On National Oatmeal Day, some things are hard to chew...

Welcome to National Oatmeal Day.
No sense bringing up that Dallas Cowboys game – so, we’ll start our day with oatmeal.
Some will choose to celebrate with a cookie.
That dog? Not named Oatmeal. But could be if you adopted her.
Keep reading and you’ll learn about this anxious mother and her six turned-in puppies.
She doesn’t look exactly comfortable inside a shelter box, does she?
Not the only uncomfortable, unwanted animal in North Texas.
CARROLLTON’S CRITTERS: Over the weekend we got a note from the Carrolton Animal Rescue Enterprise folks – also known as the Carrollton animal shelter – and it include a photo of this big green iguana and the revelation “ADOPTED.” (Larry aside: Pretty sure October is not a National Adopt-a-Shelter-Lizard Month.)
Why was a 2 ½ -foot-long iguana in a city animal shelter? Chico the Iguana’s human was going off to college and either Chico didn’t pass the admission exam or the college dorm had a rule against big lizards. Two-year-old Chico was uprooted, moved to a shelter along with his special foods, a big limb to hang on, a light for day, a light for night and a cage.
This special reptile with its paraphernalia was in the shelter with a bunch of dogs and cats that don’t require such sophisticated accommodations.
Inexplicably, the easiest animals to care for wind up without anyone caring for them. But, like the big lizard, they also get dumped because Junior’s going to college or Sissy’s getting married. Sometimes dogs and cats are dumped because the family is moving from a house to an apartment.
And sometimes people just grow tired of having to be responsible.  The more responsible of the irresponsible take the dogs and cats to a shelter, but the rest just open a gate and yell “Git” or drive to a secluded spot, open the car door and shove.
Carrollton ha a big list of dogs on the brink of disaster if nobody steps up to get them to a safe haven. Call the CARE folks at 972-466-3420 or email [email protected].  Wednesday, 6 p.m. – that’s the deadline. 
Mango, that big dog (upper right) is a  Shepherd/Chow mix listed as an “older adult” and weighing it at just under 70 pounds. Owner-surrender. His “people” were moving to an apartment and couldn’t take him, so they went to a new home and he went to death row. He’s got a tumor on his leg and some little open wounds – might not be anything serious at all. But he hasn’t been through any vet exam – why waste money on that if he’s just going to get the needle, you know? Not the shelter’s fault. He’s #26966.
 Heather (#26973, left) is 5-to-7-year old Lab mix who came in as a stay. Great face. Seventy-five pounds. Nobody came looking for her. You may wonder how such a great face gets to be this old and not have someone who misses it desperately.
Bitsy (26969, brown dog right) is barely 4 months old, weighs just over 18 pounds and came in as a stray. She’ll get larger – unless the Wednesday deadline defeats her. She’s just a brown dog – plenty of those around.
Hermie? He’s #26968 and listed as a 2-to-4-year-old Shepherd mix who weighs about 30 pounds. He was a stray at a local ball park – just like Bitsy. Found in a park. Yep, probably dumped in a park, too. Hermie was wearing a harness when he was found, but no tags.
And, there is Odoe (26869), a Shepherd mix who weighs in at 41 pounds.
He is an 11-year-old dog who was an owner-surrender.
An owner-surrender at 11? We don’t know if that was the only owner he ever had. We don’t know if he was handed around before someone said, “That’s enough.”
The people who turned him in said he likes cats and is not all that happy with other dogs.
He’s 11 and in a shelter – he ought to be really disgusted by people.
But, 11 is only late middle age for some dogs and he might be just the right fellow to give a person some quiet companionship on cool autumn and winter evenings. You could probably read aloud to him and he’d listen.
Go to Carrollton’s PetFinder site HERE or visit the shelter critters on the Joe’s Animal House Facebook page HERE.
A COUPLE OF GAP OPPORTUNITIES: As you may recall, we frequently mention the Euless Trinity High School GAP Club’s animal efforts. There are ways to support this Girls Awareness Program that involve helping animals.
For example, through GAP supporter Karen Lee we learned that there’s a foster situation that needs some help.
