet of this litter!). Naturally, they're all named after Greek mythology just like their mom. Unlike Ruby's litter, none of them look anything like Circe.

This is Apollo - in total, there are 4 silvery kits. I love this colouring, it's beautiful. Also, I love their giant ears. That's how we can tell they'll be big adults, those oversized ears - they look like Dumbo!

And here we have Artemis, the only female silver. These guys can be tricky to tell apart, but it's not impossible. Achilles has a little white on his nose, Apollo has the darkest colouring, Artemis is female and Zeus (the fourth) is the runt and brightest coloured.

And of course there are black ones - there are always black ones! This is Echo, the female black kit. She's quite shy at first, but she warms up to you rather quickly.

Hercules is the male black kit, and super friendly. He and Achilles are usually the first two kits to the door, jumping over their siblings to get your attention.

Pegasus is just the cutest thing on four legs, look at her. She's adorable. She's also nice and easy to tell apart from her siblings!

And then we have Zeus, the runt of the litter and the biggest scaredy-cat you will ever meet. He didn't quite live up to his name there. He is cute as a button though, with his super shiny silver fur.
A few more photos:

The thee girls in the litter, Artemis, Echo and Pegasus.

Baby silvers! This litter had heads shaped like blocks when they were little, it was adorable.

Man they were so freaking cute.

The Group of Seven (ha, I should've named them after the artists!) a month ago, and the group of seven now...

I'm actually quite proud of this. They're getting so big, it's hard to get all 7 of them in one photo.

So that's all the foster rabbits! Of course, there are still 11 rabbits at the shelter. Seriously, if you are looking for a rabbit, now's the time to adopt from us because we're in a bit of a bind here.
It doesn't really help that we've done, um, ONE rabbit adoption in the past month. I know summer's always super slow, but it's very disheartening to look at the crowded room and realize none have moved. Summer's almost over, summer's almost over...

Family Fun, Part I

2011-08-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

So I have two litters of foster rabbits right now (which is ridiculous). Unfortunately, due to lack of posts and all this political craziness (which is still ongoing!), I haven't had much opportunity to show them off. Therefore, the next two posts will act as a friendly introduction.

The two litters are only separated by two weeks in age. Today I'll be posting the older litter. That's their mom, Ruby, a sweet, shy girl who was rescued from a hoarding situation with her two kits. A few weeks after she came to us, she surprised us all with a new litter. Her older girls, Jade & Sapphire, are now at the shelter waiting spay, and her younger six are having a good time at my house.
Introductions are in order!

The last time I posted them they were little fuzzballs. They've grown up a lot since then, as they're now two months old. This is Amethyst, one of the two girls in the family. She is one of the most outgoing ones and always runs up to see me when I walk by, probably hoping for a treat.

On the other side of the spectrum, this is Emerald, probably the shyest in the family. The family as a whole is pretty outgoing, but Emerald is usually content to hang out with his mum.

Then we have Jet, who is absolutely the friendliest of the bunch. This guy isn't afraid of anything, loves everyone and has decided his greatest goal in life is to be stroked on the head and fed treats all day. He's hilarious, and definitely the ring-leader.

This is Pearl, the only other girl besides Amethyst, and another one of the bolder ones. They all definitely resemble their mum, but they are also all distinct in personality and looks, and once you get used to them, it's very easy to tell them apart. Pearl, for instance, has a big white shoulder, a mostly black face and while you can't see it there, an adorable white splotch on her mouth.

Of course, Silver here is the easiest in the world to tell apart. He is only one that's not black and white, and he's also the runt and about 100 g smaller than his siblings. He is probably the second shyest after Emerald, but he's also adorable and very used to being held.

And rounding out the gang we have Topaz with his white necklace and nose and oversized ears. All in all, I think they're a rather good-looking bunch!
Here, more cute photos (obviously some of them from when they were younger):

The gang at, I think, one month old. Topaz (with his head perked up at the end there) was by far the most outgoing when they were younger, but he's calmed down a lot and Jet, Pearl and Amethyst took over the leading the pack.

Jet, Amethyst and Topaz hanging out on the balcony a week ago. Since we've been doing photos with them their entire lives, they're quite used to both cameras and fresh air.

This photo cracks me up. Silver loves his greens! There is an endless debate about whether you should feed kits greens before six months of age, but this is the fourth litter I've raised on greens and I don't plan on changing. Knock on wood, but I've never had a baby with digestive problems yet, and they've all turned out with healthy weights, shiny coats and a proper appetite.
One more photo because I can't resist:

Oh, the indignities suffered by my foster babies. If only it said the real adoption fee (much higher than $5.99, thankfully) it would've been perfect! Poor Topaz.

Tomorrow, the other litter - would you believe it's actually larger? I don't know what's in the water these days, but I miss the simple 2-4 kit litters!

Birds of a Feather

2011-08-11T01:32:00.000-07:00

A very flashy canary arrived at the shelter a few days ago. I called him Tiedye.

Handsome guy, isn't he? I've never seen a red canary in person, he was quite a standout. Tie was found fluttering around Bathurst street, and for a canary, he was pretty outgoing. Doesn't even mind being picked up. I wondered if someone was looking for him.

He's properly banded, so I looked up the number and it turns out he has a band from the Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada. If I'm reading it right, he was just born this year, so he has a long life ahead of him.
And luckily, he will be spending that year with his owner! For the first time in my knowledge, a canary was actually claimed by his owner. I have never seen that happen, nor has the staff I talked to - Tiedye (or whatever his real name is) is a lucky bird!

Then we have Dominic, a cockatiel who arrived at the shelter under rather odd circumstances. Due to those circumstances, we don't technically have custody of him yet, so he's not up for adoption. But I'm sure once he goes on the website, he'll be gone in a flash.

Like most cockatiels, Dom is fussy but ultimately harmless. He's much more timid than little Tiedye, however, and was not pleased at all with the canary climbing all over his cage.
Dominic arrived with another bird:

Certainly not one of our usual suspects! Jaspar here is an Amazon parrot, although don't ask me what kind. There are approximately a million species of Amazon, and they're all mostly green. I can never tell them apart.

He is a sweet bird, although timid. After a few days of getting to know me, he is happy to step up and hang out with me outside the cage, but he doesn't want to be touched and he is nervous of sudden movements. He doesn't bite, but he does mutter to himself like an angry old man, it's pretty funny.
We're not sure what we'll do with Jaspar - since he needs a special home that can care for him properly, we don't really want to put him in general adoption. I think we're trying to move him to a rescue or the THS.

According to the website, we have another cockatiel at the shelter now. Compared to the number of birds we normally have (zero), it's been very bird-busy lately!

Finally

2011-08-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling rather proud of myself today! If you haven't seen it, the Star did an article about the fight to save TAS (aka keep it public and properly funded):

About a week ago, several TAS volunteers who have been working to protect the shelters from these cuts (myself included) agreed that we needed mainstream media coverage. The fact was simply that no one knew we were in the report in the first place. I, rather rashly, said, "I'm 99% sure I can get the Star to do it."

Thank goodness I was right!

I emailed Valerie Hauch, the reporter who covered our foster bunny explosion a month ago. Luckily, she was interested. Huge thanks to the Star for once again bringing attention to TAS, and massive thanks to Valerie Hauch, who took the time to interview the Montreal SPCA and Councillor De Baeremaeker. Also, Councillor Holyday, who clearly had no idea what she was talking about. Read his quotes, he clearly hasn't even thought about TAS and is making up some generic answer. It's pretty funny.

As often happens, Metro also ran (a truncated version of) the story:

Then, when I was googling to see if anyone else had picked up the story, I saw to my surprise that InsideToronto had done their own article about protecting TAS:

Unexpected but appreciated! Thanks, InsideToronto!
Hopefully this means people are going to sit up and take notice - especially the councillors. Fingers crossed that this leads to good things!

Unrelated, but I've really been wanting to post the adorableness that are my foster babies, so here's some photos! I guess it's related though - after all, isn't this what we're fighting for?

Oh, I almost forgot! Are you someone who is really good at HTML? Email me!

Slumber Party at City Hall

2011-08-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, the Executive Committee of Toronto City Council met to discuss the results of the KPMG report, part of the Core Service Review. That report basically proposed mutilating every service this city offers, despite the minimum research they put into their findings.
Mayor Rob Ford made the decision (or one could call it a 'mistake') to invite the entire city to come argue with him. You can read his quotes here, or I could just copy and paste them:
"Everyone has five minutes to talk to me personally at our executive committee. I invite the whole city. I don't care if we have to sit there for three days."
Keep those quotes in mind.

Naturally, I went down there to defend TAS, especially since I'd been out of town for the very important Licensing & Standards committee meeting (luckily we were well represented there!). I ended up being in and out of City Hall for 18 hours, and was actually in the building for 7 of those hours. This is going to be a very long blog post because I have a lot to say about this meeting.
I also have to say that the media coverage of this was pathetic. The next day, I thought there'd be tons of articles and opinion pieces, but there was almost nothing. What the heck, media? One great article was from The Torontoist, whose blogger actually stayed for the whole thing. Also, Don Peat of the Toronto Sun and Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star both Tweeted extensively. Actually, their Tweets are better coverage of the meeting than the articles published the next day.
So here's my version of events:

I arrived at City Hall at 9:30 am. I was actually worried I was late, which is hilarious in retrospect. The committee room was packed, as were the two overflow rooms, and the lobby downstairs. There were 302 deputants on the list they gave us. I asked if I could leave and come back or if I had to stay, but got a shrug in response.

The meeting's beginning immediately set the tone for the entire spectacle. Kristyn Wong-Tam suggested moving the meeting into council chambers, which was much larger, but she was shot down. The committee voted to reduce deputants' speaking time from 5 minutes to 3 minutes (so much for the that promise!). Immediately deputants were scrambling to rearrange their carefully timed speeches into 3 minutes, myself included, but we needn't have worried. The next two hours were spent on KPMG representatives and the councillors themselves.

I'm not complaining about that, it was brilliant. The KPMG representatives were clearly out of their comfort zone. I should note that there were two 'sets' of councillors at the meeting. The Executive Committee were obliged to be there, whereas the other councillors were technically 'guests' and they were there voluntarily. Naturally, most of them were against the cuts. After all, no one is going to wait around for 22 hours just to say 'good job' to the Mayor.

The best way I can sum up the KPMG questioning is with this absolutely brilliant interrogation from Adam Vaughan. Please watch it, it's hilarious and amazing. I have had my complaints about Councillor Vaughan in the past, but that was magnificent.

Basically, every time a councillor questioned KPMG, their answers were vague and defensive. Their response was usually that the question was 'out of the scope of this report'. At one point Mayor Ford stopped the proceedings to scold the councillors for not showing enough respect.

Then, after the councillors had had their say, it was on to the deputations!

The view from inside one of the overflow rooms, watching the deputations on a screen.

They voted to allow deputants with small children or disabilities to go first. This prompted the first of many, many moments where Giorgio Mammoliti said something truly appalling and made everyone angry. He suggested that people would pretend to be disabled so as to go first, and said they should be interrogated to make sure they were really disabled. The first deputant, who was disabled, promptly put him in his place, to many cheers.

For the first part of deputations, Mammoliti proved to be among the loudest of councillors. He asked almost every deputant why the federal or provincial government wasn't paying for their service. Hilariously, at one point he started his question by saying "I'm a fan of the arts", and everyone in the room laughed at him. I think my favourite was the deputation from Toronto Arts Council. When he asked the same question, the woman responded patiently that their job was to distribute city money. He asked, incensed, if the federal government didn't give them any money, and she had to explain several times that federal money had nothing to do with their organization.

