(Community Matters 194) Wiggly Tail: Meet Scottie! The Sweet Young Basset Doodle

This time on Wiggly Tail, meet Scottie, a sweet, high-energy young “Basset Doodle” at the Humane Society of South Central Michigan. Carrie Bammer, Animal Care Manager at HSSCM, talks about the ideal home for Scotty and shares an adoption update on previously featured cat, Bagel. 

Bammer also discusses how the increase tick population in Michigan is causing health issues for many dogs in the area. 

Episode Resources

Humane Society of South Central Michigan Website

Scottie on Petfinder

More Wiggly Tail episodes

ABOUT COMMUNITY MATTERS
Former WBCK Morning Show host Richard Piet (2014-2017) returns to host Community Matters, an interview program focused on community leaders and newsmakers in and around Battle Creek. Community Matters is heard Saturdays, 8:00 AM Eastern on WBCK-FM (95.3) and anytime at battlecreekpodcast.com.

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Transcript

Wigglytail Updates And Today’s Pet

Richard Piet 0:02

Community Manners, with our visits to the Humane Society of South Central Michigan, we call them Wiggly Tail updates because there is usually some kind of wiggly tail involved. By that we mean a poster pet of sorts, a representative for the adoptable pets at the Humane Society in Battle Creek. And Carrie Bammer is here, Animal Care Manager from the Humane Society, to talk to us about Scottie.

Meet Scotty The Basset Doodle

Richard Piet 0:29

Hello, Carrie. Hello, how are you? Great. Thanks for this. Good to see you. Good to see you too. So Scottie is a dog. We can start there.

Carrie Bammer 0:38

She is, and she is kind of a different breed. She is what we're considering a Basset Doodle. And that's a wild guess. We did not do a DNA. We're just looking and we're saying, this is what she looks like. DNA can show many different things, but she does have the long body of a basset, and she's got the hair of like what you would consider like a labradoodle. Um, it's not super curly. Uh, there is a little bit of shedding involved, but it's not a highly shedding, and she is absolutely adorable.

Richard Piet 1:07

Where did these doodle names come from? Are these technical terms or uh you know so or do we just make these up because we know you know this is basically the genetics?

Carrie Bammer 1:18

It's kind of basic genetics, I'm saying, you know, because there are so many, you know, you've got your Bernie Doodle, you've got your Labradoodle, your Golden Doodle.

Richard Piet 1:27

Yeah.

Carrie Bammer 1:28

You know, there's a Husky Doodle, you know. So there's just so many different things that they're mixing together, trying to, I don't know, come up with a designer breed. Does it make sense? No, there's a lot of very nice breeds that are not doodles. These guys are super smart. She is very energetic. She is going out for walks with volunteers. They really like her. She's one of the more social. I mean, they're all pretty social. It's just like the two boys are a little bit more shy, but that's can be typical in a large group of pack type thing. She would most likely do well with a fence, I would say. Uh just because of her energy level. And they weren't really leash training when they came in, but although they picked it up really quick, I would just say that uh just taking her for leash walks, I don't think would be enough exercise for her. But other than that, I mean, she seems like a very nice dog.

Richard Piet 2:21

And as you've alluded, she came in as part of a litter.

Carrie Bammer 2:25

Yes, that's what we're figuring, because there's one male that looks a lot like her. Then there is uh Sunday, who is more of like a bassador-looking dog. So that would be a lab, Labrador Retriever Basset. She's got the straight coat. She's really got the basset legs, and then there's Spud, which is a male that's in the group, and he looks more like a smaller golden doodle, but we can't verify that for sure. So they all are very different, but they all have similar characteristics.

Richard Piet 2:56

How old is Scottie? Do we know?

Carrie Bammer 2:58

About seven, seven, eight months, right around there, and around 40 pounds. So, you know, gonna be a I mean, long dog, so she's very long, and I would say probably larger medium size when she's fully grown. So I mean she's 40 pounds now, so she would probably be about 60 at full size. I'm that's a guess. That is a guess.

Richard Piet 3:19

Yeah, you know, I think sometimes it's tempting to classify a basset hound as a relatively small dog since they're short, but they have bulk.

Carrie Bammer 3:28

They do, and it depends on whether or not they're an English Basset or they're the American Basset, because the English Bassets actually get up to about 80 pounds. Oh my. So they are quite big. The American Basset is a little bit on the smaller side, so I think that they are more about the 50, 60 pound range, possibly, maybe a little bit smaller.

Richard Piet 3:47

All right, so that makes sense. 78 months, still energetic, puppy has a puppy view, and as you say, we'll need some uh exercise. So a fenced yard is probably good. Do we know anything about mixing with other dogs, uh cats, children? What's the thought?

