My Pet Counts! Postcard Blitz

My Pet Counts! Postcard Blitz (from Companions for Life)

We are calling on all pet owners, parents, guardians who have lost a pet due to contaminated pet food to join us in a post card blitz to demonstrate the full scope of this pet food recall disaster. The FDA continues to publicize only “16 confirmed deaths.” This number has often been repeated by the media. Reliable sources report that the number of pet deaths are and will be much higher – most likely in the thousands. In fact, 4,474 pets have been reported as deceased in the Pet Connection database.

If you want your pet’s death to count for something good, please join the My Pet Counts! Post Card Blitz.

Who: Anyone who has lost a pet due to contaminated pet food.

What: Post cards may have a picture of your pet, or can be blank. Purchase cards or design your own. Each set of postcards represents one pet. If you have lost multiple pets, send multiple cards to each address. Only one set of postcards per dead pet, please. Postcards ONLY, this is to ensure the mail is delivered with no security delay.

Where: No need to leave home. You can mail your postcards from your own mailbox.

When: All postcards should be mailed on Saturday, April 28th. This coincides with the national march organized by KOPS (Keep Our Pets Safe). If all postcards are mailed on the same day, the impact will be all the greater when received at the other end.

Why: By sticking to the “only 16 confirmed deaths” wording this disaster is being grossly minimized. The word must get out!

How: Mail a postcard to each of the addresses provided. The message should be very short, easy to read, no anger, profanity, or rudeness of any kind. Let them see your grief. Tug at their heartstrings. Use your pet’s name. Use the words “My Pet Counts!”

Post card Mailing List:
Marcia K. Larkins, D.V.M
FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine
Ombudsman
7519 Standish Place HFV-7
Rockville, MD 20855

Senator Richard Durbin
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Your own senator: addresses at http://tinyurl.com/b1lm

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Anderson Cooper
c/o CNN
One CNN Center
Atlanta, Georgia 30303-2762

For more information – http://www.petconnection.com/category/2007-food-recall/

Please cross post this message and send this on to family and friends. Thank you!

Advertisement

Rob Marshall has his new SkyFox Golden Retriever

Rob Marshall’s Puppy Makes His Flying Debut
Meet the 8-Week-Old Golden Retriever

DENVER — SkyFOX pilot Rob Marshall just brought a new puppy home a few days ago. He’s a golden retriever. Dylan, Denver’s first flying dog is passing the torch to this little guy. The puppy made his debut flying aboard SkyFOX Wednesday morning. Call him Denver’s new flying puppy.

He doesn’t have a name yet. Rob narrowed the choices down to 10 names, and now he wants to know which of these names you like best. (Click here to send an email with your favorite name). They do not appear in any particular order.

* Murphy       * Mavrick          * Ace               * Frisco
* Cosmo          * Casey              * Tucker         * Yankee/Yank
* Harley          * Cooper

This photo shows Fox 31 reporter Melissa Mollet meeting SkyFOX pilot Rob Marshall’s new puppy, April 25, 2007.

Click here to watch two videos of this new pupper. At the Fox page, just click on the small thumbnail photos listed under Videos.

Inspiration from Golden Retriever Rusty

Grieving the loss of a pet – Counselor offers services to bereaved pet owners
By Andrew Thompson, Palo Alto Weekly

When Maggie, a research assistant at Stanford, had to euthanize her beloved cat Noel, she was devastated. Noά had suddenly fallen ill, and within five days Maggie was forced to put her to sleep. The sudden bereavement of her cat left her emotionally shattered, and she fruitlessly searched the Peninsula for emotional support. At times, she thought she was crazy. “I didn’t eat for a week,” said Maggie, who asked that her last name be withheld.

She was finally referred to Bonnie Goodman, a Palo Alto pet-loss grief counselor, who helped legitimize her feelings and told Maggie that her reaction was perfectly normal. Goodman is the only counselor on the Peninsula who specializes in pet-loss grief. After practicing child therapy for 10 years and career counseling for 20 years, she decided to also do grief counseling.

“I just knew with all the losses in my life that I needed to connect deeper with people,” said Goodman, who lost 10 family members before she was 25 years old to heart disease and cancer.

It was Rusty, her golden retriever, that inspired her to work with pet-loss grief in addition to traditional grief counseling. Goodman foresaw her own grief over Rusty’s death when he was still a puppy. “This dog felt like a child to me very soon on,” she said.

Eventually, Rusty became sick with cancer and died. It was his death that Goodman says puts her in a unique position to empathize with bereaved pet owners.

“What people will say to me is, ‘I have a therapist, but I can tell that therapist doesn’t ‘get dogs’. That’s why I came in here. You get what it means to lose a pet,'” said Goodman, who has a certificate in Grief Counseling from U.C. Berkeley.

There’s more . . . .

B & B Lovin’ Golden Retriever Bella

Bow WOW B&B
By Linda Kush, GateHouse Media

Golden retriever Bella and Tucker, a yellow Labrador, sneak a peek at Brenda Membrino’s Pet Bed and Breakfast located in Tewksbury. Photo by Ellen Bullock/staff photographer

Tewksbury -It’s Wednesday, puppy day at Brenda’s Pet Bed and Breakfast. Eight dogs wrestle out on the deck in Brenda Membrino’s backyard. A three-way tug of war with a squashed yellow ball develops in one corner, while a pair of puppies lock jaws and roll around in another.

Membrino, a tiny, dark-haired woman in a dog-print smock, keeps a close eye on the pack. “I watch their body language,” she said. “This is all puppy play. Puppies investigate with their mouths and their paws.” But any dog that gets too “fresh,” as she calls it, will be separated from the others until it calms down.

Dogs come to Membrino’s Tewksbury home for day care and sleepovers. What began as a favor for a friend three years ago blossomed into a part-time business, and in January 2006, Membrino left her job as a print project manager to care for dogs full time. Husband Robert, a roofer, helps her during his off-season.

There’s more . . .