Dogs Do Their Bit for a Good Cause

Sunday in New Milford, dogs and their owners as well as supporters will be walking for a good cause, to raise awareness of canine cancer.

The event, called the 2 Million Dogs Puppy Up! walk, is being coordinated by Dawn Osborne of New Milford, whose dog Sunny had to have a leg amputated last year as a result of the dreaded disease. The one-mile walk will coincide with the 2 Million Dogs 2 Mile national event, and it will kick off with registration at 1 o’clock at Young’s Field. Walkers will get moving at 2 and travel along Railroad and Main streets in the downtown area.

(For details of the fund-raiser, see staff reporter Scott Benjamin’s story about Puppy Up! online and on Facebook now and in print Friday.)

 Anyone interested in participating should note that the entry fee will be $5 less if paid online by Friday than on the day of the event.

Pet owners know what it’s like to have to deal with a four-legged friend’s health issues, especially as the animal get older. But health problems can materialize at any age. Serious ones are the cause of as much worry for those who share their homes with pets as they are of discomfort and possible pain for the animals themselves.

And it can be agonizing for an animal lover who wants to do right by an ailing pet but thinks the medical care that might be necessary would not be affordable.

Sometimes, as Renee Gardner, the manager of the Animal Welfare Society of New Milford, confirmed this week, a pet owner decides to just let an ailing animal go.

“We get a lot of them with medical concerns, and most of them are just dropped off here,” she said.

Mrs. Gardner gave a recent example but pointed out that the owner could not have known of the outcome. “A Lab with a large tumor was left here,” she said, but although the lump was obvious, “when we had surgery done, it turned out to be benign.”

Animal Welfare footed the bill for the surgery. The not-for-profit, no-kill organization relies on donations and fund-raisers it conducts during the year to have money for animals’ medical care.

It’s difficult at any time, Mrs. Gardner acknowledged, to get older animals adopted, but thank goodness some do go to foster homes, she said, such as the “two blind dogs that were dropped off.”

She was glad to hear about the Puppy Up! walk, because it calls attention to the problem of canine cancer but also of animals’ medical issues in general.

Ms. Gardner said the situation, however, was “not new.”

“It’s been like that throughout my 20 years at Animal Welfare, but it’s gotten worse the last couple of years, especially with the economy,” the New Milford resident said.
Animal Welfare maintains a facility on Pickett District Road.

(Fifteen years ago, it's where I adopted Abbey, a Lhasa-schnauzer mix who is going blind and getting deafer but still going under her own steam, with a lot of love and attention. I gave the puppy to my daughter, Nicki, for Christmas, and because its date of birth couldn't be determined, we thought they could "share" the same birthday--which is today, Nov. 3! Here we are, with Nicki's beloved Lily, a wheaten terrier.)