Devin has a playmate!

The Mesa Verde RV Park resident Labradoodle, Weaser is about the same age and size as our Irish Setter, Devin. They have been having a blast playing together.

HAPPY EASTER

Lyla with the Easter Bunny (me). I inherited this bunny outfit from an old boyfriend. In 2007, I dressed as the Easter Bunny to raise money for our ENGLISH SETTER RESCUE. This was held at the PET VALUE in Gilbertsville, PA. We had a nice turn out. I held lots of little dogs, a couple very young human babies, guinea pigs and even a snake. The little boy that owned the snake was THRILLED that the Easter Bunny wasn't afraid of a snake.

Above is a photo of Poppy. She's my brother's rescue American Eskimo dog.

Animal rescue work has grown so much because of the internet. Most of my rescue work is record keeping and communicating via email. I do not like to talk on the phone. A few years back, I volunteered on a yahoo group for NJ/PA area and stated, I could help transport, pull, check out needy animals if they needed help in my area. Within 1 hour I got an email from ESKIE RESCUERS UNITED.  They needed to have an Eskie picked up from a home giving her up after adopting her only 3 weeks prior. So I picked up Poppy & was told they were giving her up because she wouldn't play with their other dog. (Yea, right). Ended up we fostered her for a couple of weeks, then drove her to PA to be fostered. Had a great time meeting, Gina with Eskie rescue. I knew nothing about AMERICAN ESKIMO DOGS. We ended up finding out, Poppy is not the norm.  She gets along very well with most dogs and is well behaved. She is fine around children she knows. It was heartbreaking to leave her in PA. She is a sweet dog. But we are setter & large dog people.

A week later, we got a call from Gina asking if we could foster Poppy again because they were getting in 21 Eskies that needed to be taken into rescue. Sure we could. We couldn't give her up again though. 

My brother dog sat for Poppy for a week and we asked if he wanted to keep her.  He said yes. The rest is a beautiful love affair. 

...and by the way...Poppy loves to play.

Adopt an Irish!

ADOPT-A-SETTER

MAGNOLIA SETTER RESCUE

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Ryley 2001-2011

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, this post will just be about my Irish Setters and Irish Setter Rescue.  See above links if you are interested in adopting an Irish Setter.  

Adopt-a-Setter deals with NJ, PA, CT, DE, based out of NJ. 

Pillsbury ambassador for Setter rescue.

Magnolia Setter Rescue deals with the Southeastern States, based out of FL.

My gentle giant, Irish Setter, Pillsbury. (Gone Feb 2011) 

Pillsbury's cowl to keep his ears out of his food.

Pillsbury (pre-dog cart) watching squirrels

Ryley was named "telethon dog" because since we had him as a pup, he has always had major problems that were fixable$$$. It would take a telethon to pay for all his medical procedures. We did fix all his health issues and he recovered quickly and happier than ever, until his last bout with bone cancer. He passed Sept. 2011.

Below is just a sampling of his health issues...

As a pup, he had HOD Hypertrophic Osteodystrophy) He went lame at 4 months old. The HOD flared up and down for 3 months. Below is Scott helping him to walk so he can go potty.

Below is after Ryley's Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy (TPLO) & Correction of Angular Limb Deformity Surgery for a Ruptured Cranial Cruciate Ligament.

 Below is a lymph node taken out.  It was called a "reactive" lymph node. Filled up with puss and had to be drained. Non cancerous.

 Below, as a puppy, he also broke his leg.  He learned quickly to lift the cast and bang on the door to go outside.

Pillsbury & Ryley tent camping

Ryley checking out squirrel looking for peanuts

Ryley checking out a funny looking Irish Setter (my foster guinea pig)

Ryley's favorite comfort toy, my neck roll pillow.

And yes, we have to add Devin to this page. I hope someday, I'll feel as close to him as I did to Ryley & Pillsbury.

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Misc. Irish Setter Rescue photos

After the honeymoon...

We've had Devin a little over a week.  For the most part he has been a really good dog with a great disposition.  But, the thrill of a new pup is now over.  Not only has Devin gotten used to his new family and living arrangements, but we are so over his high activity.
He has discovered squirrels.  He runs from window to window looking for them, which gets him overly excited.
1. Work on being calm in the house/RV.
When we first got him, he actually didn't pull too badly.  He had a taught leash, but didn't drag us down the road.  But now that he's discovered squirrels and all the new daily smells, he has become quite the puller.  We are now using the gentle leader which works wonders.  Devin must has been trained on this by his previous family, because he seems to know to slip his nose into it and doesn't fight to get it off until he is back inside.  Even though the gentle leader works great, I feel we are not teaching him to heel.
2. Teach to heal.
After letting Devin run around the dog park and then also bringing him to the pond and jump through the pond and run around it for an hour, I thought he'd be calm enough to start "heel" training.  Got some yummy, smelling, bad for you treats, but Devin is so distracted by squirrels, that he pays no attention to me nor the treats.  He's going to be a tough one to train.
He also wouldn't come to me while at the pond.  I don't want to say "come" and have him disobey, so I just wait for him to get close to me.  I pet him, let him go. I do that a couple of times, so he doesn't associate coming to me with being leashed up. When I was ready to leave, he of course, wasn't.  So I took Lyla and walked down the path hoping he'd be worried we left. It took about 10 minutes and he finally was concerned that we were gone.  I was finally able to leash him.
3. Train recall.
So after 1/2 hour at dog park, 1 hour at pond and then another hour at the dog park, he FINALLY calmed down enough to walk nicely on a leash.
4. DRINKS LOTS OF WINE!
I am drinking a glass right now as I type.  I'm feeling much better.
Lyla is sleeping, Devin is sleeping and Debbie is drinking.

