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8A Daily News – Saturday, June 23, 2012 healthPetsactivities & Pilots N Paws flies to the rescue for dogs Avoid foxtails or be prepared KANSAS CITY, Mo. (MCT) — At Midwest National Air Center near Excelsior Springs, Mo., a white Piper Cherokee drifts to earth like a paper airplane in the bright twilight, the buzz of its single engine only slightly louder than the chirp of grasshoppers in the surrounding farmland. On the ground, the plane noses down deserted run- ways and taxiways toward the padlocked terminal building. The propeller coughs to a stop, and the pilot unfolds his body back- ward through the passenger- side door. Honey Bee, a 2-year-old bluetick coonhound, raises her head and cocks her flop- py velvet ears. But she remains rooted to the back- seat where she has slept most of the two hours since the gentle-voiced stranger picked her up at Spirit of St. Louis Airport and loaded her into this strange vehicle that vibrates like a pickup but is much louder. The pilot strokes Honey Bee under the chin, then leans in and scoops up the 50-pound hound, no easy feat while trying to keep your footing on a convex aircraft wing. Even cradling a coon- hound, Sam Taylor has the squared shoulders and stick- straight posture of military servicemen. Taylor is a retired Navy helicopter pilot who flew search-and-rescue Standing on the wing he asks his passenger, "Honey Bee, do you want to get out?" MCT photo Honey Bee, a blue tick coon hound, looks around the cabin of Sam Taylor's Piper Cherokee at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield, Mo. missions during the Viet- nam War. Now he flies ani- mal rescue missions in his plane for a nationwide net- work called Pilots N Paws. On average, Taylor goes on one to three rescue flights a week. Most flights are in a 150-mile range, but he has flown much farther. In September 2010, Taylor was part of a mission that rescued 171 dogs from Louisiana after the gulf oil spill. Taylor would go more often if he could afford it. Pilots N Paws pilots pay for their own gas, which aver- ages $48 per hour. Last year, Taylor spent $3,255 on gas for rescue flights. This year he's up to $2,400 already. Taylor has transported 279 dogs and one cat, and he has pictures of every one of them. The bottom drawer of a metal file cabinet in the upstairs office of his Kansas City, Mo., home is filled with manila folders labeled in a neat cursive hand in pencil: "Tuff the Weimaran- er," "Pippen the Italian grey- hound," "Layla the English pointer." And now "Honey Bee, the bluetick coonhound." Honey Bee was rescued from a farm in rural Ken- tucky where a once-respect- ed breeder descended into ill health and hoarding behavior and ultimately abandoned his property, leaving behind 29 coon- hounds, many locked in kennels, horse stalls and the house. Over the next five days, Honey Bee will be handed off 21 more times in a relay stretching 2,150 miles from Excelsior Springs to Rese- da, Calif., near Los Angeles. But first, Taylor pushes his airplane into its hangar, pulls the door shut and locks it, the blanket Honey Bee slept on in the plane draped over his arm. He spreads the blanket over the front seat of his silver pickup. "She's familiar with the blanket, so that is a comfort- ing thing," he explains. Honey Bee's story is typ- ical in many ways of how animal rescues in America play out nowadays. Pilots N Paws is just one part of a complex network that func- tions like a modern Under- ground Railroad for ani- mals. for dog to undergo anesthesia By Jeff Kahler, D.V.M. McClatchy Newspapers non-native grasses. They're sort of torpedo shaped with tiny barbs that allow them to stick to anything to which they come in contact — including fur on animals. Once attached, problems can occur. Because the barbs are angled to allow forward progress and disallow reverse, a foxtail can get into a dog's ear canal and con- tinue to burrow down toward the ear drum. They can even penetrate through the drum and cause severe ear damage and infection. As one might imagine, this is uncomfortable for the dog. The ear, however, is but one area that might be invaded by these foxtails. There are several others, and Dallas is an example of some of the problems that can occur. The 6-year-old golden retriever had six foxtails It is foxtail season, and a booming one it is. Foxtails are seed awns produced by a number of removed from her ears under anesthesia a few days after returning from a foothills camping trip. Recently, she has been paying an inordinate amount of attention to her perivulvar area, mostly licking excessively. Dawn, Dallas' owner, reports seeing a yellowish mater- ial in Dallas' bed after she gets up in the morning and thinks it is coming from her vulva. yellowish material in Dallas' bed is likely pus and the result of infection in her vaginal vault from the migrat- ing foxtail. There are, of course, other possible causes. She may have a primary vaginal infection or even a uri- nary tract infection, but my money is on a vaginal fox- tail. I am highly suspicious it's due to another foxtail. The Dallas will need to have a vaginal scoping to locate and remove the foxtail. This procedure almost always requires an anesthetic. She will need to be