Carmella DeCesare...NOT!

It's Carmella the first puppy to beat Distemper in the US. Out of curiosity I decided to do a Google search to see how many times my Carmella came up, and to my disappointment found page after page devoted to the same sex industry star. It was as if her promoters bought the entire fist 20 pages on Google! ***Well, psyche!*** Every once in awhile the little guy prevails.

I thought, "No wonder Etsy seems to be the only place through which people are finding my blog!" With such a monopoly I was hard-pressed to find any other Carmellas. There were maybe 2 others that I could find links to (and I had to search for quite a long time).

However, one thing that was encouraging was that when I searched Giftbearer and Etsy other bloggers' features of my shop and my blog came up fairly often because of the 90 Day Challenge I started last year around the holidays. Those blogs that featured me continue to come up on Google with my name or blog referenced long after the original post, so maybe the key to getting the word out is for multiple bloggers to write about Carmella in their blogs as well.

A year ago I had theorized that such an approach would work to boost Google ratings and not only did it turn out that I was right, but the long-term effect was even more positive than I'd anticipated! The one post on each participant they blogged about had residual visibility again and again!

So if you feel like you just can't compete with the paid Google position folks, don't dispair. There is more than one way to skin a cat...(and sometimes it's with a dog, hee, hee). If any of you are interested in trying this experiment blogging about Carmella I would be very interested to see how it turns out and to report in my blog what kind of impact we have. Here's one more way the community can come together to help Carmella. Maybe we'll attract some dog-lovers from a variety of other places in addition to Etsy.

http://Giftbearer.etsy.com/

Today's Search for a Neuro Vet

So far we have not had any luck finding a neurological vet or someone with experience doing spinal taps to do this procedure. A friend of mine had given me several names and I started with her own vet first.

It turned out he and Dr. Norwood new each other, but instead of being excited at learning of a possible new cure this guy was wary right off the bat. He immediately said he was afraid of liability (from whom I wonder when Carmella would die for sure if she does not have it). If he's worried about liability he should be more worried about his failure to act killing her than the treatment. It really burns me up when people think it's better to allow some living thing to die needlessly than to lift a finger and give it much better odds of living and even being completely fixed up. This guy just doesn't get the risk/benefit concept at all.

He said he'd have to "read up on it" yet he barely listened to take down the researcher's e-mail address and some of the sites that went into greater detail about what this entails. Instead, he promptly told me he was going to call my vet and talk to him, and it appeared that he went fear-mongering to try to dissuade him from helping. It didn't work though and I got a call from Dr. Norwood telling me that he would still work with us and that we'd persue other doctors. That was a relief.

Then no more than 5 or 10 minutes later this other guy called back and in a very edgy tone informed me that this was "experimental", the dog's prognosis because of her diagnosis is "poor", and that he couldn't do it. I told him that it was precisely the fact that her prognosis is poor that made this a good move because this is the only shot we have to save the dog, otherwise it is a 100% certainty that she WILL DIE sooner or later if the virus in the Central Nervous System is left untreated. I guess that was OK with him but it wasn't OK with me. I mean come on! Isn't any doctor's duty to preserve life? Letting a dog die when there is something you can do about it is downright cruel, especially the kind of horrible death a dog with Distemper has.

This other vet (I will call him Dr. T because I don't want to print his name here) seemed personally angry and offended that Dr. Norwood was not going to be deterred from this and he said nastily, "Dr. Norwood is going way out on a limb to do as much as he has so far, so I sure hope you appreciate it!"

I said "Yes, I sure do! He's great!" That only seemed to make him more pissed. Needless to say we did not stay on the phone much longer and he told me again that he couldn't do it, and I said OK and that was the end of that. I wondered why Dr. T felt compelled to try to sabotage this effort rather than just say no and walk away if he personally didn't want to help. Was he in bed with some drug company that manufactured maintenence meds for dogs dying of Distemper, or did he feel some sort of twisted sense of indignation that anyone would spend so much time and money on saving a dog when he felt he'd been neglected in his lifetime and didn't have people come through for him. Whatever it was it was a very strange reaction and no help, to say the least.

I am running on fumes right now, chronically sleep-deprived, unable to really rest until I know this has been completed and that Carmella is on the mend. My sleep at night is fitful and I wake up feeling as if I may as well have just stayed up and never gone to bed.

Today I decided to go ahead and start a week-long sale in my Etsy store giving any buyer who purchases between today; Saturday, July 26th, and Friday, August 1st a 10% discount. I don't normally believe in sales, but in this circumstance if it will bring in some badly needed income I'm willing to do it. Carmella's life is worth it. In case you don't already have it the URL is

http://giftbearer.etsy.com/

As of yet we have still not heard from Dr. Sears. He is thought to be filling in for a vet in California but we aren't sure where. Daveyo has tried to send an urgent message to him but he seems to be out of computer contact wherever he is.

I am going to try to locate him by calling his old practice in Lancaster. Maybe somebody there still keeps in touch with him.

With all the legwork I've been doing there must be someone who will come through for us soon and step up to the plate. This last part is relatively simple if the right players cooperate to set things up. As I've always said; "With love and action all things are possible." Good luck comes when everyone pulls together toward a common goal to be part of the solution.

Carmella - My Rescued Shelter Dog

I missed the shelter dog I was waiting for originally that was part greyhound, but got another one last Saturday (July 5th, 2008). I named her Carmella and she is the sweetest little 3 month old puppy you could ever find. She looks like a Dingo with reddish brown fur and distinctive-looking eyes that are almost cat-like in their shape, big ears that stand up and fold slightly to the side, and a light chocolate mask around her nose and chin. Carmella likes to climb into my lap and sit with me while I type on the computer, and already barks at the door when someone comes to it. She's pretty close to being housebroken and is very smart.

The day I picked her out (the previous Wednesday) she seemed fine, but when I came to pick her up just a few days later she had developed some sort of illness. (In retrospect it appeared that one of the shelter employees was unusually elated, thanking me profusely when I told him I was coming back to take her home. Although it seemed a little extreme I thought nothing of it at the time. I just figured he loved animals and that maybe she was his favorite, but now I can't help but wonder whether she was slated for the "gas chamber" and was saved by the bell).

Looking back I remember that I had to ask for each piece of her records one by one and they did not seem sure of what their vet had done or not done, on what date. Some things were not actually documented until the day I brought her home.

The shelter sent her home with some antibiotics, telling me it's kennel cough and nothing serious, but after one week she did not get any better, so I took her to the vet this morning and they say there's a 50/50 chance she will pull through, as she is sicker than the shelter staff led me to believe. It looks as though I am going to be paying off this bill for a long time, but I couldn't see putting her to sleep just to save myself the debt.

Right now she is in intensive care at the vet for several days because she won't eat and needs 'round the clock veterinary care. They're in the process of doing some tests to determine exactly what's wrong, do chest X-rays, give her an IV and get some nutrition into her to help her fight off the infection.

I believe there was a reason why I rescued her in particular and a purpose in her coming into my life, and that she is meant to survive and have many happy and healthy years ahead.

We must all do what we can to protect the innocents of the world; not merely wish good luck but to BE good luck.

For those of you who are interested I will post a picture of her here on my blogspot blog once she's out of the woods. (I felt taking a picture of her in her current state may jinx her recovery, so I decided to wait).

If you see anything in my Etsy shop you think you can use or give as a gift to someone in your life, your purchase at this time is much appreciated, so that I can give this puppy all the help she needs to get back on her feet. http://Giftbearer.etsy.com

Thanks for caring!

Sincerely,

Pippit