A GAP Club foster home became overloaded and needs to find a pot for these two Dachshund mixes, Abner and Boscoe – they’re about 9 weeks old and are Doxie/Rat Terrier mixes on Mom’s side and, apparently, Handsome Passerby on dad’s side.
To offer to take up the torch of fostering with these two, email [email protected] or [email protected] or call 817-366-0120. To offer to be a GAP foster, email [email protected].
Just an FYI so you’ll know about the GAP Club, here’s the official description: “The Trinity GAP Club (Girls Awareness Program) is an all-girl's club that functions through Trinity High School in Euless, TX. The mission of Trinity GAP Club is to give these high school girls a positive outlet for their time and to show them positive alternatives for their lives. One of their community service projects is volunteering with the Euless Animal Shelter and sponsoring as many animals as their funds allow to provide spay/neuter, shots, and other vetting costs for the pets. Adoption fees collected from sponsored pets recycle back into their program so they can continue to vet as many pets as possible.”
FREE ANIMALS IN DALLAS: There is a crushing load of unwanted animals at Dallas Animal Services every day of the week. Some make it onto the VSP list – they’ve made it 45 days or longer in the shelter. Very Special Pets.
For these animals, there is no adoption fee. Just drop by and get one – it’s just about that simple. Take the critter, save a life.
DAS’s rescue team provided a long list of endanagered adoptables over the weekend. Rescue groups should ask about them at [email protected] and potential adoptors can email [email protected]. Drop by the shelter at I-30 and Westmoreland – you can’t miss it -- and meet the adoptables in person.
And don’t worry about the air-conditioning working right now – the autumn weather makes all under-performing AC systems look good.
The list is unattractively long for publication here without photos and since the photos are on PetHarbor and I don’t have the skills to easily navigate to PetHarbor to find the animals, I’m just going to hand you off to the DAS Facebook page HERE. I am told a PetHarbor link to DAS is listed somewhere, but I can’t find it. You can probably Google it, then enjoy a dynamic clickfest on PetHarbor. Read more about DAS at www.dallasanimalservices.org.
THE OPENING MOMMA: We got the tip on these animals on Sunday in a note from Allison Roberts, the volunteer shelter walker at Collin County Animal Services.
And the photo of the mommy dog hit right square on a heart nerve. No dog needs to be in that sort of a state – puzzled, anxious, unwanted.
It’s enough to make a grown man cry.
The mom and her six 2-month-old puppies – that’s who she may be hearing and looking for – were surrendered to the shelter over the weekend, Allison says. Some of the puppies have already been adopted, but Mom is still there, Allison says. Two girls and a boy puppy await homes.
There are, she reports, more than 50 adoptable dogs in the CCAS shelter as of late Su9nday. CCAS participated in the Mazie’s Mission Adopt-a-Thon over the weekend, and, she says, “We are all exhausted and still have an over-full shelter. Guess we should be used to that by now.”
How did the mom and six puppies wind up in the shelter? “A lady found the pregnant mom and kept her and the pups in her bathroom for two months,” Allison says.
So, they were in a nice quiet home with daily visits and affection and then in a shelter and lord knows what they were thinking.
The mom weighs under 40 pounds . And, of course, so do the pups – though, you never know how big they’ll get. They might grow to be just the right size.
Mom’s probably not much older than her off spring.
Here are the contact points to offer to help this family: email both [email protected] and [email protected].
CONTEMPLATIONS: Don’t you know a whole bunch of kids in the northeast are going to think of Hurricane Sandy and remember “the worst Halloween ever.” It’s the year they had to trick-or-treat in a boat. … Didn’t really enjoy the World Series – only watched the last couple of innings of two games. Still suffering from the Rangers season. And it looks like the next Super Bowl isn’t going to be all that enchanting, either. … Enjoy National Oatmeal Day. Of course, you might have missed the Oatmeal Festival at Bertram, Texas – contests included washer pitching and oatmeal box stacking. You know how tough it is to stack a round box. And, of course, you have to be really strong to pitch a washer. What? Oh. Not those washers.  I see.Here’s the LINK. The festival was back at Labor Day. Bertram (pop. about 1,300) is about 200 miles south of Dallas and about 45 miles northeast of Austin. It has never been struck by a hurricane. Flash flooding during the Oatmeal Festival will clog the streets, however.
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