Devin is officially a Buskirk.

Breslin is fitting in EXTREMELY well!   He was an owner turn in to Above & Beyond English Setter Rescue via Bonnie from Magnolia Setter Rescue. We were intending to adopt him, but if he turned out to be a "crazy" pup, we'd just foster and adopt him to someone that was willing to work very hard with him. But he has turned out to be a better pup than we could have anticipated. To make him officially a Buskirk, we've renamed him Devin. Also we believe our beloved recently deceased Irish Setter, Ryley gave us his blessing to pass on his Celtic collar to Devin.
Devin is a great tempered 10 month old pup. I think his former owner was very loving and knew the best thing for him was to give him up. She seemed to have worked with him.  He knows sit, stay (somewhat), he's crate trained, house trained. I'm amazed that he goes to the door to let us know he needs to go out.  He's great with strangers & other dogs. Very very sweet.
Lyla & Devin participated in the Weiner bobbing contest at Four Paws Kingdom Campground. Lyla won her round, but beaten in the winner's round. (She came in 2nd last week).

Lyla listening to the bobbing rules

GO LYLA!

Now Devin LOOKED like he'd be a winner.  I had to hold him back like you do for flyball. He had no problem dunking his nose in the water to get the weiners, but he has to thoroughly get the full effect of the weiner. He picks it up, rolls it around in his mouth, drops it, picks it up again, bites off a little piece of the already small 1/2" round piece, roll round in his mouth and then decide he likes it and eats it. Do this times 3 pieces and no way could he have won, but, I don't think he was last either.

Don't rush me, I want to savor this treat!

The Storm

Referring to our 10/3/11 RV blog post..."The Calm before the Storm", below is what could potentially be "the Storm". We hope he'll be just a little Tropical Storm and not a Florida hurricane!

Initial thoughts from his temporary foster Mom:
He's a sweetie.  Needs to put on weight!  I doubt very much that he's even close to 50 lbs. yet.  He's very much puppy but very very cute.

He's neutered, chipped, has all vaccs, was on Iverhart. 

He's very good...watched the guys use the dog door once and in and out he goes.  No barking.  Loves to run....playing with the Lab today.  He's out and running and then comes back in the pet door to see what I'm doing.  He was respectful when Rosie growled when he tried to lick her face.  He cowered away.

Crates good and was quiet.  We all went to my bedroom a little while ago to rest.I put him in a crate in my bedroom and he went to sleep...no barking or whining.

We are considering changing Breslin's name. We like that it is Irish, but don't like the name itself.

PLEASE LIST ANY NAME SUGGESTIONS IN THE 

COMMENTS SECTION BELOW!!!!! 

We'd like it to rhyme with Breslin, so he's not too confused.

RYLEY

Our Ryley is gone.  He was diagnosed with bone cancer in June.

Moving into the RV has been the best thing we could have done for Ryley's last months.  While living in a regular home with a back yard, we only took our dogs for walks for our own enjoyment.  Now that we are living in an RV, we HAVE to take the dogs for multiple walks.  Ryley loved all the new smells every day.  Much better than the same old smells in the backyard.
We've only been at Four Paws Kingdom Campground for 2 days. Ryley has had a blast in those 2 days. He had been depending more on our help walking him with the harness. Although he never showed pain, he was using his cancerous leg less & less. His spirit has always been happy through  all he's been through.  See his biography HERE.
I was able to spend the morning laying outside with him and petting him all morning. He was quite relaxed. It was difficult to make the decision since he didn't seem in distress.  We chose to put him to sleep maybe a little early.  He had a terrible night and today wouldn't walk or go potty. His shoulder has ballooned out which makes it uncomfortable to lay and roll over. But being a Saturday, we were afraid if he had another bad night, then he would not only have to suffer through Saturday night, but also Sunday night, until the vet opened on Monday. We knew he wouldn't get better with rest. This was damned bone cancer. He was too good a dog to be selfish and keep him for us. We loved him enough to let him go before he suffered a lot. (Yes, I'm crying as I type.)
Birgit, an owner of the campground has been absolutely wonderful. This was the best place to be other than home for Ryley's time to come.  We don't have cell service and the vet was closing at 1pm. I didn't want to leave Ryley to try to find someplace to make a phone call and explain to a vet we've never seen, our situation.  Birgit took care of it all for us.  She called her vet, explained everything, gave the vet all our info, so when we arrived, we could concentrate on our last moments with beloved Ryley.
We were hoping to avoid the stress of a vet visit. We hoped since he had never been to this vet he would be relaxed. But no, our smarty knew where he was. Different place, same environment. Poor baby was shaking as he usually does at the vet's office.
I hope he is running around with Chance and having a great time barking up a tree at the squirrels!