At 12:30, they were at about number 10, and since I was number 142, I decided to head home and prepare a bit more. I ended up going back after dinner, around 6, this time accompanied by my incredibly patient and supportive mother.

Once we'd returned, we settled in for the long haul. By 6, when they broke for dinner, they were at Speaker 43. There were still 300 signed up.
At 10 pm, the Committee voted to run the meeting until every deputant had spoken, clear through the night. They also voted to reduce the time councillors had to ask questions to 1 minute. The vote was actually a tie (which would have meant it lost), but Councillor Shiner walked in late and Ford allowed him to vote in a clear breach of rules. I suppose the Executive Committee didn't care about the question time, since they hardly asked any.

It's hard to explain the atmosphere at that meeting, but it was pretty astonishing. As my mom said, she kept meaning to leave, but it was hard to tear yourself away. The deputants were well spoken. The crowd was energized, and while many were angry, it wasn't a negative energy. There was a lot of cheering, a lot of clapping, a lot of laughing. There was a true sense of community, and it was shared by the councillors who were there voluntarily.
Councillors Janet Davis, Sarah Doucette, Paula Fletcher, Adam Vaughan, Kristyn Wong-Tam, Mike Layton and Gord Perks (who happens to represent my ward) stayed throughout the night and remained active and engaged. Joe Mihevc and Josh Matlow were also there, although I don't know if they stayed the whole time, and Ana Bailao was there, just very quiet. They stayed for 22 hours, despite being treated rudely by the Mayor, having their speaking time cut and probably being damned tired.

I ran into Gord Perks in the hallway and said, "Hello Councillor Perks". He immediately turned around and said, "No, it's Gord! How are you doing?" When I mentioned I was in his ward, he demanded to know where (the man knows his ward inside out). He regularly made trips to the overflow rooms to bring them jugs of water and chat with people waiting to speak. I was very proud to have him as my councillor.

This is my favourite photo from the meeting. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam gives Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti a fantastic look. It just begs for a caption.
The Executive Committee was clearly there for show. The only members who asked any questions were Mammoliti and Michael Thompson. Thompson actually asked fairly reasonable questions, although after a few hours he either left or stopped talking. Mammoliti was incredibly rude and his behaviour was appalling. He had no respect for the speakers or the other councillors, and he clearly just wanted to end the meeting (as he threatened to do, several times).

Mayor Ford didn't ask a single question about people's speeches. Twice he spoke to say something about football, and once he made a snide comment about blaming things on Diefenbaker, since people had the audacity to blame Mike Harris (who was in power 10 years ago, not 50, a substantial difference). You can see his comment here.

Meanwhile, the visiting councillors asked questions about the deputants and their ideas. They sincerely thanked people for coming out. They were laughing and chatting and actually engaged in the process.
Sometimes I wonder if Ford and his friends forget that we're living in a media-friendly age. Do they realize people can see them? If I was watching as a voter in one of their wards, I'd be a little annoyed that my representative was not making themselves heard at all.

I ended up being interviewed by both CTV (above) and 680 News. I had no idea if they aired, but friends have told me they saw the TV interview so I guess one of them did. I think the 680 interviewer was a bit taken aback, because she interviewed me right after they announced they were going through the night, and I was, shall we say, a little annoyed.
In fact, I was so annoyed that I used some of my precious three minutes to mention how appalled I was at the proceedings. Of course because of that, I couldn't finish the speech I'd practiced approximately 1000 times in the preceeding 10 hours. But after all that time of watching the Committee try to shut people up, I couldn't stand not saying anything.

I finally spoke at about 1:45 AM. By that point, many deputants weren't showing up to speak, probably because they had to get home to their families or jobs. I'm sure that's what they were hoping for, that people would go home without speaking, but there was actually still a large crowd at 2 in the morning. The room and the two overflow rooms were still full of people. Toronto wanted to have their say!

As I was speaking, Mayor Ford and Councillor Mammoliti got up and strolled over to have their own conversation. I'd been waiting over 16 hours, I'd whittled my speech down to three minutes, and they were just chatting away while I was speaking. I ran out of patience.
What I actually said was, "Mr Ford, are you listening? Because you don't seem to be." And this briefly made me famous on Twitter. I discovered my 5 seconds of Twitter fame thanks to another deputant, who came up to me and told me her Twitter feed had just filled up with people quoting me. I'm glad some Tweets were actually about TAS at least.

My mom took this photo of them right after I asked him to listen.
On one hand, I didn't go to be combative and 'call out the Mayor' or anything, I just went to have my say about TAS. But on the other hand, it's incredibly rude to carry on a conversation while someone is trying to talk to you, so I'm glad I said something. He did sit back down, by the way.

Since no one had been talking about TAS, I was worried there'd be no questions, but thankfully I got two. Councillor Doucette was clearly on our side as she asked about privatizing, and talked about how the Berger-Blanc video had turned her stomach. I'm glad she asked, because I got to finish my thought from when I'd been cut off by Mayor Ford.
Councillor Berardinetti is actually on the Executive Committee, and I was quite surprised to get a question from her. It turns out she's quite involved in animal rescue, and she asked a pointed question about TAS' euthanasia numbers. Actually, she didn't get to ask because I cut her off, which I didn't notice until I saw the video later. Sorry, Councillor Berardinetti! Anyway, it was a good question because I got to address those numbers and explain how they can be misconstrued.

After speaking, I stayed until about 4 AM, at which point I couldn't stay awake any longer, so I threw in the towel and went home. The meeting actually ended around 8 AM the next day.

It was a very interesting time. Their attempts to shut people up were so incredibly blatant, and they obviously didn't listen to a single deputation (well, except that one that supported them). Yet they made a mistake. They brought all of their opposition together and gave them a slumber party and a million reasons to fight against them. It's like they want people to organize against them.
They cut the speaking time to 3 minutes. They cut the councillors' question time to 1 minute. They made us wait in tiny rooms rather than council chambers. They made the meeting go through the night, so working families couldn't stay. They ignored all motions made by visiting councillors.
And yet, 168 people still spoke. All those people waited to have their say.

At the end, Councillor Mammoliti made a speech about how he was disappointed at the deputants' behaviour and how they didn't show respect for the process, to which Mayor Ford said "Great speech, Councillor". Yeah, it was a great speech, for galvanizing people to oppose you.

I know they didn't listen to a thing we said, but that's okay. A lot of people were listening, and a lot of people are now angry and motivated. I'm sure that's not what they were aiming for, but that's what they got.

And to finish up this incredibly long post, some of my favourite moments:

People got very creative. There was a singing deputation, along with a poem, a puppet presentation and a story about a house called Toronto.
In his opening speech, Ford talked about separating the 'must haves' from the 'nice to haves'. Councillor Davis had a great deal of fun with that throughout the night. After a presentation about dental care for low-income families, she asked, "Do you think teeth are nice to have?"
There were many entertaining references to Margaret Atwood (including buttons). After the Toronto Arts Council presentation, Adam Vaughan asked, "Do you fund Margaret Atwood's work?"
There were a pair of crossing guard presentations, and they were fantastic. They explained that if there is no crossing guard at certain intersections, you have to post a police officer. After hearing that crossing guards start at $10.25/hour, Wong Tam (I think) asks, "Do you think police would get paid more than $10.25 an hour?" The guards, two senior citizens, were very amused.
Jeff Melanson is the mayor's hand-picked arts advisor, and he actually made a deputation against arts cuts that was very well reasoned and sensible.
Not exactly a 'favourite' moment, but very telling - Mayor Ford left the meeting for an hour to do a TSN interview about his football picks.

There were so many great moments, but this blog post is long enough already. I really encourage you to read the Torontoist's live blog, it covers everything. Also, the blog Ford For Toronto is posting a video of a deputation each day in August. Check it out!
It kind of feels like battle lines are being drawn, doesn't it?
The next few months are going to be very interesting.

(And tomorrow, back to animal posts, promise!)

Make Your Voice Heard

2011-07-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

I've been attached to my computer the last few days, which I'm sure my family appreciated since I'm supposed to be on vacation with them. But this is important!

We've got a Save Toronto Animal Services Facebook page now, so go check that out!

We've also got a form letter that people can send to their local councillors. Feel free to copy it and use it as you like:

Dear ;

As a constituent of your ward, I am writing to you about the city’s Core Service Review. Specifically, I am concerned about the idea of privatizing Toronto Animal Services.

TAS is an important part of my city. Thanks to the work of TAS, the city has a good reputation for animal rescue, and Torontonians have a reliable resource for retrieving lost pets, adopting new pets, and reporting injured or dead animals. It’s important to me that injured or deceased animals are treated properly when they are picked up, especially as injured or deceased animals could be someone’s pet. We are an animal-loving city and this is a service in which we can take pride.

Animal shelters cannot be a profitable business when run properly. An adoption fee cannot equal the cost of housing, feeding, providing veterinary care, spaying/neutering, vaccinating and microchipping. If animal services is contracted out to a private business, the only way that business can turn a profit is to cut corners, raise euthanasia rates and neglect animal care. Montreal is currently experiencing this with the private pound ‘Berger-Blanc’, which has recently been exposed as a neglectful, cruel and inhumane shelter. With private shelters, there is also much less oversight and more chance for cruelty to continue unseen.

On the other hand, the city of Calgary is often held up as the gold standard in animal control. Calgary has kept their animal services public and has strongly enforced licensing for pets. This has allowed them to create a shelter system that is lauded throughout North America as humane and effective. It’s clear which system we should be trying to emulate.

I believe that Toronto Animal Services is an integral part of this city, and must be kept public. Privatizing animal services will result in cruelty, an increase of stray animals and a lack of resources for pet owners. Please do the humane thing and vote for care, not cruelty – vote to keep animal services public!

Thank you!

If you don't know the contact information for your local councillor, you can find them HERE.

And most importantly, we now have a petition! We got over 200 signatures in the first day but we need a lot more. You may have noticed my snazzy button on the side of the blog (just click and sign!), but here it is again:

Now mobilize! Let's keep TAS public! I'm trying to be optimistic here, is it working?

I really hope my faith in Toronto animal-lovers is not misplaced.

Degus

2011-07-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick post - Montreal SPCA is dealing with a huge number of degus right now. Montreal has literally no resources for adopting out small animals, so these guys don't have much hope. I've been in contact with a volunteer there to figure out if we can bring some here.

The thing is, our shelter is FAR too full. We CANNOT bring any into the shelter. So we need adopters. OR we need foster homes who are willing to keep them until we find adopters. They can't go through the shelter, but if we can get them into foster homes until we find adopters, then they have a place.

Degus are social creatures that need to live in pairs or groups. They are all in groups of 2 or more, except for one single male.

Can anyone adopt or foster to adopt? Or do you know of anyone? I don't know if we can help these guys, but I'd like to try.

Frustration

2011-07-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted. That's partially because I've been out of town twice (and actually, I'm out of town now, sitting in an Internet cafe). It's partially because the foster situation has gotten so out of control I may have been reduced to punching a pillow. It's partially because our small animal room is full, and we've had to deal with a batch of literally starved hamsters, 6 guinea pigs arriving at once, and the fast-growing results of three litters of rabbits.

But I'm not going to write about any of that right now, not really. Because there's something much more important going on right now, the reason I'm sitting in an Internet cafe rather than ignoring the Internet while on vacation.

Toronto has been conducting a service review. And every service is at risk of being cut or at least severely reduced.
And Toronto Animal Services is one of those city services.

