Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Lost Dogs on the NY Times Best Seller List!


Leo has an announcement to make! The Lost Dogs is #10 on the New York Times bestseller list! The list will be in the paper on October 10! Congrats to wonderful author Jim Gorant! Thank you for being a voice for the dogs who all along have deserved to be heard. Still available at http://www.ourpack.org/

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Meet Bernie

He's a victim of cruelty. He came from a dogfighting raid out of state. We've worked with many victims that have come from similar places and one thing we see is that many times they don't know how to live in homes. They don't know what a couch is or toys. We know one thing, Bernie LOVES to be loved as you...'ll see here and he's getting lots of that! Welcome Bernie to Our Pack and stay tuned for his progress. Here he is in this clip checking out what a chair is.....

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Leo, Former Vick Dog, Featured on CBS

Our Pack’s Leo, the former Vick dog who is now a therapy dog, was featured on KPIX, the local CBS station, last night. Thanks to Len Ramirez for the great interview and footage of Leo at work! Watch the video here:


http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/category/watch-listen/video-on-demand/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=5129010&flvUri=&partnerclipid=

Friday, September 10, 2010

Former Vick dog Leo with staff after visiting patients

Leo the therapy dog soothes patients after visiting patients in the oncology center.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Dexter gets an award...


Dexter's super happy because he won an Achievement Award from Animal Farm Foundation for his work at the Children's Library. Dexter sits while kids read to him to gain confidence in reading. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB9_uLmKeao To find out more about how you can win an Achievement Award for working with yo...ur partner go to http://www.animalfarmfoundation.org/ They're awesome!

Monday, August 9, 2010


The future of our dogs....
For people in Santa Clara County, California:
County Supervisor Ken Yeager is trying to get an ordinance passed that Pit Bulls must be spayed and neutered. This will be presented at the County meeting on tomorrow August 10th. If passed, this would apply to unincorporated areas of Santa Clara county. While we believe spaying and neutering is important to keep down the number of homeless pets, this ordinance will make it difficult for low income families to comply to this who can't afford these services. This brings about the potential for people to lose their dogs in addition to the fact that it's breed specific legislation, isolating one breed. Education on socializing/training and low/no cost programs for spay/neuter are far more helpful.
I feel that this was a knee jerk reaction to the Concord incident. Here's why I have a problem with that. Issues in the Concord situation:

1.Dog/child supervison seemed to be lacking.
2. Male dogs not neutered contained in a garage.
3 .Level of socialization was questionable in this case due to the fact that they were in the garage. Well socialized dogs are living in homes with their families...not the garage.
4.The man knew his dog was uncomfortable around kids.
5. In his interview from jail he specifically stated that his lack of knowledge about dog behavior is what caused this. That is apparent.
= not a specific breed's fault.

Another thing that bothers me is that I'm a dog trainer by trade. Just this last month there was a German Shepard that damaged a 17 yr old boy's leg. I'm assuming if he was 2 he would have been killed. This never made the papers and the boy's father was forgiving in this situation.

Another case this month was a Golden Retriever that bit a child in the arm damaging tendons causing disability. I hate to bring these things up but this was also never reported in the papers.

I see cases like these and the situations have similar circumstances such as above in all cases. NONE of the items have anything to do with breed......but species....humans.

Please contact:
Supervisor Don Gage - District 1
408-299-5010
don.gage@bos.sccgov.org

Supervisor George Shirakawa - District 2
408-299-5020
George.Shirakawa@bos.sccgov.org

Supervisor Dave Cortese - District 3
408-299-5030
dave.cortese@bos.sccgov.org

President/Supervisor Yeager - District 4
408-299-5040
ken.yeager@bos.sccgov.org

Supervisor Liz Kniss - District 5
408-299-5050
liz.kniss@bos.sccgov.org

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Kemo's Home



Here's Kemo smiling and happy leaving for St. Louis. He arrived at Mutts N Stuff yesterday from Oakland Animal Services to start his new life as a therapy dog and working with kids. We helped to coordinate Mutts N Stuff of Missouri and OAS in rescue efforts to help this sweetheart of a dog start anew. M...utts has a house called Pheonix House for blind dogs. We posted the article a couple of days ago - have a good life Kemo! We miss you already! See video of Kemo leaving California http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfYBozi1MRw Original article here: http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_15644965?source=rss&nclick_check=1See More