Brazos Bend State Park, TX. Fishing. Ranger 7. Puppy Rescue.

For “Travel Tuesday”:

“Less than an hour from Houston, Brazos Bend State Park is famous for its alligators, but it offers so much more, including a Nature Center, observatory, and a wide variety of plants and animals. The park also has an all-accessible trail for visitors with physical disabilities.

 

For more information, visit www.LifesBetterOutside.org.

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“Brazos Bend State Park (50 miles southwest of Houston) opened to the public in 1984 and quickly became one of the most popular parks in Texas. The park offers nearly 100 campsites, 21 miles of hiking and biking trails, picnic areas, play grounds, nature center, gift shop, interpretive programs, and the George Observatory.

Brazos Bend State Park is a mixture of remnant tall grass prairie, bottomland hardwood forest and several different aquatic ecosystems, including freshwater marshes, swamps, creeks, lakes and the Brazos River. With this "crossroads" of habitats comes an extreme diversity of plant and animal species. Approximately 300 species of birds have been reported. In the wetland portions of the park, visitors will likely see alligators, our last ruling reptiles. Over 300 adult alligators are in the park. Don't worry, they are safe to look at from a distance. Baby alligators may be observed in the nature center.”

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Fishing

“Grab a rod and reel and find a park near you - as part of the "Free Fishing in State Parks" program you can fish at any state park without a fishing license!”

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On This Day:

Ranger 7 photographs moon, Jul 31, 1964:

“Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year—Ranger 6—but the probe's cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar surface. Ranger 7, launched from Earth on July 28, successfully activated its cameras 17 minutes, or 1,300 miles, before impact and began beaming the images back to NASA's receiving station in California. The pictures showed that the lunar surface was not excessively dusty or otherwise treacherous to a potential spacecraft landing, thus lending encouragement to the NASA plan to send astronauts to the moon. In July 1969, two Americans walked on the moon in the first Apollo Program lunar landing mission.”

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Yesterday;

It wasn’t a day, it was a day and a half!  First thing, Mindi’s dogs were squawking to go out.  After coffee, Misty and I drove down the street with a pet carrier to pick up four 8-week old Chihuahua-mix puppies.  Their owner was going to give them away at Walmart’s parking lot.  He had been keeping them in a big wooden box outside, and they were covered in fleas, so that means that they probably have tapeworms.  An animal only has to swallow a flea, and it will get tapeworms.  These pups hadn’t been dewormed, vaccinated or anything.  So if he had given them away to just anybody they might not have been taken straight to a vet for the care that little pups need.  Parvo and distemper are airborne, so they didn’t need to go out in the big wide world unprotected. 

Just giving animals away without checking the new guardians out first, can be disastrous for critters.  They can wind up in all sorts of cruel situations, like being used as for bait for dog fighting, or some little kid breaks the little pup’s or kitten’s leg, or drops it on it’s head, and the new guardians just throw it away, or let it suffer, because they don’t want to spend any money on it.  Yes, we see it all the time. 

I had my SPCA boss’ OK to take them in, so that they could at least have a decent start in life. The SPCA will be paying for their vaccinations and neutering, and they will be put on the Petfinder website.  I just have to take care of them until they are adopted. I had newspapered the cat cage in the Middle Room the night before, added a little cardboard box bed, so that’s where I put them temporarily, as Mindi’s dogs were in the Grooming Room.  The pups were so happy, they had never been in air-conditioning before, and they ate a good breakfast.

Ray came over to pressure wash the back of the house.  Anytime we get a lot of rain, the north side gets green algae on the white siding.  First, he was going to pressure wash a couple of dog cages that I had bought from a guy down the road, because they were a good deal.  I had already spayed them with bleach water, but a good blasting rinse might help get them ready for selling. Then Murphy’s Law decided to bug us, but at least while he was doing that, he was leaving YOU alone! 

The quick-connect for the water hose to the pressure washer wouldn’t work, so we dug out another one, but that one had a crack, so it sprayed everywhere.  Then we found a metal one, and that just came apart!  The last one, the washer was bad, but that was an easy fix, so Ray finally got it going. I was trying to get back into the grooming room to finish Mindi’s dogs, but was sorting through the box of water hose parts instead.

I had just finished grooming Mindi’s poodles, plus their Yorkie, when my SPCA boss, Kenya, arrived.  She happened to see the cages that Ray had just washed, and bought one of them, right then.  I wanted to mop the Grooming Room floor before we put up the puppy pen, but the mop broke off the handle.  Ray loaned me a mop, so I mopped where the pen would be, laid down the extra piece of linoleum that I use under the pen, set up the pen, newspapered that, and got it all ready to transfer each pup as my boss and I tended to them.  I didn’t need Mindi’s dogs milling around while we were doing this, so I put them in a kennel cage, and they just watched intently.

First, we weighed each pup, they under 2 lb, and examined them to make sure they didn’t have ringworm or something, been there, done that!  One was not putting it’s weight on one leg, one was dehydrated, another had some bite marks which could get infected, so I will have to keep a close eye on them.  Kenya vaccinated each one, put drops in their noses to vaccinate them against Kennel Cough while I held them. http://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/pet-travel/bordetella-vaccine.htm  Then I held their mouths open while each got a dose of Panacur to eliminate worms, and I put Revolution on their necks for de-flea-ing.  I also have to give them Panacur for the next 4 days in case they have tapeworms.  Normally we just do it for 3 days.  Kenya was so glad that I got them in time. These babies will at least have a good start in life now. 

While we were doing this little assembly line thing, Mindi arrived to pick up her dogs.  So that left Kenya and me free to go down to where the pup’s Mom lives.  Part of the deal with her owner for us to take the pups, is that she would be spayed, so we had to get her ready for that.  We set up everything on his picnic table, so she was vaccinated, had her Bordetella drops up her nose, dewormed and Revolution put on her neck.  Her owner said he would give her the other four daily doses of Panacur. This is to get her ready for her trip to the vet to be spayed.  He was very appreciative of what we were doing for his momma dog and the pups.

By the time all this was done it was 4.30 PM. and neither of us had had lunch.  Kenya offered to take me into town for lunch, but after doing all that grooming and puppy stuff, I just wanted to eat a quick bite and take a nap! 

Like I said, it was a day and a half yesterday.