I'll be damned if I'm going to let them ruin TAS, especially when they've been improving so remarkably over the past few years. I don't know what's going to happen - if we'll be cut, if we're safe, what we're going to do if they try to cut. There are certainly things in the works and if you know anyone who would like to make some noise on TAS' behalf, let me know. I know I will be! Toronto City Council needs to hear from its citizens that TAS is important to them. They need to hear what happens when you contract out animal services (google 'Montreal Berger-Blanc' if you want nightmares). They need to know the myriad of services that TAS provides and why people care about them.

I cannot even describe how frustrated I am right now. Every time I feel like we're doing something spectacular, like we're really making a difference, this threat looms over our heads. If they ruin this wonderful, relatively-cheap-for-the-city-anyway service, I don't even know how to express my anger.
But there will be action and noise soon. For now, I want to share this:

These 7 baby rabbits were found living under someone's porch last month. If not for TAS South, they would probably be dead right now. Instead, they are safe in a foster home, getting spoiled and socialized, and they will find homes when the time comes - and they'll be spayed and neutered.

This is Chip. As you can see, he arrived at the shelter with a hole in his head, left behind when his owner went to Europe. TAS South took care of him and helped him back to health.

This is Chip a few weeks ago, in his new home, where is loved and spoiled. That is thanks to TAS South.

This is Scotia. He arrived with a group of hamsters, and they had been severely starved. You could feel every bone. They had been fighting for scraps of food, and all had injuries. They didn't all make it, but Scotia and two of his siblings are now available for adoption and at a healthy weight. That's thanks to TAS South.

This is my baby boy, Neville. He is alive because TAS South took the time to find him a foster home and let him grow up. I never talk about this because, let's face it, it's unpleasant. But in most cities, small animals are not lucky enough to get foster homes. In most cities, if a small animal gives birth in a shelter, the family is euthanized due to lack of space and adoptions. Toronto is not like that because TAS makes the effort. Neville is my boy because TAS took the time.

This is Frankie, a 10-year-old Jack Russell who was found as a stray. She found a home at our last adopt-a-thon, because staff and volunteers took the time to do community outreach, and put in their own time to organize community events.

That's not even mentioning how many dogs have been saved from high-kill areas and brought to Toronto through TAS. Or the many stray cats that find homes through our 4 shelters. Or the hundreds upon hundreds of animals that are spayed/neutered thanks to us.

Isn't this worth saving?

Every Day is Canada Day!

2011-07-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

Sure, I said I'd post them 'tomorrow'...four days ago. And sure, Canada Day was actually almost a week ago. Shouldn't we celebrate our country every day?
Here are the Canada Day photos at last!

This is my absolute favourite, I think. Emily here is our new cockatiel, she is hand trained and super sweet, and co-operative enough to pose for this silly photo.

This was our original set-up, with Snickers posing charmingly in front. However, we decided it wasn't QUITE Canadian enough, so we upgraded...

CANADA! That's Squeak, our skinny pig. I know, a skinny pig! That's the first time we've got one since I started. I believe we sent him over to the Humane Society today.

We had lots of Canadiana (at least, we had lots of cheap Canadiana from a dollar store!). Here's Jenny the guinea pig with a hocky puck (she's sitting on the stick). Jenny was adopted over the weekend!

We also had this 'Canada' bucket and a 'Canada' pencil...because pencils and buckets are very traditional parts of this country. That's Sapphire (one of Ruby's older kids), who was fascinated by the bucket.

Chupa, who's usually a little shy, was one of the most co-operative bunnies. Of course, that was thanks to some apple slices. Ha, usually our bribery isn't so obvious in the photos!

Marigold, one of our babies, was adorable as usual. She's extremely good-natured, considering she was being given away in an underpass.

This isn't the best photo, but it's hilarious. We had this headband with sparkly Canadian flags sticking off it, and we put it on Marie Antoinette. I don't think she was too pleased, but amazingly she stood still for the photo.

And there we go! Happy (very belated) Canada Day!

Rabbits in the Spotlight

2011-07-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I emailed the reporter who did the story on the hamsters to thank him for everything. I attached a photo of our baby bunnies and added that we were now overwhelmed with rabbits. Well, not five minutes later, I got an email from his colleague Valerie Hauch - she wanted to do a story on them!

The article was posted in the GTA section of the the Toronto Star's website. It didn't make it into the print version, but it was great that Ms Hauch took the time to cover our little baby boom!
Even better, it was picked up by the free paper Metro:

Metro posted a shortened version of the article on the front page of their web site and printed it in on the second page of the daily paper. Hilariously, I was edited out of the short version and they spelled my name wrong on the website for the photo. Fame is fleeting, I guess!
The phone at the shelter was ringing off the hook the first day. It won't be the instant success the hamster situation was, because the rabbit litters are spaced out and many of them won't be ready to be spayed/neutered for months. But we should get some adoptions (and donations!) out of it.

Thanks to the Toronto Star for once again giving us a helping hand! We are very lucky to get so much attention for our small animals. It gives people a heads up that we actually have small animals for adoption.
It does have a downside though - as people realize we take small animals, they use us more as a dumping ground. This summer has been absolutely insane, and we just got another batch of hamsters the other day with a very sad story to tell.
And yes, if you read that article and wondered about that litter under the porch, they are yet more new arrivals! I have a lot of stories to write about this week.

It's been a while, but it's time for a holiday shoot this weekend - Canada Day photos tomorrow!

Hamster Updates

2011-06-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks in large part to the Star articles, almost all of our hamsters from the hamster chaos have been adopted. We originally had 30 hamsters from the duffel bag. Unfortunately three passed away - two (Merry and Smaug) escaped from their cages and got into dangerous situations, and one (Elphie) passed away suddenly in my house, much to my astonishment. I think it likely that she was born with some kind of heart defect, because it looked like a heart attack.

That sadness aside, we adopted out twenty-five hamsters! That is pretty spectacular. We have two hamsters left for adoptions.

Max (one of Merry's babies) is at Pet Valu right now and Cosette (below, one of Millie's babies) is at the shelter. It's not really a surprise that those two are left, because they both have rather bad attitudes. But they'll find a home soon enough.

I've gotten some really great 'happy endings' on some of the duffel bag hamsters and I'm going to post them, but first I want to share one of my own! Remember Estel, my tiny little runt from the first litter? He looked like this as a pup:

That's him at three weeks old (when they're supposed to look like this and not like aliens). He was severely underdeveloped. I gave him a little TLC (and some oats soaked in evaporated milk), and two weeks later he looked like this. We grew rather attached to him and since we weren't sure how he'd do, we adopted him. And now he looks like this!

Can you even believe that's the same hamster? He actually turned out to be the cutest little ball of fluff ever. He is very sweet, probably because I had to handle him so much to feed him when he was young. So Estel joins our (ever expanding) hammy family!
Now on to some more updates. This one is about Oliver, one of Millie's babies:

Hi Laura,
Just wanted to send along an Oliver update. Well formerly known as Oliver, now known as Sir Maximilian Cornelius Hammington the 1st, aka MC Hammy.
We have been having a great time with him, and he seems to enjoy being in our house!
Hope all is well and enjoy the photos!

Cute! Oliver - sorry, MC Hammy, LOVE the name - looks pretty darn happy!
I also got an update on Gilbert, another one of Millie's babies, who is being spoiled rotten. They sent lots of photos (it was tough to pick a few to post) and a long update that I only edited for space, because the whole thing was super sweet.

Hi Laura,
It's so lovely to hear from you. You guys are all so dedicated to the animals, it is wonderful to see that. As for Gilbert, the newest member of our family, he seems to be a happy, content little boy. Our whole family is fascinated with him. We love to watch his antics. (Even my husband, who never grew up with any pets. He was dying to have his turn holding him on Wednesday!).

The first night Gilbert was a very busy boy. We had set his cage up with the larger dome as his bed and it was tucked in nicely behind the cage to give him more peace and quiet there. Up at the top, we put the smaller globe, and put chinchilla sand in there so that he could have a sand bath if he so chose. Anyway, he moved a bunch of bedding up to the smaller globe on top of the sand, and also brought all of the food from his dish up to his 'bedroom' and buried it! He clearly has his own mind about how things should be organized!

He is so cute. It is actually really nice that he has decided to sleep in the top piece as the position means that when you sit on my son's bedroom sofa, Gilbert is sleeping next to your shoulder! We all find ourselves taking some quiet time sitting just watching him curled up asleep, watching his little nose twitch, and his chest rise and fall.

My son was dying to handle him, but was also a little nervous. He was worried about hurting him or losing him! He did neither. He was very gentle and now is very confident in handling Gilbert. On Wednesday night, and again last night, he sat in my son's hands during bedtime stories (just like one of the kids), you would even think he was listening in. I've got the feeling this could be a regular event!

Gilbert has already been on Skype twice to two homes of extended family in Scotland, and my son had me print out little photos of him to give to some of his friends, and all of the other kids in class!

Did I mention he is really, really, really cute? We love him to bits and hope we have him for a very long time.

Ok, how CUTE is that update? I can't decide what's my favourite part - the bedtime stories, the Skype appearances, Gilbert's photo being passed around the classroom. Every hamster should be so lucky!

Sometimes I love this work!

Out of the Frying Pan

2011-06-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago, I posted that Ruby (one of the rabbits from the hoarder) surprised us all and had 7 kits. I also said that even after the underdeveloped 7th one passed away, I knew she'd cull the weaker kits.

Well, here they are at two weeks old! As you may notice, there are still six kits! Ruby didn't reduce her litter at all. All six are fluffy and active and doing well. On one hand, obviously - SUPER CUTE. On the other hand - that brings our number of foster babies up to 12. Twelve baby rabbits needing homes. Ahhh!

We did a photoshoot yesterday with Pistachio's family (the older litter). They are about 40 days old now, and have entered the lanky, scruffy stage. This is one of my favourite stages of rabbit growth, because they usually haven't grown into their comically oversized ears yet.

Following our tradition of naming babies after their moms, the first foster home named these guys after nuts. This little one is Cashew, my favourite in the litter. He is by far the most outgoing - plus, look at that adorable face!

Then we have Almond here, who has one of those cool bi-coloured eyes I'm noticing more and more. A nice thing about this litter (and Ruby's litter, actually) is that each baby is easy to tell apart. No identical twins!

Hazelnut is the lightest coloured, and my mom's favourite. She inherited Pistachio's crooked face stripe! Although you can't really see it here, Hazel has especially large ears for her head, and therefore is especially cute. I love rabbit ears, have you noticed?

And finally we have Pecan, who was originally the runt of the litter, not that you'd guess that now. They are all super handsome and striking, so at least there's that.
Our total in foster care right now: Jade & Sapphire, Ruby's 6 kits and Pistachio's 4 kits. From the hamster crisis to a rabbit crisis!
It truly is a case of 'out of the frying pan into the fire', because 14 rabbits are a lot harder to deal with than 30 hamsters. But we'll figure it out somehow.

There's been so much going on in foster that I haven't written about the Room in ages. There's been too many stories and not enough time lately! Should I write about our super sweet new guinea pig, the lovebird who arrived with a hole in his head, the rabbit whose owners were arrested, the trio of gerbils?
Too many options!

Why Pet Stores Aren't An Option

2011-06-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to write this for a long time, so naturally when I decided to do information posts, I knew this would be the first one. I started and stopped a couple of times, because it kept getting angry and I don't want it to be angry. I want it to be informative, but I don't want to get angry and I'll explain why, because there is a lot to get angry about.