Carrie Bammer 4:05

We have uh like kids that are eight years and older because we don't really know. There's no, I don't know, there might be some jumping and things like that, but it would be observed interaction. So if somebody came in with kids, we would want to see how the dog oriented towards them. If the dog acted afraid, I would say, you know, this isn't the best fit for you. And then we would know more about the animal. They seem very dog social, so I think that they would match well with another dog. Just depends on what the meet and greet would do. So that's I would say that cats. I haven't really seen them interact with any of the cats. You know, we don't really do a cat test. Usually the dogs come up to the room. We see as long as they don't fixate on the cats, they're not drooling while they're staring at the cats. Or if we notice that there's a more of a prey drive. And I don't really notice that so much, you know. So I would say a slow introduction with a cat that is dog-friendly, been around dogs, and and just kind of go from there. We haven't seen any reason to think that they wouldn't adapt to a cat, but again, we would test them a little bit further just to make sure, depending on what the application looked like.

Finding The Right Home Fit

Richard Piet 5:12

If you may already know this, if you've been with us regularly for Wigglytail, this is standard protocol. If you have a dog in the house already, the Humane Society is going to ask you to bring it, and then they will attempt to see what kind of dynamic there is between the two to make sure that this is a good match. So Scottie, the basset doodle, or perhaps one of her presumed siblings, uh, could be the one for you. And you made a point of saying uh she has a sweet disposition, which always uh makes people feel good.

Carrie Bammer 5:46

Yeah, she does. She's been very friendly from right from the get-go. Sunday is as well. I mean, so is Schaefer and Spud. They're all very nice dogs and they make great companions, you know. So I, you know, I know sometimes the application process can seem a little bit overwhelming for some people, but it's really in your best interest to do the application process because, you know, it's kind of like everything else in your life. If you miss steps, sometimes you feel like you're missing things and you like it. Most people, anyways, like things to be organized. And so we try to organize it so that it fits everyone's schedule. And you really get to spend a lot of one-on-one time with the animal that you're interested in, rather than it just being here, take this animal home, and guess what? You know, you get to discover all that. We don't always know exactly what they're gonna be like in a home, but we can at least guide you in the right direction so that there aren't any major surprises when you do take them home.

Richard Piet 6:46

Yeah. Uh, this is the point. Uh, the Humane Society wants to be sure that uh the best match possible is made. So they're trying to work that out, as you've heard Carrie say. And so maybe Scottie's the one for you, maybe one of her siblings, maybe another.

Carrie Bammer 7:01

We have plenty. We have plenty of very nice dogs and

Bagel’s Comeback Adoption Story

Carrie Bammer 7:05

cats right now.

Richard Piet 7:05

So speaking of nice cats, I just have to mention this. I saw that bagel was adopted. Now, you'd have to go back in our archives to find it, but we did uh an episode about bagel. Bagel is a cat that had been attacked and came in injured and was saved, essentially. His life was saved, and he has merged into the cat life at the shelter pretty well, and has always been there when I come around, and I saw boom, he was adopted this week. Oh man, you kind of get mixed feelings sometimes, don't you? There they go, you're happy for them, but you know, man, there goes bagel.

Carrie Bammer 7:48

He knew something was going on and he wasn't real happy with us, but he wasn't even on their radar when they came in. They were actually looking at, you know, a couple of different ones, and they sat on the bench and he just sat there in between them the whole time, you know. So uh they weren't sure if they wanted one or if they wanted two, and he just stole their hearts. So I told him the story, you know, that we thought he was attacked by a bird of prey, you know, and you know what we went through. He was a great patient. And they were in there for a while, and then they came out and they're like, Can we just walk around? And we said, Yeah, go ahead, go talk, you know, think about it. And so they walked out, and you know, the front of the building. If you go towards the west, you see the cat solarium, and there's the windows. And I looked in there and I saw Bagel and I said, Oh my gosh, I bet he's out just sending them the vibes through the window, you know. He was working it, he was working it. And so they came back in and they're like, We've decided it's gonna be bagel. And I said, It's because he walked and he was staring at you through the window, and they said, Yeah, we just couldn't resist it.

Richard Piet 8:56

Oh, what a great story, yeah, especially after all that he'd been through. His back had been injured. He'd been essentially skinned on his back.

Carrie Bammer 9:06

You couldn't really tell how bad it was when he first came in. You could see it, but until we got him on the table and started to debris everything, we were real concerned at first because it was so big, but he was such a great patient because we had to, you know, redo the wrap on it. It kept sliding down because it was in a weird spot, you know, right in his abdomen on his back, um, on a lumbared area. And we just kept, you know, putting the salve on it. We kept wrapping it up, and um, that was right around Christmas time. So that was, I think, 12/26, 24. And it just kept getting smaller and smaller. We did buy him one of those surgical suits and he would wear it and he would sulk when he had it on. Um but uh and then he went into the cat room, he just kind of glided right in, he blended well, and we were really hopeful, you know, with the story that somebody would come in and it just wasn't happening. He really was drawn towards men when they came in the room, and we thought, oh, he would probably be really great with a single man or whatever. It just never happened, and then this couple came in, and I mean that's kind of the way it happens sometimes. It's like they choose you, they do choose.