on antibi- otics for the infection. I have seen cases where dogs are simply placed on antibiotics assuming a "simple" vaginal infection when, in fact, there is an underlying foxtail issue. These dogs will show improvement with antibiotic therapy, but, once stopped, the infection returns with a vengeance. If there is any possibility of a foxtail, it is always best to look. So be on the lookout for foxtails and avoid them if possible. If you have them in your yard, get rid of them. If you take your dog to areas where foxtails lurk, Honey Bee came out of the South. The lack of spay- neuter laws in many South- ern states combined with their higher shelter euthana- sia rates — 70 percent is not uncommon — sets up a continuous flow of dogs and cats from the South to the rest of the country. More than half the rescues Taylor flies are shelter-to- shelter transfers, moving an animal facing euthanasia at an overcrowded shelter to a no-kill shelter that has room. their new lives with a stay at a long-term foster home while volunteers post infor- mation about the animal online in hopes of finding an adoptive family. make sure you check them over after the day's play. Pay especially close attention between the toes, as foxtails can bore into the skin between the toes and migrate internally up the limbs. Check around the ears, and hope also that your dog didn't snort one up its nose. This almost always involves sneezing violently, so it is usually easy to know when that happens. Foxtails can also get into the eyes and cause damage to the cornea. There are other places where foxtails can go in your dog's body, but the ones I've discussed are some of the more common. And you cat caretakers beware, as well. Foxtails show no favoritism. Jeff Kahler is a veterinarian in Modesto, Calif. Questions can be submitted to Your Pet in care of LifeStyles, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 5256, Modesto CA 95352. Many rescued dogs start Parrot abandoned in parking lot recovering at bird rescue By Stephen Baxter Santa Cruz Sentinel Once an adoption is arranged, the rescue organi- zation contacts a volunteer transport coordinator to cobble together a route that often involves six to two dozen legs by road and by land. Pilots N Paws runs a website where transport coordinators post routes where pilots are needed to "connect the dots" between overland segments of an animal's journey. CAPITOLA (MCT) — Police are seeking more information about a man who abandoned a red par- rot last week in a grocery store parking lot in Capi- tola. A man driving a brown van pulled up to a shop- ping cart corral outside a Trader Joe's at about 4:30 p.m. May 15, said Capitola police Sgt. Cliff Sloma. He put the scarlet Macaw on some shopping carts and drove away. Several people in the busy parking lot called 911 to report the bird. "You can't just abandon an animal like that. It's basically failing to care and provide for a pet," said Sloma. Joan Nickum, a transport coordinator from Kansas City, Kan., met Taylor at a Platte Woods, Mo., gas station to take Honey Bee to a foster in Kansas City, Kan., for two nights to bridge the gap until a dri- ver was available to take her to Emporia, Kan., the next leg of her journey. Short-term fosters are different from long-term fosters. They are often the unsung heroes supporting the more-heralded pilots, drivers and long-term fos- ter farms. These along-the-route fosters prefer to remain anonymous because often they live in towns and cities with codes limiting the number of animals allowed under one roof. Being animal lovers, they usually already have the maximum allowable num- ber of pets, so by shelter- ing rescue animals, even for a night or two, they are exposing themselves to the risk of neighbor com- plaints or fines. Sloma eventually donned a glove and got the bird to climb onto it and into a box. Police initially tried to lure it onto a baton. Authorities took the bird it to Native Animal Rescue in Live Oak. That night, a veterinarian with Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue took it to For the Birds, a San Jose, Calif., avian veterinary hos- pital. "Getting this bird to the doctor is the best thing that happened to it," said Scott Shipley, the macaw coordinator for Mickaboo, a bird rescue network that spans Northern California. Shipley said the bird appeared thin, filthy and about 30 to 40 years old, about half their lifespan. It had scrapes on its face and feet, chewing gum stuck in its feathers and "signs of abuse and neglect," said Shipley. The bird did not have an identification tag on it. "The main reason we want to find out who did it is we want to press charges," said Shipley. After the macaw recovers, it is expected to be taken to a foster home then put up for adoption. Shipley said he knew of similar birds abandoned at foreclosed homes and alleys in California's Bay Area. "Finding a new home for the large birds is very hard." said Shipley. "You have to make sure that people have education and know what they're get- ting into." Owners who no longer want birds can contact Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue by logging on to www.mickaboo.org. Police said there was no further description of the van or the man who apparently abandoned the bird.