Last summer, I worked at a camp that was designed to let kids work with animals. I had a new group of children every week, and I made it my mission to drill one message into their brain: If you want an animal, you go to a shelter, rescue or professional breeder. Pet stores were not an option, but I was very careful not to make any statements about people buying from pet stores, because inevitably, one of the kids would talk about an animal they'd bought from a pet store. I bought animals from pet stores too, when I was young, and it wasn't because my parents were horrible people or because I was a horrible person. People don't know and they need to be informed, but there is a fine line between informing and berating them for a poor decision. If you have bought from a pet store, then I hope you love and care for that animal as long as it lives. And I hope you never buy from a store again.

Everyone knows that dogs and cats should never be bought from pet stores, but like most things in animal welfare, that message hasn't yet trickled down to the small animals. So here goes my little thesis on why pet stores are a terrible idea if you're looking for a new animal. I know there are things I've left out, but I was trying not to let it get totally out of control. Feel free to pass this along to anyone thinking of buying a hamster, bird, rabbit or anything at a pet store!

Rabbits
Rabbits that are sold from pet stores are not fixed. An unspayed female rabbit has an 85% chance of getting a reproductive cancer by the age of 5 years old. Their lifespan is almost always cut in half. An unneutered male has a high risk of testicular cancer. Spaying/neutering cuts down on health problems, behavioural problems and destructive behaviours.
Besides the fact that they're not fixed, all animals from pet stores, including rabbits, have a high risk of being sick. Pet store employees are usually minimally trained and don't have the expertise to recognize signs of illness. Even if they do, vets are only called in if the animal is worth well over $100 in value (since a store is a profit-driven venue). Sick animals such as rabbits and hamsters often go unnoticed and are left in with the healthy animals - this means that even if the one you take is healthy, it could soon become sick. Plus, if you have an animal at home, they may pick up something from the pet store animal.
All pet store rabbits are dwarf mixes. However, they are always sold as babies, as pure dwarves. People are told that they won't grow to be any bigger than they already are. I was told that about my first rabbit - she grew to be twice her size. They aren't purebreds and the pet store has no idea how big they'll grow.
Pet store rabbits tend to come from large scale breeders. The rabbits are kept outside in small cages stacked on top of each other, unsocialized, bred back to back until they run out of steam. There are responsible breeders out there - I know they're difficult to find, but there are responsible breeders of rabbits and if you are completely opposed to a shelter pet, they are worth a look. The pet store rabbits won't be purebreds anyway - pet stores get the breeder rejects, not their top picks.
Finally, rabbits are sold as babies at pet stores. Trust me on this - you don't want a baby rabbit. Kits are destructive, high-energy, neurotic little nutcases and they have no interest in cuddling. They do not fully mature, physically or mentally, until they are a year old. So, so many people buy baby rabbits, only to realize they can't handle them and give them to a shelter. Adopt an adult, it'll make your life a whole lot easier.

Hamsters (& Other Rodents)
Oh, I could go on about pet store hamsters all day. They are some of the most abused animals in stores.
Housing: Hamsters need to be housed alone once they hit a certain age. With the piles and piles of hamsters that pet stores go through, they can't monitor which hammies are hitting which age, and the little guys are often left together past maturity. This means fighting and often the weakest ones are injured badly. Living together also produces more stress on the body, which can lead to illness. On the other hand, gerbils are social animals that must live together. They are also failing in popularity, so pet stores often keep them for ages, alone, and that puts stress on their immune systems as well.
Breeding: First off, many pet stores keep their hamster populations up by throwing two in a drawer overnight and hoping it takes - I'm sure we can all see the million problems involved in that method. But more pertinently, employees usually can't tell the males and females apart. They don't separate them at the right age. I'd say if you buy a female from a pet store, you have about a 70% chance of them being pregnant. I cannot tell you how many times people have contacted me or the shelter, complaining that they bought a female and she gave birth the next day. This also applies to rats, gerbils and any other rodent. I'm sorry, pet store employees cannot sex animals.
Illness: Sometimes when I go to pet stores, I go to look at their animals just to torture myself. There are always rodents that are clearly ill, in with other 'healthy' ones. Always. I know what a sick rodent looks like, and there is very rarely an attempt to separate them.
I'll say this a million times: If you buy from a pet store, there is a very high chance that the animal will be sick or have a short lifespan.

Reptiles
While I love reptiles and have owned a snake before, I will freely admit they are not my area of expertise. Reptiles require specialized care and knowledge - you are not going to find that in a pet store.
Employees are not experts. They are trained quickly and do not have years of experience and veterinary knowledge. A sick reptile hides it very well and will not be noticed.
Small display boxes are not appropriate living habitats for reptiles (or any animal), and high stress animals do terribly when forced to be on display all day. There is a lot of stress at pet stores - children making noise, tapping on glass, constant handling.
I'm sure a reptile person could tell you a million other things wrong with reptiles at pet stores, but the basics always apply - they will probably be sick. They will probably be stressed. You may not get what you paid for.

Birds
I may get a lot of disagreement here, but I believe that parrots suffer the most from being in pet stores.
People know about kitten and puppy mills - well, there are parrot mills as well, and they are horrific. Birds are extremely social, intelligent animals. Breeder birds are locked in cages all day and night, left to breed back to back only to have their chicks taken away at a young age to imprint and sell. Breeder birds inevitably turn out nasty and vicious toward humans, and once they stop reproducing, what do you think happens to them? They sure aren't going to be pets. Buying from pet stores supports this industry, just as it does with cats and dogs.
As with other animals, the volume of birds passing through the stores increases the chance of disease. I speak from lots of experience when I say birds are extremely good at hiding the signs of illness until they are literally on death's door. It's very easy to take a bird home from the pet store, looking perfectly healthy, only to have them die in a week. Even worse, they can easily infect your birds at home.
Birds have extremely specific social needs. In stores, they are often either kept alone (the large parrots) or in groups that are much too large (budgies or finches). Both these situations create stress on the bird's body and can lead to illness. Most stores don't have enough knowledgeable staff to regularly handle all birds, so they are rarely tame and often socially neglected. This can lead to biting and other difficult-to-fix behavioural problems.
Cages are usually too small and don't contain enough stimulation, the birds rarely get enough exercise, and their diets are usually nutritionally deficient. Often stores feed only seed,which is not healthy for any parrot, and will usually lead to first time bird owners thinking that's acceptable.
Speaking of first-time bird owners, pet stores often sell higher level parrots such as macaws or cockatoos without fully understanding the care they need themselves. Far too often, parrots are bought from pet stores by people who aren't educated enough and then get bitten by the untamed bird. That bird will probably spend the rest of his life ignored in a cage. Besides which, all birds live over 10 years. The larger parrots can live to be over 80 years old - how many people buy at a pet store on impulse, because the animal caught their eye? Do you think they're prepared for that commitment?
The fact is that birds have extremely specialized needs and there is a one in a million chance that you will find pet store staff educated enough to take proper care of all of them.

Are there some pet stores with knowledgeable staff, who handle the birds at least some times and try to give proper nutrition? Sure. But the fact remains that a crowded store where they are constantly on display and surrounded by other animals simply does not result in a healthy bird.
There are lots of bird breeders out there. I got Loki, my cockatiel, before I got into rescue, and we bought her from a responsible breeder who kept her family in a clean, healthy environment. It's not hard to find a better option than a pet store.

There are certainly pet stores that try to do a better job but I'm sorry, I just don't think it can be done right. It's impossible to keep them healthy in that environment, and it promotes far too many impulse or uneducated buys. And where do those animals end up? On this blog!
I'll say right now that I have nothing but disdain for all of the big chains, and that's not from rumour but personal experience. That's why I love Pet Valu so much, because they don't sell, instead choosing to work with rescues. The chains are profit-driven and their highest priority is never the animals' health and safety.
If you buy from a pet store, you are most likely going to end up with an unsocialized, sick, probably pregnant animal, and you will be supporting a cruel and ignorant industry. If you want a small animal, there are options.
Rescue, shelter or professional breeder.
Pet stores shouldn't even be on the list.

Adoptapalooza

2011-06-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Approximately three months ago, my friend Jenn and I were talking about how to make more adoption events. Jenn is an amazing person who works with the cats at the shelter, runs the foster program, and runs most of our adopt-a-thons. She is an incredible staff member who is always looking for new ways to boost adoptions.
"What about a community center?" I suggested, as we agreed that pet stores were too small for the scope we were considering.
"Yeah, or an outside area around a community center."
"A city-owned space?"
"A park!" She said suddenly. "What about a park?"
After momentary excitement, we both agreed that the parks department would never agree - but we'd try anyway.
We got in contact with the staff at Dufferin Grove, the beautiful park across from Dufferin Mall. And to our astonishment, they were enthusiastic.

After that, things went forward at an incredible pace. Jenn and I spent the next two months frantically planning. There were hours and hours of flyering, contacting newspapers and tv stations, posting on Facebook, arranging volunteers, coming up with ideas to raise money. We decided to have a donations table, a kids' table, face-painting - it quickly ballooned past mere adoptions.
The Star article was a glorious thing that brought the event a lot of attention. Jenn covered the entire neighbourhood with brightly coloured flyers.
There were several moments of sheer panic, in particular the night before, when Jenn called me to say that the forecast was 100% thunderstorms for Saturday. We both had nervous breakdowns and completely freaked out that our months of hard work had been for nothing.
The next day we both woke up at 6 am and realized that the skies were clear. Miraculously, they would remain clear for the entire weekend.

Usually I do two posts for adopt-a-thons, but I was completely exhausted Saturday night, so you get one giant post for a giant adopt-a-thon.
After months of worry and panic and logistics, it was...everything we hoped for and more. It was truly amazing.
We must've had about 500 people come out over the two days. The park staff were amazed at the response. We were incredibly busy both days, and by Sunday night we had no voices left and were dead on our feet. But it was worth it!

Jenn's sister and niece took over our donations table and were completely amazing. They donated buckets of cat toys, made grab bags, and decorated donations tins.

I made some home-made treats that we managed to sell to all small animal adopters. Jenn makes these beautiful little mice that sell like hotcakes all year around. Our younger volunteers turned out to be incredible salespeople!
Our donations table was busy both days, and while we don't have the exact number yet, we raised over $500!

We took a few dogs each day. This little pug mix took about 5 minutes to get adopted on Saturday. The next day, her new family brought her by for a visit. They looked as though they'd been together forever already.

This incredibly handsome boy is Trail, who didn't get adopted. However, Keva the black lab and Keaton the black shepherd both found loving homes! And Trail enjoyed a lovely day out in the park.

We took two rabbits each day, and as usual I didn't expect any adoptions. As another volunteer said, the rabbits come mostly for show, and to educate people that rabbits are available. But to my astonishment, we did two adoptions!
Sassy here is one of those rabbits who are nothing special in the shelter, but at an event, she shined. She loved being on the leash and happily hopped all over the park! She even got featured on Saturday night's Global News. She was adopted Sunday morning and now has a little girl who absolutely adores her and a home where she will live free range.

We also brought Hilda, a portly Holland Lop who had been a complete jerk when she arrived at the shelter. Spaying her made a world of difference and she actually turned out to be a sweetheart. Hilda was adopted on Saturday, also to live free-range. Two rabbit adoptions!

We knew there was going to be a lot of interest in hamsters thanks to the Star article. Still, I had no idea how much interest!
On Saturday, there were three adoptions - Moria, Muppet and Roger, one baby from each litter! We actually forgot to bring boxes for people to take them home, so we were forced to improvise:

Yes, that's Roger going home in a Timbit box. That's not even the worst one - Muppet went home in a tin foil box. At least we got boxes for Sunday!