Richard Piet 10:17

Yes, that's happened in my history too. They choose you. Well, this is uh what we live for here at the Humane Society of South Central Michigan. You save this cat and you want him to go to this uh terrific home and and uh circumstances uh uh fall into place, I guess is the phrase. So good for him. Yes, and uh you can see the picture of him with his his new family on the Facebook page for the Humane

Tick Season Lyme Risk And Prevention

Richard Piet 10:46

Society. Here's a question, Carrie. We have been hearing all spring about the amped-up incidents of ticks in Michigan. You've gotta be working doubly hard to make sure when you take these dogs out, they don't come back loaded with ticks.

Carrie Bammer 11:05

Yes, it is uh is really bad. It's been bad for the last couple of years, and they said that this year was gonna be worse because there's so many different species of ticks. The deer tick and the and the brown dog tick are the ones that we typically see the most of. They do carry different bacteria, as far as I know. I think that the deer tick carries the lime. I think the brown tog tick carries the anaplasma. I can't pronounce the bee part of it. It's like borey something, la la. And so I I know that a lot of the vet offices are seeing a huge rise in Lyme positive dogs.

Richard Piet 11:39

I imagine that's true.

Carrie Bammer 11:41

Yes. And we recently had a couple of dogs that were dropped off. And we are assuming we did not see it on the camera. We're not exactly sure what time. We just had some people that were pulling into the parking lot and they were sighting, you know, they were of them, and that there was two. Uh, we couldn't get close enough. Um, I did work with a woman and her daughter uh out of climax, and they do a lot of trapping, um, and they're very good at it. And so I contacted her. They were busy over in Kalamazoo, and she got right back with me um after they got caught the ones that they were after at that point, set the trap, and we caught one one day, we caught the second one the next day. And both of them had ticks on them. We did heartworm and Lyme test them, and they were, of course, positive for Lyme. The ticks that were on them most likely are not the culprit because it does take 24 to 36 hours for that to happen. But again, I don't know how long it takes before it would actually test positive in the bloodstream. So I would imagine they were already positive. One of them is positive for Lyme and the anaplasma, and the other one is just Lyme positive. They're not symptomatic, but we're treating them with the doxycycline anyways, and they'll have to be on that for 30 days. And then from what I know, it's more along the lines of monitoring them. They may never have any issues with it, but they may test positive either for the rest of their life, I'm not sure, or for you know, three or four tests afterwards, they might still, as they were exposed to it. That is not completely clear to me on how that works, but I do know that later in life there might be extra blood work that would need to be done just to monitor the liver and the kidneys. And then it would be if it whoever adopts them, they'll get all that information to take to their vet, and then their vet will take it from there. But we would say if you're noticing any lameness that, you know, you want to get them to the vet right away. Um, because that and lethargy, those types of things are very common.

Richard Piet 13:43

Yeah, common symptoms, sure.

Carrie Bammer 13:45

Yeah, and but it is becoming a a real problem. So what we do at the shelter is you know, our dogs are all on the heartworm preventative every single month, you know, we make sure that they have that. And we do the advantage multi, which was a topical, which does for fleas, but it doesn't do for ticks. So sometimes we have to offset and we wait two to three weeks and then we'll put on a topical. If we have some that's donated of the next guard or whatnot, we will use that. We are using some that was donated to us that was next guard plus, which covers heartworm, flea, and tick. So then we don't have to worry about doing anything extra. Um, that's very nice. It's just a very, it's a very large cost for the shelter. We do the advantage multi because we can buy the largest amount of that, then we can break that down over multiple animals, if that makes sense. Yes. Um, but we just can't, we don't want to do say frontline plus or advantix or advantage at the same time because we don't want to overdose them with a flea preventative. So we'll wait two to three weeks and then we apply the flea and tick medication. And then it's just kind of a like a a cycle after that. Then another 30 days, then we would do that again and then again, and then we're doing tick checks every time the dogs go out for walks when they come back in.

Richard Piet 15:01

I was about to ask that. So, how many dogs are in the shelter now, roughly?

Carrie Bammer 15:05

Roughly, I think 28 right now. I think I should know that, but I think that it's 28. Well with the two new ones.

Richard Piet 15:15

Yeah, you help make the point. 28 dogs go out how many times a day? Every time they come back, they have to be inspected.

