YOU CAN CHANGE A LIFE BY BECOMING A FOSTER HOME

Every year shelters across America are faced with the same dilema, too many kittens and not enough space. Wenatchee Valley Humane Society's foster care program is for kittens and puppies who are too young to be placed up for adoption.  Foster homes are people who sign up to help the shelter by taking in young animals and raising them until they are old enough for adoption.  Foster parents have the option of fostering weaned animals or nursing mothers.  Once the animals have reached a proper weight they can be returned to the shelter for adoption or they can stay in their homes and be adopted out through our website.  The Wenatchee Valley Humane society provides fosters with food, and other care if needed for the underage animals.  There are also some foster care situations that involve animals who are sick or injured.  Most often we see dogs who have had an injury that has gone untreated for too long.  In these cases WVHS uses Emergency Veterinary Care Funds to treat the animal.  These animal need a loving warm safe home while they heal.

by Kelly McGraw,Foster Care Coordinator

How Long Will You Be Gone?

Dogs In Hot Cars….

By Sgt. Jody White

Even ten minutes could be too long for a pet left in the car on a hot day. By then, the temperature inside the car could reach 160 degrees. That’s hot enough to cause a dog to suffer heat stroke. Within moments, it could cause permanent brain damage. If emergency care is not given immediately, your pet could die.

The short stop you plan to make at the store could stretch to 15 minutes or more before you know it. Your mistake could cost your dog its life! Leaving the window cracked won’t cool the car enough to protect your pet.

If you see a dog in a car that appears to be distressed or in danger of getting overheated, call 911 immediately and stay with the dog until help arrives. When the weather turns warm, please park your pet at home!

Dog Collar Sends Texts When Pooch Is Too Hot

We've all experienced a situation like this: Walking through a parking lot during the dog days of summer, we pass by a car with a dog inside panting at the window and the owner nowhere in sight. Sure, the windows are cracked, but the dog is whimpering and looks miserable. 

Ad agency Rethink Toronto wants to put an end to those situations. They've developed an Internet-connected "Dog Caller" that alerts negligent owners when their dog gets too hot.

The collar uses a coded chip, a SIM card and a thermistor to send a text message to the owners' phone when a pooch's temperature gets above 79 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rethink partner Aaron Starkman helped spearhead the project after he had eye-opening experience with his own golden retriever. On one rainy day errand run, Starkman left his dog in the car, thinking he'd only be gone a couple minutes. However, when he returned 20 minutes later, he found that it was not only hot and sunny, but his dog was struggling.

“I almost was one of those awful people you read about,” Starkman told The Star. “Nobody knows it’s just a matter of minutes.”

The collar is still in the prototype phase, but Rethink plans to crowd fund the project with the intention of selling it on the market next year for $20.

"We never ever under any circumstance want anyone leaving a dog in a car," Starkman said -- but "if the collar does end up saving a dog in a car, we'll obviously be thrilled in that result."

How to give your puppy cpr

(Click to enlarge)[Via: Carrington College's Veterinary Tech Program ]

Babies in dog-owning families may be healthier

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Dogs are no longer just man's best friend: The furry family members may also protect infants against breathing problems and infections, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that Finnish babies who lived with a dog or - to a lesser extent - a cat spent fewer weeks with ear infections, coughs or running noses. They were also less likely to need antibiotics than infants in pet-free homes.

Dr. Eija Bergroth from Kuopio University Hospital in Finland and colleagues said one possible explanation for that finding is that dirt and allergens brought in by animals are good for babies' immune systems.

The researchers studied 397 infants who were born at their hospital between September 2002 and May 2005 for their first year.

Parents filled out weekly diaries starting when the child was nine weeks old, recording information on babies' health as well as their contact with cats and dogs.

Based on those diaries and a year-end questionnaire, the researchers determined that 35 percent of the children spent the majority of their first year with a pet dog and 24 percent in a home with a cat.

Despite only a third of families owning dogs and fewer owning cats, the majority of babies had at least some contact with a dog at their house during the study period and more than one-third were exposed to a cat.

Before their first birthday, 285 of the babies had at least one fever, 157 had an ear infection, 335 had a cough, 128 wheezed, 384 got stuffy or runny noses and 189 needed to take antibiotics at some point, parents reported.

The researchers found that contact with dogs, more than cats, was tied to fewer weeks of sickness for babies.

For example, infants with no dog contact at home were healthy for 65 percent of parents' weekly diary reports. That compared to between 72 and 76 percent for those who had a dog at home.

Babies in dog-owning families were also 44 percent less likely to get inner ear infections and 29 percent less likely to need antibiotics.

The researchers said infants who spent more than zero but less than six hours per day at home with a dog were the least likely to get sick. "A possible explanation for this interesting finding might be that the amount of dirt brought inside the home by dogs could be higher in these families because (the dog) spent more time outdoors," the researchers wrote Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Bergroth told Reuters Health in an email that the dirt and germs a dog brings into the house may cause a child's immune system to mature faster, which makes it better at defending against the viruses and bacteria that cause respiratory problems.

That theory is commonly referred to as the "hygiene hypothesis."

"In many ways, (the study is) saying, if you're exposed to a natural environment… your immune system recognizes that you don't fight the normal allergens," said Dr. T. Bernard Kinane, the chief of the pediatric pulmonary unit at MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston.

Kinane, who was not involved with the new study, told Reuters Health not all research agrees that exposure to dogs and cats helps protect against kids' breathing problems. But he said there is an overall trend in that direction.

The researchers also can't rule out the possibility that people who own dogs are less likely to get sick for another reason, and not due to protection offered by pets, Bergroth noted.