And good thing, too, because Sunday was hamster day. We did five adoptions - all five boys from Millie's litter (aka the famous hamsters in the Star). Sully, Sweeney, Gilbert, Billy and Fiyero all found families of their own. Their entire family cleared out in two days, save for their two sisters who are still at my house.

And then we get to the cats! We did an amazing amount of cat adoptions - NINETEEN in total! The best part was that people weren't picky about age or gender. Sure, all the kittens got adopted as usual (including Ziggy, above). But a great deal of adults also got adopted!

But the highlight of the entire weekend was one adoption. Nixie (above) was at the shelter for six months last year before being adopted - only to be dumped in a park by her adopter. She was found and brought back to the shelter, where she waited for another six months. During that time, she shared a room with Nala, who had been waiting for 8 months herself. The two became bonded. At the adopt-a-thon, they didn't sell themselves very well - just sat next to each other looking haughty.
And yet despite all odds...one amazing family adopted the two girls as a pair! After a year of waiting, Nala and Nixie had a home - and they even got to stay together. What a truly amazing adoption!

Besides Nixie and Nala, two other very long-term cats were also adopted, Miracle and Fern. All of our seriously long-timers found homes at the event. It was just a great weekend for adoptions. The photo is Pickles, another adopted cat, in the carrier on his way to his new home.

In total, we had 32 adoptions, a record for an event like this. We were also featured on Global News and in the Bloordale Press. We raised over $500.

It was everything we wanted and more. It was so worth the months of work.
I think this will lead to very good things in the future. It was bigger than we expected and I hope it paves the way for more events like this.
Now to catch up on sleep!

Surprise!

2011-06-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Damn the fertility of rabbits.
Look what appeared in Ruby's cage a few days ago:

Yes, more babies.
Actually, I'm such an idiot - I didn't even consider that Ruby was pregnant. As I posted a few days ago, Ruby arrived with two kits from the rabbit hoarder who was keeping them outside. I was so preoccupied with the newborn litters of Pistachio and Rascal, and with making sure Jade and Sapphire were okay, that it never even occurred to me that Ruby could be pregnant with more. Even though I know very well that rabbits can get pregnant again the day they give birth.

To be fair, Ruby is a skinny rabbit, probably from living outside. She had no bulge and almost no fat on her. She didn't look pregnant in the slightest and I couldn't feel babies the day before she gave birth. Which is why it was such a shock when she had a litter of seven.

One of the kits was a 'peanut' (not the one in the photo). Peanuts are underdeveloped babies that are common in dwarf breeds, and they are incapable of survival. Recognizing this, Ruby moved it out of the nest into the corner of the cage, where it passed away the next day. I am prepared for more deaths as well - 6 kits are a lot for one skinny mom to raise, especially when she just weaned her older babies a few weeks ago.

Naturally, they are freaking cute. I nicknamed this one Blaze because of his beautiful stripe. They were born on June 4, and he is already very furry. Ruby's a good, experienced mom and the remaining 6 kits are fat and active. As time passes, the weaker ones will be weeded out but I wouldn't be surprised if it's still a large litter in the end.

They're all black and white except this fascinating little guy we've nicknamed Silver. He's almost metallic looking and very shiny - I'm very interested to see what he looks like as an adult.

So here we go again. Jade and Sapphire were hastily transferred to another cage when I noticed Ruby ripping out her fur for a new nest, and now they are staying with another foster home until they're old enough to be spayed.

And this is Pistachio's family earlier today, chowing down on some food.
All these little rabbits that didn't have to exist - now they need love and care and homes, homes that could have gone to any of the rabbits at any shelter. There is no reason for this to happen - it was caused 100% by someone who had too many and chose to throw them all outside and let them breed.
Thanks a bunch!

Extreme Makeover

2011-06-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that the blog looks entirely different!

In a few days, it will be the 2-year anniversary of starting this blog. It certainly doesn't feel that long - it seems I should be better at it after all that experience! I went back and read my first post though, and it's pretty ridiculous so I guess I've improved. Um - please don't go back and read the first posts.
I read a bunch of them actually, and my knowledge of fostering has definitely increased exponentially. It's amazing my first hamster litter did okay, considering I had no idea what I was doing.

Anyway, in honour of this momentous occasion, I did something I've wanted to do for ages. This blog was too small - when I wrote a wordy post, it would fill up the entire page. I made it wider, and I changed the heading. The old photo was the first animal I adopted from TAS, my dwarf hamster Strauss. However, Strauss died over a year ago, and he didn't properly represent the kaleidoscope of species we get in the Room. I hope this header does the department more justice!

So I hope you like it! And if you don't, too bad, I'm afraid - it took me long enough to figure out how to change it, I'm pretty sure I'm incapable of changing it back.

On for another year of rabbits, hamsters, rats, guinea pigs, birds and whatever else the public can throw at us!

News from the Warren

2011-06-01T23:35:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy with these hamsters and arranging foster transfers and taking photos and all other madness in our incredibly packed Room, that I never told the story of these rabbits. And it is a story worth telling.

You may recall me freaking out about a bunch of rabbits arriving during the hamster madness.
It turns out a woman was hoarding rabbits. As her home got too full, she would throw the surplus rabbits into the backyard. Living in the wild, they naturally started breeding and forming their own little community. Finally, Rabbit Rescue and TAS did a round-up and brought the poor things inside.

The five males went to Rabbit Rescue, four females went to TAS North and we at South received two females and a mom with two older kits.
This is Rascal (formerly known as Kittiwake, but she kept breaking out of her cage so Rascal seemed to suit her better). Rascal arrived pregnant from her life outside. She gave birth in the shelter to three kits and went to my house for foster. Sadly, due to malnutrition or stress or whatever, she couldn't nurse properly and all three kits died within two days.

Ruby also came straight to my house for foster. She arrived from the hoarder with two kits, about three weeks old. It's so impressive that she managed to raise her little ones and keep them safe in that crazy environment.

Her two kits, Sapphire and Jade, are growing like weeds. These two fluffballs are sweet as sugar and cute as buttons. I'm pretty sure they're both girls and they make a lovely little pair.

And then we have Pistachio here. She arrived at the shelter pregnant and went to the always amazing Grace for foster. She astonished everyone by having 7 babies on Mother's Day.
Grace's husband is allergic to rabbits and while he was remarkably cheerful about the whole thing, as the kits grew up it got overwhelming and Pistachio's family transferred to me.

And they are SO CUTE. Sadly, seven was too much for Pistachio to care for, and three didn't make it. The other four are doing fantastic, as you can see. You'll notice that every single rabbit that came from this situation is a Dutch mix. They're all striped little balls of fluff, black and brown and white. There will be a billion photos of them in an upcoming post.

Haha, look at their disgusted faces. Disapproving Rabbits, anyone?
And so, the final count from this little nightmare? Five males at RR, four females at TAS North, and 3 females with 6 kits at South. A total of 18 little lives that came out of one person's mistake.

I wish people would stop making such large mistakes!

The Hamsters Seen Round the World

2011-05-29T04:02:00.000-07:00

Wow, yesterday was amazing!
A few days ago, I posted this photo on our Facebook page:

I attached it to a plea for cage donations, because I had just done the math and realized that the two younger litters (from the duffel bag) were ready to go and we were still short about 20 cages (ah!).
The next day I got an email from a reporter at the Toronto Star! He had seen the photo and wanted to do a short piece on our hamster explosion.
The result was in Saturday's paper:

The reporter was fantastic, huge thanks to Henry Stancu!
The print version included the article with a short interview with me, and my photo taking up half the page. Pretty exciting! As of last count, 135 people had shared it on their Facebook pages. Even better, I've had tons of emails offering cages, and the shelter has received a fair few calls for donations and adoptions.
Our upcoming adoption event even got a mention!

(Another, less famous shot from the photoshoot)
Later that day, the shelter got a call from someone in California. They had somehow seen the article and was so impressed, they were sending a donation.
From California.
Then, that evening, someone posted on the Facebook page to tell us that we were on Cute Overload:

Cute Overload!! Internet fame, here we come!

The photo is of Millie's babies (they've grown a bit since I last posted them). I sure hope we get a lot of adoptions from all this excitement, because right now we've still got a whoppin' 30 hamsters waiting!

Huge thanks to Henry Stancu (who was super nice and went out of his way to do this story), the Toronto Star and Cute Overload! This was great exposure for TAS and it'll bring a lot of attention to the fact that we actually have small animals (I know, who knew?).Whoever adopts Millie's kids will have celebrity hamsters!

Also: I am working on an info post, but I got sidetracked by all this. Soon though!

In the Community

2011-05-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

In Toronto, when people think of an animal shelter, they automatically think of the Humane Society. Very few people know what TAS is, and if they do know, they tend to think of us as the city pound that euthanizes animals every three days. Once upon a time that was true, but clearly that's not the case anymore.

Every time we do an event, we reach out to the community and let them know who we are, which is great! A few days ago, the Running Room in Liberty Village held their grand opening and to celebrate, they organized a run/walk to benefit TAS. We brought dogs and kittens and had a great time.

A lot of runners/walkers turned out and we got on the news. It was great exposure for all four shelters, as there were officers from all locations.

There were also dogs from all locations. This girl is from our shelter, and she arrived with no name. We had two kittens that one of the staff named Ritz and Crackers, so to continue with the theme, we called this excitable pup Triscuit.

John Stanton, the founder of the Running Room, also came out to the event and spoke about connecting to the community. That was the theme of the day.

The evening started with the ribbon-cutting ceremony and continued with the run. I couldn't stay for the whole night, but it sounds like it went well!
Some of the dogs were tired of standing around, so the volunteers took them on the walk. The next day I found this on one of their kennels:

Cute!

On another note, I was thinking of doing more 'informational' posts, about general small animal care and such. Things like common health problems, how to fix certain behavioural issues, what makes a good kids' pet. One of the biggest problems and frustrations with small animals is that no one knows anything about them. Maybe I can be mildly helpful in that regard!

Recent Adoptions: Baggins (one of my foster babies!) and Legolas were adopted at Pet Valu, and Stuart Little was adopted (not by me, although it was a close thing). Frodo and Bilbo were adopted together, and the Flemish Giant baby went to Rescue.

Lovebirds

2011-05-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

A lovebird arrived at the shelter on May 10th.I didn't meet him for a few days, but I heard about him from one of the staff.
"You see our new lovebird?" He asked me. "Vicious little biter. We named him Tyson! You want him?"
"Uh, no thanks." I said. "One aggressive lovebird is enough for me."

This is my lovebird, Bailey. And I did him wrong in that description - he's not 'aggressive' or 'mean', but he's not exactly cuddly. He's a good example of how a parrot can be messed up through no fault of its own.
Bailey came from a rough life. We know he had at least 4-5 homes before us, probably more. At some point he ended up in the wild, having either escaped or been let 'free'. Thin and cold, he landed on a woman's shoulder down by the lake one day, probably desperate for food and water. She stuffed him in her purse to take him home, and kept him for a few days. Not knowing anything about parrots, she quickly got tired of his incredible noise and refusal to go anywhere near her. She gave him to a friend.

That friend kept him in a tiny cage and never let him out. Soon she got tired of him too, and gave him to a couple she knew. They tried letting him out but couldn't handle his wild behaviour and aggression. Eventually he got relegated to cage life once again. They named him "Peaches" although that soon became "Screeches" due to his noise.
At this point, my mom and I had decided to get a second bird to join our beloved cockatiel. We'd decided on another tiel, when we received a phone call from this couple.