Carrie Bammer 15:23

Yeah. Well, when they go to their outside kennels, when we're doing the regular rotations, we don't have to do that, but if they go for a walk with the volunteers on the trails, I see. So 28 dogs do not go for walks on the trails every single day, but there is still a number of them that do go out uh throughout the week. And so we do have to check them. If we take them into, say, the play area, there are some trees that kind of overhang. The lawn crew is doing a really great job of keeping any of the tall grass weed whipped and things, so we are keeping that down. And then our pest control guys are absolutely wonderful. Advanced pet control, they do a great job. They do spray the trails for us, and they do spray around those areas. So it does help to keep the the that tick population down, but there's not a lot we can do about the thicket areas and into the taller

Abandoned Dogs And Shelter Reality

Carrie Bammer 16:12

grass. So, as those dogs that were left, just so you know, it is illegal to abandon your animal anywhere, and the risk of them getting hit on Watkins Road was extremely high, um, especially when they were running scared.

Richard Piet 16:26

They're just running, yeah.

Carrie Bammer 16:27

Yeah, but they were in the tree area, and so we were picking them off quite a bit, and there was a lot of like the itty bitty nymphs that were around the eyes. So it was a much easier. We were able to spay both of them, and so as they were knocked out, we were able to remove those a little bit easier from the eye without injuring the eye because they were a little excitable, they're very nice dogs. We're hoping that we're able to place them pretty quickly, but everybody knows adoptions are down statewide.

Richard Piet 16:56

Boy, we could have a whole show about all of these things. Uh but let's talk about the drop-offs first. You kind of presume that the possibility that since they're they were social, these were housebroken pets of some sort, which leads you to believe somebody's desperate, they can't handle it. Yes, potentially. You talk about the running toward the roadway. I-94 is not all that far away either, which is uh really scary to contemplate, so I don't want to linger there. Yeah. But this is not the way it's supposed to work. But it's a statement about the times, I suppose, but also the population among all the organizations in Calhoun County like Humane Society that are trying to help. This is a lot to deal with.

Carrie Bammer 17:45

It is a lot to deal with, and it's very stressful. And people have such big hearts and they want to help, and there's just not always enough space and time. There are options out there. People need to call to find out what the options are. I believe that these two are siblings, they're both very close to similar uh breeds, of course. Yes, there are pit mixes, and I figure with them both that because they were females and one of them is a little bit more dominant than the other, that there was a possibility that they were possi not getting along in the household. I'm not sure. Uh, I can only speculate, and I've been doing this a long time. So sometimes if it looks like a bear, you know, talks like a picture, walks like a bear, it is a bear. Because we thought maybe, well, we'll see if they could kennel together. Because at the point I didn't have any extra kennels outside when we were taking them out inside we were okay, but outside I wasn't. But I did not feel comfortable putting them together at all. You know, female dominance and lots of breeds, and with all that power, you just can't risk it. They're fine kenneled next to each other, but they prefer like sisters to have their own room. Um, yeah.

Richard Piet 19:00

Brothers too, probably. Yeah.

Responsible Ownership And Closing Links

Carrie Bammer 19:02

Yeah. There's the thing, like I get asked a lot when people say, Well, what are people supposed to do when they are in a predicament where they can't keep their animal?

Richard Piet 19:10

Great question.

Carrie Bammer 19:11

Don't wait till the last minute. Start reaching out as soon as possible. And you cannot expect anything to happen within a 24 to 48 hour period. It never used to, anyways, in its in its worst now, just because like these girls, with adoptions being the way that they are, and if they are like a female dominant, maybe I haven't got to do a lot of testing about with any other dogs. Will they have to be an only dog in the home? And so a lot of people have more than one animal, and those homes don't always just grow on trees. Pit bulls have a a stigma, it's not true, but you can't always mold someone's opinion of what they see when they're looking at a dog. I own a pit bull for 14 years. I absolutely loved him, but I've worked here for 20 and I've seen good and I've seen bad. It's a powerful animal. Bottom line, bully breeds are powerful and um they do have a mind of their own. Anyone who owns one knows that. I would just say a lot of it falls back on the responsibility of the community, of the ownership of the animals a lot of time, and solving someone's problem isn't always the easiest thing to do, you know, for anyone. Being a responsible pet owner is extremely important. Spaying and neutering is extremely important, and there are options that are out there. People just have to be open-minded to them.

Richard Piet 20:42

And that's where we'll leave it for now. Scottie is available for adoption, as we mentioned, the Bassett Doodle and her presumed siblings as well, along with a whole other population through which you could scroll and perhaps decide to fill out an application and pursue it further if you're ready to do so at the Humane Society of South Central Michigan. Links will be in the show notes for this episode at Battle Creek Podcast.com. Carrie Bammer, Humane Society South Central Michigan. Thank you.

Carrie Bammer 21:16

Thank you.