Luck in a shelter, roaming in Dallas, hot in a car...

OK, let’s get right into the day’s activities as if we knew we had the winning numbers for tonight’s Lotto Texas.
I’ve been using the same numbers for years and years – finally quit calling them “my lucky numbers.” Though, of course, their ineffectiveness has managed to keep me from enduring a tremendous tax burden. Be thankful for small blessings, eh? And now, we begin with a story of luck:
CLOSE CALL: Every now and then there are moments in which circumstances are such that there is a life saved, a happy payoff, a decent break for somebody.
Kelly Bond, who walks the Dallas Animal Services shelter for Homeward Bound Animal Rescue, was there yesterday to pick up a momma cat and her six kittens and an orphaned litter of four. “Didn’t even look at the dogs because I had no foster space, but then I saw her out of the corner of my eye.”
”Her” is this dog.
And when Kelly saw her, she was en route to “The Lab,” as the euthanasia room is known at DAS.
”Yes, they were sliding the puppy across the hall with her sitting with her front feet out in front of her trying to put on the brakes,” Kelly says. “She was a stray that came into the shelter on April 19 listed as a 2-month-old St. Bernard mix.”
As the dog vanished behind “The Lab” door, Kelly quickly sought out rescue coordinator Mark Cooper to try to save the dog. He raced to “The Lab” and found her “on the table with a tourniquet on her leg awaiting the needle,” Kelly says.
She immediately claimed the dog. 
The DAS says she needs treatment for mange on her ears and the top of her head but other than that, the dog appears healthy.
So, with all those cats from DAS, now Homeward Bound has a mangy puppy that needs a home and some help. To offer either to a dog that survived a close call or a cluster of unwanted cats, phone 214-923-6171.
And remember, the DAS has plenty of animals that need saving and the City of Dallas is, officially, more than happy to adopt them rather than euthanize them. See more adoptables at www.dallasanimalservices.org.
[Soapbox aside: As we’ll probably learn at the Dallas Animal Shelter Commission meeting Thursday, this dog was one of a relatively small percentage of animals that managed to dodge the needle at DAS while so many did not. Thank you, residents of Dallas who just don’t care and fail to act responsibly with your animals. This dog’s survival is an example of how the shelter is willing to help all the animals avoid the needle if a rescue group or adopter or citizens or some kind of guardian angel will simply step up and stop the process. That shelter commission meeting is at 1:30 p.m. in Room 6E South at Dallas City Hall. And, frankly, I don’t know which is more heartbreaking, the thought of a puppy being dragged into “The Lab” or the thought of a big ol’ friendly dog happily following the human into “The Lab” and being rewarded with the sting of death. Both visions make your humble writer want to cry. Surely there is a way for the extra-smart people of the 21st Century to save all of the adoptables now being killed because there’s no place for them to go and there are more coming in – again, thank you, Dallas residents. Until a solid no-kill system is established, we have to keep trying to save them from the decades long idiocy of euthanasia for the sake of space.  There’s got to be a system – these animals at peril can’t continue to depend on the pure dumb luck of a chance sighting by a good heart in a shelter hallway.]
PARK ALERT: Some of the greatest dogs ever have been found in City of Dallas parks. I mention this because we have it on the good authority of two separate tipsters that a pair of elusive dogs has taken up residence in Dallas’ Fair Park. Just a tip in case there are some rescuers who’d like to visit the park and save some dogs.. You might find them near the grounds of the Museum of Nature & Science.  One is a German Shepherd-like and the other has red and white "splotches" and could be either a bird dog-type or Aussie. They appear to be inseperable, we're told.
BE ON THE LOOKOUT: Benny Zequri’s Belgian Shepherds Vito, 3, and Kayla, 5, “got out under the wire fence by the creek on the back of my house, he says. That was on Monday morning in the Peavy/Hermosa area near White Rock Lake. They were last seen near Casa View School about 11:40 p.m. Monday.
So, perhaps, they are in someone’s care, waiting to go home. Benny says that yesterday he “went to a lot of animal shelters and put up posters with a picture around the area.”
Both friendly dogs are microchipped. They didn’t have their collars and tags on because they’d been given a bath.
If you know the whereabouts af Vito and Kayla, call 469-831-4724.
SOME EVENTS: Great Dane Rescue of North Texas  is hosting a low-cost microchipping event from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Tierney’s Café, 208 E. Main Street in Lewisville. It’s a “Yappy Hour & $15 Micro Chip” thing on the dog-friendly patio. For a $5 donation you also get a discount coupon on other item. [It’s just a matter of time until someone teams discounted microchips and discounted tick/flea baths at a restaurant parking lot and calls the event “Chips ‘n’ Dips.”] …... Earlier on Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Plano’s Bob Woodruff Park, Take Me Home Pet Rescue is one of the beneficiaries from the Bark For a Curt/Trot For Trooper Family & Pet Fun Day. You can register for the walk/run at www.barkforacure.org and read about Take Me Home HERE.
CONTEMPLATION: Yes, this is something to think about.
The TV and radio weather people say it’s going to get hot – pushing 90 – in the DFW area today. Of course it’s going to get hot. This is spring in North Texas.
Probably not too early to suggest a Helpful Alert of Kindness:
(1) Don’t leave kids or critters in the car.
(2) Make sure you kids and critters have plenty of fresh water.
(3) Make sure your kids and critters have plenty of cool shelter.
(4) If you had to be reminded of the previous 3 things, find someone safe and smart who’ll properly care for your kids and critters.
The Department of Geosciences has a study that tracks hyperthermia deaths of children in vehicles. You can see it HERE, And by looking at the study's maps you’ll see that through the years there’s a cluster of tragedy in the Dallas area.  Surely we’re smarter than that in 2012.
There’s a slogan on the site “Beat the Heat; Check the backseat.”
That’ll work for kids. People who leave kids in the cars usually do it by accident, carelessness or stupidity. People who leave animals in cars do it intentionally. They don’t have to check the backseat – they know the animal is there and put them in danger anyway. Spot a dog or a kid suffering in a locked car on a hot day, here’s the tip line to call: 911. Texas has laws that can save lives.
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