We didn't really know anything about lovebirds. I wasn't into rescue yet and we certainly didn't know anything about dealing with abused birds. He seemed a little wild but ok, so we scrapped our plans for a cockatiel and took him home.
We soon named him Bailey after Bailey's Irish Cream, because we thought he'd drive us to drink. The first year was...tough. We found out he'd been abused, neglected and tossed from home to home. He had a lot of issues. He would lunge at your hands and bite deeply without any provocation. He screamed at everything nonstop. He wouldn't come out of the cage without biting, then wouldn't go into the cage without biting. He ripped everything to shreds.

We regretted the hasty decision to take him, but we had made the commitment. We fuddled our way through his issues. It took a long, long time.
We've had Bailey for four years now. He has made immense progress.
The great thing about Bailey is that he's damn smart. Once he stopped panicking about everything that had hurt him in the past, he learned easily. He learned not to bite unless provoked, to 'step up' for food. He enjoys our company and spends most of his time with us. And as long as one of us is home, he is free to roam the house.

This is his home now. He is extremely protective of our home and our family. When we bring in new fosters, he will sit on the cage staring at them for a couple of days to make sure they aren't a danger. He despises strangers and when we move furniture - change is never welcome. He loves this place and he even regards his cage as a safe haven now, putting himself to bed at night. And you know what - I love that damn bird to pieces.

In the wrong hands, Bailey would be a nightmare. He is not really trained in the traditional sense. He knows the commands 'no', 'git', 'go to bed', 'quiet' and 'hop up' (if food is involved) - but he'll only obey if he respects you. He will misbehave if you don't realize that he is highly intelligent and treat him as such.
Bailey is not a pet I recommend. He is precisely why I don't recommend parrots to anyone, because they aren't 'pets'. They are companions, much too smart for their own good and with extremely specific, high-maintenance needs. I can see the intelligence in Bailey's eyes and I know that I have to work with him, not against him, if I want us to co-exist. And he can't be rehomed - especially with his past, he would not be able to handle a change in family. He will be with me for the rest of his life .

Back to the lovebird at the shelter. When I finally met Forrest, I had to laugh.
Yes, he bites. He bites a lot actually, and you know why? Because no one taught him that biting is bad.
Forrest is a little mischief-maker, but he's not aggressive. He's been taught that it's a game to nip at fingers in the cage, and he likes to chew everything. It's just a bad habit, and with consistency, he will learn to drop it. I managed to avoid a single bite by giving him his space, showing him respect and taking the fun out of the biting game.
Here's a nifty tip: If a bird bites you, push back towards his face. It's instinct to pull away, but that just makes it a game. Pushing towards him is uncomfortable for him and forces him to let go. Doesn't usually take long before they figure out biting's no fun.

Besides that one bad habit, Forrest is actually an awesome little guy. Super curious and outgoing and playful. He loves to chew paper and he's very people-oriented; always has to know what you're doing and will sit on your knee. He really liked my camera and kept crawling all over it. He even had a nice bath.
Yes, he's badly behaved inside his cage. And he doesn't like being cooped up. Outside the cage, he's a playful little brat who needs to be taught some manners, but otherwise he's a friendly, happy, cheerful guy.

He'll make an awesome companion, but he needs someone with the right mentality or somewhere down the line, he'll end up like Bailey.

They aren't called lovebirds because they're loving and sweet all the time. They're called lovebirds because they form incredibly strong attachments to the family they get - bird, people, whatever. They are sensitive, high-strung, high-maintenance animals, but it doesn't mean they're any less deserving of a family. If anything, it means they need one more, because without that consistency, they are lost.

Scatterbrained

2011-05-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted, partially because Blogger decided not to let anyone in, and partially because it's been crazy this last week.

A few days ago, I unfortunately received a call from one of our amazing foster families telling me that 3 rabbit kits had passed away.
Then a litter of 3 arrived at the shelter, and one died on arrival. The other two came to my house, where despite my best efforts, they passed away a few hours later. That's the mom, Kittiwake, up there.
So that sucked.
How about something more positive?

That's our little runt, Estel! I was so sure he wasn't going to survive, but look at him. Amazing what a little evaporated milk and TLC can do. I mean, he looks like a total weirdo, but he's doing great. Active, healthy appetite, playful little guy. Hopefully someone won't mind adopting a miniature hamster!

Speaking of hamster babies, this is Moria, one of Arwen's girls. She was very sleepy when we picked her up, as you can see, and decided it was easier just to continue sleeping in my hand.

Awwww squished faces. Even though I know the foolishness of naming rabbits so young, I couldn't resist (I will never learn). The one on the left is now Sapphire and the one on the right is now Jade, named after gems like their mum.

Lookit the fluffiness! I am calling them little girls for the next month and will refuse to believe they're boys until they are fully adult.

Honestly this entire post could be baby bunny photos. But let's resist that temptation!

Here's another baby!
No, seriously.
It's a Flemish Giant baby. Because what we needed right now was one of the largest rabbits in the world.
He is freaking adorable though.

Besides the foster craziness, we've had a bunch of surrenders at the shelter. Right now, the Room has 7 rabbits, 4 hamsters, a rat, a lovebird, a mouse and a cockatiel! Julius, the handsome cockatiel, is pictured below.

Total number of small animals currently affiliated with TAS South? Fifty-seven.

Hey, remember that hoarder last year? This is kind of like that, except spread over a few hoarders and a bunch of normal surrenders with unfortunate timing. Yay!

Does this post seem a little scattered? That's probably because my brain ceased proper functioning last week.
The joys of rescue!

Ten Little Hamsters

2011-05-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

They're finally all sexed and named, and later this week they will be separated and Arwen will go up for adoption. So I thought I'd introduce everyone to Arwen's little ones - as individuals for the first time!

Baggins, a male brown one, named after the Baggins family of course - we stuck to our guns about the Lord of the Rings theme!

Brandybuck, a female brown, and one of my favourites. She has a very distinctive personality! Named after Merry Brandybuck, a Hobbit.

Elrond, a male red-eyed cream. I think these guys will turn out looking a lot like their mom. Elrond is named after the elf and my mom's favourite character.

Estel, our little runt. I'm pretty sure she's a female, but it's hard to tell because she's so small. She looks way better now than when she was really young - her eyes are open and her ears are popped up. Her fur is still pretty scraggly and she's half the size of the others, but she's pretty strong and fights for her food now.

Gimli, a male brown. The majority of the litter was male, with at least 6. If Estel is female, then there are 4 females.

Moria, a female brown, named after the Mines of Moria. Where, yes, not the most pleasant things happened, but it's still a pretty name!

Pippin, female, the dark fawn. Pippin is the cutest thing ever, but it is absurdly hard to get good photos of her. She's very feisty!

Rohan, the light fawn, a male. Rohan is very sweet, and very pretty - his back is sort of mottled gold and white. His red eyes aren't so obvious in real life, but the flash of a camera certainly brings them out.

Shadowfax, a male, the only white with black eyes. I love this guy, he is super outgoing and adventurous.

Smaug is the last one, a male red-eyed cream. He's a little bit shyer than his twin Elrond.
And that's the last of them! They'll be separated by gender into smaller groups by the end of this week, and then next week we'll start sending them to the shelter. Hard to believe they're almost ready to go!

On a side note, Pistachio (the pregnant rabbit staying with Grace) gave birth yesterday - to SEVEN kits. Ohhh my goodness. That brings our number of foster babies up to around 40.
Help!

Too. Many. Babies.

2011-05-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

The last week has been utter chaos. It started with this:

The third female hamster from the duffel bag gave birth in my house on May 4th. Millie had a very large litter - we count 15-16 babies. They are incredibly ugly at this age, as you can see from that photo (they're 2 days old there).

Like the others, Millie is a very sweet, good-looking hamster and a good mom. But good lord! Arwen has 10 kids, Millie has 15-16 kids, and Merry (who is at another foster home) has a litter of unknown number. That's at the very least about 30 hamster babies in foster.

Speaking of Arwen's kids, all 10 of them are going strong. Knock on wood, but I think Estel (our little runt) is doing really well - she's just a little behind everyone else. The rest of them look like actual hamsters now, it's amazing. That's one of the females up there, whom we've named Moria. I'll do a post showing all of them within the next few days.

A few days after Millie gave birth, three dwarf hamsters were brought to the shelter. Two females and a male, who'd been living together for two eeks. The females are named Mable and Moira, have a high probability of being pregnant and are now in foster care. They're with the amazing Grace & Casey, our super awesome foster parents who have saved us multiple times.
And then this happened:

BABY BUNNIES. WHAT THE HECK!
Somehow, the shelter ended up with a pregnant rabbit, a rabbit with two kits, and a litter of orphans the other day. Sigh.

I took the mom with her kits. We've named the mom Ruby, and she is very, very shy, poor thing. She also looks like a jackrabbit, I've never seen such a tall, lean rabbit.

Her little ones are, of course, frigging adorable. They will eventually be named after gems like their mother, but since we don't know their genders yet, I'm calling them Thing One (on the right) and Thing Two for now. Clearly they are Dutch mixes, since Thing Two looks like a perfect Dutch (also he looks almost exactly like my Neville when he was a baby).

So cute. Thing One loves his mom.

So let's recap here:

Hamsters:

Arwen, 10 kids (my house)
Millie, 15-16 kids (my house)
Merry, unknown # of kids (another foster home)
Mable & Moira, probably pregnant (the Amazing Grace)

Rabbits:

Ruby & 2 kids (my house)
Pregnant rabbit (the Amazing Grace)
Orphan kits (another foster home)

Um.
What just happened?!?!
Dear Public: PLEASE stop being stupid and breeding, because we are seriously running out of foster homes. Thanks.

Checking In

2011-05-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

Last night, I was perusing the Craigslist pet section as usual, when I ran across a posting about a found rabbit. It said they'd found a rabbit at the streetcar tracks, "behind the Coffee Time". I thought I'd better email them and let them know they could bring it to a shelter - 'I'll do it tomorrow', I thought.

No need! They arrived with the beautiful bunny at the shelter this afternoon. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, they'd named him Carlos. He was lucky to have been found by them - despite what many people think, pet rabbits are not meant to survive in the North American wild, much less a busy city.

Carlos is an extremely handsome, friendly guy. That's not a rabbit you see every day! He did start sneezing after settling into his new cage, but I'm hoping that's stress and not a cold starting. No getting sick allowed!

Carlos isn't the only new face in the Room. This is Athena, another unique-looking rabbit. She's as pretty as can be, and she's got an attitude to match. She just got spayed, however, so hopefully part of that superiority complex was caused by hormones!

And then we have Edgar, this adorable little guy who is being held on protective custody. Not sure what his story is yet (I'm sure it's an 'interesting' one), but he will be held for a certain amount of time before going up for adoption. He looks like a perfect cross between a Netherland Dwarf and English Spot.

Lotta movin' and shakin' going on in the Room...hamster pups, one-legged birds, streetcar rabbits! I've got a lot to post over the next few days.
On the plus side, Legolas, Vanilla, Lizzie, Pancakes, Rose, Petunia and Holly (finally!) have all been adopted within the last two weeks!

Motherhood is Tough

2011-05-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

This photo makes me laugh so much. Poor Arwen. Trapped with 10 kids, day in, day out. Hang in there, Arwen - it's almost over!

Whenever they nurse, she looks dead, it's a little disturbing. Poor momma, mobbed by 10 hungry little guys. There are still 10 - our little runt is hanging in there, amazingly.

