Belly Bands for Mill Rescue Dogs

So, what is a belly band? It's like a doggy diaper for boy dogs and you put a panty liner in them and strap them on. I have never heard of such a thing until my sister started talking about it. Here I am, making belly bands for my sister....not for her exactly...I assure you she is totally potty-trained:) She has gotten very involved with doing what she can to help rescue Puppy Mill dogs. I am shocked at the lives they lead! Shocked! I've always known to stay away from buying puppies from a place like that, but I honestly can't believe anyone can treat such innocent animals the way they do. My sister adopted a Mill dog and they don't come potty-trained. This little guy had gone from home to home because of his lack of control. It makes these dogs harder to place into forever homes. In come the need for belly bands. When you "eliminate" the accidents...(I know..but I had to) people are more willing to give the dog longer to acclimate to their home.

measure and cut one fleece and one liner.

sew right sides together on 3 sides and turn.

iron sides and stich inside - sew on square of Velcro

sew on long rectangle of softer side of Velcro.

My sister is so sincere in her wanting to help she went out and bought her first sewing machine and taught herself to sew to make these. I'm so thrilled that she has discovered for herself what our Grandmother loved so much.Sisters always want to help somehow, and of course the fact that I could sew something that had meaning made the task so much more great.

My beautiful model.

Now all I have to do is mail them to:

National Mill Dog Rescue
P.O. Box 88468
Colorado Springs, CO 80908

The size that we made were the ones they said they were running low on. I guess she had also made some smaller ones.

Thank you my dear sister for letting me help. I love you.

Good-Bye Mr. Dove

T

After 2 hours on Criaglist Mr. Dove has a new home. I tell you, if I was looking for a business to be in I'd have one that focused on chickens. I know they don't sell for much, but anytime I've posted a chicken on craigslist.com I've had response in a matter of hours. I've had people drive for hours for some of my extra chicks. Granted, we live in Central New York and you have to drive hours to go anywhere it seems, but still...for a little chick them come from miles.

I thought a rooster may be harder to find a home for because there were a few listed. However, we are taking little Mr. Dove to his new home on the way to the soccer game today. I always get so nervous when we part with a feathered friend. I can't come out and say "you can't eat him!"...though I'd like to. I always charge, because I feel that a free chicken is sure to end up in the pot..but then again $5 is nothing for an organically grown chicken. He's small though....

You can tell that we not actually farmers. It's a shame really. I do see the irony in it. We eat chicken, and I spend a lot on the local chicken. Why can't we grow and eat our own? That was that plan really. A friend and I were going to each grow a small clutch of meat chickens and then trade them. That way we would have no emotional attachment....and neither would our children..to the chickens we were eating. Organic chickens are crazy expensive and I'm forced to only offer chicken occasionally because we are too weak to grow our own food. We wouldn't survive in the wild.

My husband looked at all the YouTube instructions on how to process them and thought for a while he could do it. ( what would life be life without YouTube??? It's the best thing EVER!!) He thought about it for a while and we got all excited about being homesteaders. Then it kind of hit him. One of my sons is a total vegetarian. We are all pretty close to being meat-free (except my oldest son - he would eat a cow on his own if he had never met the cow face to face) I guess we just have to accept that we can't do it. Our chickens keep us in fresh eggs and friendship.

We wish Mr. Dove well, but we know his fate is his own. I don't want to know.

Angel Kitten

Our Angel Kitten

Thank you for the wonderful comments and support.

Francis is doing great and my son is doing the best he can. Thank you again for the prayers. He'll never get over losing his father, but as the days pass and the kitten grows, he is dealing with things well.

I can never explain how this little kitten came into his life to comfort him at the very moment my son needed him the most. He is indeed an Angel. 

Rabid Fox!

I took this picture actually about 2 months ago on the next corner up from us. I may have posted about it that we would have hit the poor thing with our truck if all the kids weren't with us. It was so sad. It was clearly in pain and rubbing it's face on the road and I just wanted to cry. Other cars had come up and around here I expected someone in one of those cars had a hunting rifle or something. This was one of those times you kind of go on, feeling sad, but not knowing what to do. I've called the DEC before about coyotes and they have just told us to shoot them. Well, that's no help at all.

It's been on the news now that we are having a rabies problem with foxes, racoons, and something else I can't remember. Maybe groundhog??? I did hear about a poor cat, but that wasn't in our town. It's scary to have pets that you let outside. I can't keep our older cat in the house because he'll sit and hide and run whenever the door opens. Little Dog is fine with not going much away from the front door, but even that isn't the safest with rabies around.

So, my chickens have to stay in the tractor because I'm still freaked about the hawk attack and now I'm worried about my cat. This is life in the NY wild?