This is from a few days ago. You can see the runt's half the size of the others. We've named him Estel (an Elvish name from Lord of the Rings) and I've been trying to give him special attention, but he is quite tiny. If he does survive, I'm not sure if he'll live a normal life or what. We'll just have to wait.

The others are little pigs. We have been giving them a varied, healthy diet to make sure their digestive systems develop properly and that they get fat and big. They love their food - that guy up there is enjoying a piece of carrot as big as his head.

We feed them greens, apple slices, oats, carrots, peanuts and cheese every day, as well as the occasional bits of dog food for protein. The greens are great for hydration (and as you can see, they adore them). Although today they all figured out how to use the water bottle!

There are two cream/white-coloured pups, with ruby red eyes. These two are super squirmy. I'm fairly sure one is female and one's male, so they will be named Elrond and Rivendell once we separate them.

There are four brown and black pups. They are absolutely impossible to tell apart, but they're frigging cute. We're debating some names for when we separate them - Baggins, Brandybuck and Gimli are for sure, but we can't decide on number four.

The browns are very active and exploratory, and it's a fun game to try and get them to stay still. They love to all go in different directions!

All the babies seem very comfortable with human hands, climbing all over our fingers. Today they decided that my thumb tasted delicious, and for some reason, every single baby tried chewing on me. It didn't really hurt but we are trying to discourage that habit!

This is Pippin, my favourite. He's a gorgeous dark golden colour and the boldest of the litter.

Rohan is Pippin's twin in a lighter colour. He was the last one to open his eyes and is still a little squinty.

And finally there's Shadowfax, who is beyond adorable. Look at that big nose! Shadowfax is the fourth white one, but he stands out because of his gorgeous black eyes.

They are almost ready to be weaned - they will be separated into smaller groups, away from their momma, by next Friday or earlier. Their ears are starting to pop up and soon they should look like proper hamsters.

Meanwhile, Merry, one of the other hamsters from the duffel bag, gave birth in the shelter today. "Too young to be pregnant" my you-know-what. Luckily a foster family was dropping off another animal, so they took her. Millie, the third female, looks very round as well and I've taken her home to wait for more babies.Three litters? This duffel bag count is adding up.

A Mouse Named Stuart

2011-04-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm in love with a mouse.
This guy arrived at the shelter through a complicated series of events. Suffice it to say, his previous purpose in life was to be snake food. Luckily for him, he is now in the Room and looking for his new purpose - to be someone's awesome pet. I named him Stuart Little (cliches be damned!).

I have never met a tame mouse before. I mean, in the first place, we get them very rarely. And they are difficult to tame, especially if no one handled them when they were young. But this guy is the sweetest rodent I've ever met. He loves to be handled - jumps right on your hand and gives you little kisses!

I'm not going to lie, the first day I almost took him home. In fact, I proclaimed that if no one had adopted him within a week, I'd take him. That week is almost up....someone come get him??

Feeder mice are never socialized. I think what happened is that someone's pet had babies and they gave them to the pet store, and the pet store then sold them as food. I can't believe Stuart wasn't someone's pet at some point, he is way too nice.
He loves his fresh greens, as you can see! This guy goes crazy for healthy treats.

I've been promoting him enthusiastically all over the Internet, but while there has been a lot of positive response, so far no takers. This Monday I'll feature him on the Facebook page.
To prove how sweet he is, I even made a dorky video:

Somebody please adopt him - save me from myself!

Side note, baby hamster update: Sadly two of the little ones passed away, despite Arwen's best efforts. There is one more runt remaining, who is half the size of the others, so we'll see how he does. The rest of them are fat and very active, and their eyes are almost open - just a crack!

Baby Steps

2011-04-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

I am totally in love with my latest foster family. That's Arwen sitting in the nest, various baby limbs sticking out from under her.She is the most amazing mom - I'm happy to say that all 12 babies are still doing well and thriving. In fact, I think there might thirteen.

They still look like little aliens, but they're mostly over the dangerous age when they might not thrive, or Arwen might eat them. Here you can see one of them yawning, and you can see a little bit of a tooth. They have little incisors and are able to chew on solids, which they do with relish.

Arwen will take up any food we give her and place it on top of them to encourage them to chew it. Here you can see one of the (adorable!) fawn babies chewing on a piece of peanut. We're giving Arwen lots of different foods to keep her healthy and fatten up the babies - peanuts for protein, fresh greens for hydration, pieces of carrot and fruit.

This little guy, one of the black & tans, has actually started wandering around the cage. This is driving Arwen crazy - she keeps picking him up and throwing him back into the nest. She'd better get used to it, though, because over the next few days the whole group of them should start wandering and exploring.

There are about 5 little black & tan babies, including the adventurous ones. There are also 5 (or maybe 6!) that look white or pale cream - it'll be interesting to see what those guys look like when they're older. And rounding out the group are two golden/fawn ones - they're my favourites.

All the photos probably look the same in small-view, so I suggest clicking large view. I love that little brown guy resting his head on his brothers. All the babies will be named after Lord of the Rings stuff, following their mom's name. We've made a big list, since there's so many of them!

They're about 11 days old now. Over the next two days, they'll start opening their eyes and running around, and eating more solid foods. By Saturday, I can start handling them without disturbing mom so much. A week after that and they'll be weaned.
They grow up so fast!

Easter Bunnies, Guinea Pigs & Mice

2011-04-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

Of course we did an Easter shoot. Easter is not a great holiday for small animals, what with the unfortunate tradition of buying rabbits and chicks and then dumping them afterward. So we decided to reclaim the day with cuteness!
That's Pancakes up there - with the cutest photo ever. I love it!

Guinea pigs are so easy to work with - I tried to get a bunch of rabbits to stay in the basket, but with Martha, she just sat there.

Callalily - she and her siblings are all grown up now, and man, they are huge. I love that "Bunny Crossing" sign.

Vanilla is our other adult guinea pig - she wasn't a big fan of the basket but she posed nicely in front of the main display.

(We may have gone a little overboard with our decorations here)

Petunia, one of Callalily's sisters. This is another one of my favourite shots, I love the basket and fake flowers in front of her.

This is Stuart, a baby mouse whom I just adore. I am seriously in love with this boy - and this photo turned out adorably!

Lizzie, the punk rock guinea pig from a few posts ago. She really liked that Lindt bunny.

Rose, the last of the flowery siblings. I liked the little touch of the Easter plates on the wall - and for once, that ugly purple wall matched!

This was one of my favourite photoshoots. I think it turned out really cute! I hope you guys enjoy it too.

And one more of my favourite boy Stuart:

Shoeboxes & Duffel Bags

2011-04-24T09:34:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter everyone! An Easter photo shoot will be coming tomorrow, but today I have a strange story for you:

A young woman showed up at the shelter on Good Friday. She had a large duffel bag with a sports logo on the side. She was surrendering hamsters.

As the staff at the front desk tried to decipher exactly how many she had, she would pull different hamsters out of the bag and wave them around, laughing. It was like a movie where the bag has no bottom. Inside the bag were shoeboxes,and inside the shoeboxes were hamsters.
It was impossible to get a straight answer out of her.
My favourite part was when we asked her if the females could be pregnant, and she replied that no, they were too young - and they were separated from the boys "most of the time". The girls are 8 weeks old - 4 weeks past sexual maturity.
When they asked her why she was surrendering them, she said her Dad was making her give them up.
Honestly, I can't really say I blame him.

The final count revealed a total of 16 hamsters in that bag - 3 adults in shoeboxes, and a mom with babies in a cage.

This is the male, Legolas, a big handsome cream Teddy Bear with a chunk out of his ear. Yes, that Legolas - he has long blond hair, I couldn't help it. The Lord of the Rings theme continues!

This is Merry, named after the hobbit. She's sort of a half-hearted Teddy Bear - long fur, but not that long. Since we don't know the last time she 'might' have been with a male, we are forced to put her on pregnancy watch/no-adopt for 2 weeks.

This is Millie, the second female (the one she was waving around in the first place). Also on pregnancy watch! The good thing is that they're all very gentle and social. The bad thing is that the two girls are on pregnancy watch.
Oh, and then we get to the babies:

The mom is also a Teddy Bear, and now named Arwen. She and her twelve (yes, twelve) little ones were in a tiny cage, about 10-15 cm on each side. There was no nesting material, and the cage was packed with rotten food - mouldy pieces of bread, rotted pieces of chicken. It smelled disgusting. The water bottle was dry, and that wasn't new - it was dusty.
Hamster mothers eat their young if they are stressed, or feel they can't provide for them. This mother had 12 babies, even after 6 days of living in filth without proper water or nutrition. As soon as I placed her in a new cage and gave her some ripped up toilet paper, she made a magnificent nest and moved them all inside. I've never seen a hamster so determined to keep her pups.

Here they are, just yesterday. They went to my house immediately for foster. As of yesterday, I was still absolutely sure there were 11,and I could've easily missed one under the pile of wriggling pups.
I don't mind when hamsters eat their pups - it's just a part of fostering hamster families. But Arwen is super-mom. She seems so determined to provide for these little ones, I can't help pulling for her. I hope they all make it.

Also, shoebox/duffel bag lady? Please don't ever buy a hamster again.

There and Back Again

2011-04-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

If you are remotely interested in the works of JRR Tolkien, you know that some sneak peeks at the filming of The Hobbit have recently been released. This has put me on a Lord of the Rings kick, and therefore all the most recent animals in the Room have LOTR names.
These guys, for instance, are Frodo and Bilbo!

This one is Frodo, and he has very handsome colouring indeed. Frodo is the gentler, loftier of the two - he tends to find a very high perch and stare at you intently.

This gorgeous boy is Bilbo, and he is just stunning. I love his feathers. Bilbo will nip you if you grab him, but I have to say he's my favourite. He's just got a funny personality. Very shy at first, but kind of mischeivous. Today, for instance, staff arrived at the Room to find he'd escaped from his cage!

I can't really blame him. These two arrived at the shelter with a large group of budgies, and all the other birds had to be euthanized. It was a big mess, with a lot of feather-plucking and disease. Their last home had clearly been terrible.

I doubt Frodo and Bilbo had ever been out of a cage in their lives. The first time I let them out, they ran into the wall and fell over themselves trying to fly. They didn't know what to do with their wings.

The second time, they were thrilled. And now they've got a taste of freedom, and Bilbo has decided to take matters into his own wings and get out whenever he feels like it.

I hope in their next home, these two get lots and lots of exercise time, and never forget what to do with their wings again.

Pancakes & Punk Rock

2011-04-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

Check out that hairdo!
We got two new personalities in the Room last week. This little girl was one of them. While she arrived with the name 'Bella', it drives everyone crazy to have two animals with the same name and there was already a Bella (although she's now been transferred to THS). Therefore, this little one is now named Lizzie.

I like to call her 'Frizzy Lizzie'. I know the whole point of the Abyssinian breed is to have a bad hair day everyday, but that's ridiculous. She's also just over a month old and still a baby, so you know...beyond adorable.

It always cracks me up that guinea pigs can look totally different on each side.
Lizzie will grow up fast, but right now she practically fits in the palm of your hand, and I have no doubt she will find a home faster than you can say "Punk rock".

Our other newbie is this three-year-old Holland Lop, Pancakes. Pancakes is not very pleased to be in the shelter, and I'm pretty sure she was treated like a princess in her last home. Her incoming card notes that she had lots of playtime with her last owners' small child. She is a super affectionate girl, but like many rabbits, hates being picked up. Get down to her level and she will be tooth-purring for you in no time.

Unfortunately for her, she also has ear mites, but they are easy to treat. I think they were making her a little grumpy - they itch like crazy!

There are some big things coming up for the shelter - kitten season has begun, the Easter rush is right around the corner, and we're exploring some new options for adoption events. It's beginning to feel like summer (even though it keeps snowing - what is up with that?).

Rat-tastic

2011-04-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

No posts all week because I've been battling a mighty battle with U of T exams, but happily the worst of them are over and it's back to the shelter this weekend.
I mentioned in my last few posts that we have recently receive quite the group of rats. Thanks to the amazing community of crazy rat people (and I do mean that in the best way possible), a bunch have been adopted already!

It started with a pair of 6-mos-old siblings. The two were transferred from Etobicoke at the very end of March. BamBam, the male, was adopted to a multi-rat home and renamed Fred almost right away. Pebbles (above), the female, came with us to the Pet Valu event - and started to show signs of pregnancy. When we inquired, we found out they hadn't been separated properly. Sigh! Pebbles is now in limbo, but unless she gave birth this week while I was away, I think she's out of the woods.

Soon after, Scarborough received a huge litter or two of rats (don't ask me why Scarborough always gets these big dumps of rats). I stupidly suggested we transfer some, since we normally have such great success. We received two pairs of babies. The boys, Ernie (above) and Bert, were adopted at the Pet Valu event.

The girls, Emma (above) and Charlotte, were still at the shelter last time I was there, but they have disappeared from the website and I suspect they've been adopted. I wouldn't be surprised, Emma in particular was a big sweetheart.

What I didn't know was that Etobicoke was transferring a litter to us at the same time Ernie, Bert, Emma and Charlotte arrived. Oops.
Meet the Beatles! John, Paul and Ringo are cuddled up here, with George off somewhere else. Yes, these brothers have that lab rat look, but come on - cute as buttons!

Awww. They make an adorable group. While there are four of them and they aren't the most popular colour, I think their chances of attracting a rat-friendly adopter are pretty high.

They are impossible to tell apart, except for personality. Ringo has a slight eye infection, so he stands out, but that will go away. Anyway, they are at Pet Valu now, waiting for that special someone.

But wait - there's one more! The Beatles came with their mom - Lucy (huge kudos to whoever named these guys).
And Lucy arrived with the boys, who are almost 2 months old, so - pregnancy watch! She is now nestled in foster care and, we are playing Wait and See.

Rats everywhere!

Pet Appreciation Weekend

2011-04-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Pet Valu event, and it was lots of fun. It wasn't so much about the adoptions (although two rats got adopted and trust me, that is a very good thing, because we have rats coming out our ears). It was more about raising money, spreading information and getting some good PR.

One of the educational things we were trying to convey is that Easter and (real) bunnies do not mix (aka don't buy an Easter rabbit for your kids, geniuses). We didn't get much of a chance to talk to people, but we did give away a lot of chocolate and left some info at the store.

This was our display table - info packets on small animals, standard TAS flyers, cards for sale, chocolates, and a rabbit! The first day it was super sunny, while the second day started out with ominous thunder and ended super sunny.

The first day, we used the animals that were at the store already - six rats, two rabbits (Callalily and Petunia) and Maggie the guinea pig. While Maggie looks adorable on the harness, she's a very shy girl and spent most of the time inside.

Petunia was equally unimpressed with being outside, as you can see. The young girl rabbits need some more socialization, so we've moved them back to the shelter, a more 'in-your-face-socialization' environment.
Nothing gets people to part with their money more than a rabbit on a harness, so I knew we needed somebody outgoing. On the second day, we brought Holly.

Holly has recovered wonderfully from losing her sister. She is one of my favourite rabbits, just so sweet and friendly.

She made an excellent fundraiser rabbit, letting everyone pet her and gush over her. In the first five minutes she was outside with me, we got $8! Ok, it slowed down after that because unfortunately, it's not an area with much foot traffic, but still - that's impressive.

Here she is, guarding our very professional bag o' money. In all, I think we raised about $50 at the table, and Pet Valu did a whole bunch of fundraising in store (which will continue throughout April!).
It was a fun weekend. It's always nice to be outside with a rabbit, raising money for something I believe in, even if I should be studying for exams (studying: it's overrated).
I leave you with some of the wonderful Pet Valu staff who do so much for TAS animals all year round:

Shuffle

2011-04-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Animals are moving out, animals are moving in, the Room's starting to get busy! Did you know it's spring? I know it's spring because about a hundred kittens arrived at TAS South today (okay I might be exaggerating a bit).

Starburst the budgie was adopted! And I finally got a decent photo of her! She was adopted by a family who had recently lost their budgie, and drove over an hour to the shelter to get her.
There's also an adoption application for Jasmine already! Two days after she arrived! I thought she had an awesome personality, but that is just impressive. Of course she still has to be spayed, so she hasn't left the building yet.

Remember Martha the Eternally Pregnant Foster Guinea Pig? She turned out to not be pregnant after all, astonishing everyone. That is one fat guinea pig. She needs to lose weight now, ha! She's also a total sweetheart, and my mom fell in love with her, although she won't admit it. She's back at the shelter now waiting for a home.

Vanilla, the other guinea pig who arrived at the same time as Martha and was also thought to be pregnant, turned out....not to be pregnant. Same with the other two we had in foster! These guinea pigs are messing with our minds. Luckily, Vanilla got to live in an awesome foster home for two months and is much friendlier/healthier now, so at least it wasn't a waste of time.

I don't think I've ever mentioned her here, but this is Maggie. She's been waiting at Pet Valu for about a month now.
That dubious segue leads to some exciting news...we're having an adopt-a-thon this weekend! On the 9th and 10th, Nicola (one of the shelter staff) and I will be at our friendly neighbourhood Pet Valu with a bunch of small animals. The store is doing a huge promotion - the whole chain is doing a 'Pet Appreciation Weekend' and collecting donations for various animal charities.

Our Pet Valu is collecting donations for us, with 75% going to us and 25% going to the OSPCA. They've already raised a substantial amount of money and the event hasn't even started! It's going to be a fun event, with giveaways, refreshments and a bunch of animals. If you're in the neighbourhood, come down to King & Dufferin and join us! I'm really looking forward to it.

In terms of shelter news, we also have new rats, but there are so many of them they deserve their own post. Trust me when I say they are super cute. Consider this blurry, poor example of photography a teaser.
Does this post seem a little giddy? That would be because today was my last day of classes! Just exams and then I'm free, free for four months! To work, yes, but still. Freedom!

Out We Go

2011-04-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great day, because it was finally warm enough to start taking the bunnies outside! I started taking them out on harnesses last year, with great success. Not every rabbit likes it, but it gives them a break from the shelter at least!

This stunningly gorgeous girl is Jasmine, and she's brand new. She has beautiful fur and big brown eyes, and a great personality. She was a little uncertain about the leash, partially because she had just met me. Normally the bunnies know me so at least they have someone they trust when they go outside for the first time. Despite that, however, she was very good-natured about the whole thing.

Holly kept making silly faces at the camera. I was worried about her stressing out after her sister died, but she is starting to do much better. Not shedding as much and showing off her old personality a bit more. She seemed to enjoy the sunshine!

One of the best benefits of taking the rabbits outside is that they get to let off steam. Many, many rabbits start to get 'bad attitudes' because the Room just doesn't give them enough exercise. Taking them out every few days and letting them run like maniacs wears them out and calms them down. It's like letting kids wear themselves out so they'll calm down!

Bella, the Grumpiest of Them All, is a prime example of that. She is a royal pain in the Room, but I know there's a nice personality in there somewhere - you see glimpses every once in a while. I took her outside and gave her a good run and the change was remarkable! She even let a kid come up and pet her.
Unfortunately when I took her back in, she reverted back to being a grump. Ah well. Baby steps!
I can't resist posting this video. Speeding rabbit alert:

Another volunteer kindly held the leash while I videotaped. It was super windy!
I love watching them run. It's so good for them, too! It's good for their hearts to stay in shape and build up muscle.
The grass looks atrocious right now but it'll grow. Soon the bunnies will be sneaking nibbles on dandelions when they think I'm not looking. It's beginning to look like spring!

Cute as a Button

2011-04-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was kind of a downer post, so today it's all about one of the cutest bunnies in the world!
This is Noah, a 3-year-old who was surrendered by his owners the other day.

His owners didn't speak much English, so I don't think we got a reason out of them. Which is kind of a shame, because this boy has been spoiled. I would've liked to know why he ended up here.

He's such a sweetie - always wanting a pet or a cuddle. He doesn't mind being picked up and he runs over for attention when you walk in the Room. His coat is lovely and he's even a bit too pudgy - too many treats! Obviously he was loved at some point.

In fact, when he realized I was trying to keep him from moving around too much (for a good photo), this is what he did - he lay down! He didn't seem to mind at all, as long as I continued to pet him. I've never had such a cooperative subject!

I suspect once he's neutered, this boy won't last very long.
In adoption news, Jingle has been adopted (again! Hopefully permanently this time), and Brando went to his new home as well.

Nerve-Wracking

2011-03-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I was at the shelter trying to get a decent photo of our newest resident, a young budgie. Starburst here was found flying around Ave Road:

You'll note that I still didn't get a good photo of her. Anyway, she wouldn't come out, so I shut the cage door - or so I thought. I left the Room and when I opened the door to come back in, I had a split second to realize the cage door had fallen open and Starburst was flying toward me at top speed. I couldn't slam the door shut for fear of crushing her, so out she zipped, into the main lobby.
I may have possibly shouted some swear words.
Our upstairs lobby is quite....large. With a very high ceiling. It's not the greatest place to lose a small budgie.
Luckily for us, Starburst zipped into the smaller adoption office, giving me a heart attack in the process by slamming into the wall - more than once. One of the staff shut the door, and I hit the lights, scooping her up and returning her to her cage. Thankfully, she seems to be okay. I can certainly see how she ended up on the street - she's a little too good at flying.

About an hour later, I went to give some treats to the bonded girls, Holly and Ivy. Holly looked hopefully at me, but wouldn't budge from where she was sitting, at the opposite corner of the cage. Ivy was lying down under a wooden hideaway.
"What's the matter, you don't want a treat?" I asked teasingly. "That's not like you."
Usually the girls would come running out to greet me. I reached out to poke Ivy's feet, and recoiled in shock.
She was cold and stiff.

She must've died late the day before, or early that morning. We don't know what happened exactly, but the staff speculated some kind of internal hemorrhage, because she had a bloody nose. No one had noticed because she died under the hideaway - it looked like she was just sleeping.

It's such a shame. She was a real sweetheart, a very gentle girl with a shy streak. And poor Holly! Stuck in the cage with her dead sister for hours. No wonder she wouldn't come out from the corner. We've been giving her extra love since, but she is clearly affected. She's acting withdrawn and shedding a lot more. Being in a shelter is stressful enough, but it must be ten times worse now that she's on her own.
It's frustrating - these two were left in a box on the street. They came through that together, they were spayed with no problems - and then a freak incident managed to separate them.
Rest in peace, Ivy.

Just as icing on this cake of misery, this guinea pig arrived a few days later. His name was Sammy and he was given up by his owners due to 'allergies'.
Sammy had just about everything wrong with him. He had an eye infection, terrible ear mites, a skin condition, he was overweight and he had some kind of growth on his face. I'm pretty sure I forgot a few things. We talked about foster care, but once the vet had looked him over, it became clear he had just too many issues for us to treat. She recommended euthanasia, and Sammy had a peaceful end at least.

All in all, a fun week.
It's time for some good news now, right?