Blind As A Bat(ty)

Been away for a while and thought this would be the perfect way to come back with a bang.

Many of you know that a quarter from each sale of Almost Perfect, our book about disabled pets, is donated to Animal Welfare Karpathos, the only animal rescue on the Greek island. The author of the final essay in the book, Roberta Beach Jacobson, runs the rescue with her partner, Alf Meier.

They made this delightful little vid about Batty, a blind kitten there. I wanted to share it with you, because it reminds me very much of the way my blind cat, Idgie behaves, and shows what a full, happy life blind pets are capable of leading. It also carries a poignant message we all need to be reminded of. So take a few minutes and give it a look, won't you?

Meet Brownie: From guest blogger Roberta Beach Jacobson

Today's post is from guest blogger Roberta Beach Jacobson. Roberta is a contributor to Almost Perfect: Disabled Pets and the People Who Love Them. She wrote the final piece in the book, Fritz: Pink Ears, Red Tape, about her experience with a cat whose ears were terminally sunburned from the intense sunshine on her home Greek island of Karpathos. With the help of her husband, Alf Meier, she runs Animal Welfare Karpathos, an independent, all-volunteer critter rescue on their home island of Karpathos, in Greece. 25¢ of each copy of the book we sell goes to support the efforts of this worthwhile organization.

Meet Brownie.

You could say we got tricked into this foster care situation. Greek tourists on our island witnessed the pointer mix dog get bumped by a car, later by another. He had no collar, apparently no owner, so they got him into their rental car to help him.

Where to go?

Someone gave them our telephone number. One of the negatives of living on a remote island is there's no vet or shelter. My husband Alf, a photographer, is the one called to patch up all the critters in trouble.

Alf and some of his charges

Brownie, as the tourists named him, got a fiberglass cast. He moved in with us. We assume he'd never been inside a house before. So he could go outdoors when needed, we started sleeping with the kitchen door open. Our regular dog flap is too small for the likes of Brownie!

For whatever reason (my guess is from his licking) he got an infection in one of his wounds. Off came the cast. He got braces and bandages for a few days.

With our gang of 33 rescue cats and three rescue dogs around the house, we're plenty busy as it is. Still, we're doing our best to accommodate Brownie. He got a new cast. We had no more fiberglass in our makeshift volunteer clinic (better said, what we had was dried out and worthless), so Alf went to the hardware store for some plaster and got to work on creating a cast.

The Greek tourists came by our house with bones and restaurant treats a few times, but their vacation drew to a close and they headed to the ferry to depart our island.

In the meantime, Brownie was up to a few dog tricks. The plastic cone didn't stop him from gnawing at his new cast, eventually shredding parts of it to bits. We tried to outsmart him. We stapled two cones together. We don't live in the sort of place where there's a pet shop or where we can buy needed supplies. Everything is improvised. We even put a cork at the bottom of the metal stabilizing bar in his cast. (Think of cork-soled shoes!)

Brownie has needed yet another replacement cast. With a little luck, this one will last six weeks. We hope he'll recover to have full use of his leg, but part of his bone was splintered, so that remains to be seen.
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Roberta has her own blog at the Seattle Post Intelligencer online, and can be found tweeting about the beach on Twitter.

Roberta Makes Headlines for Greek Animals!

Roberta Beach Jacobson, one of the illustrious contributors to our Almost Perfect anthology, has made the front page of the Greece & Cyprus area of the Best Friends Network website with her story, "The Sea Dog of Karpathos Island."

Opi and friend

It's a heartwarming, true story of Roberta and her husband, Alf, adopting a scruffy little one-eyed dog. Roberta and Alf are cofounders of Animal Welfare Karpathos. Karpathos is an island with no resident vet or animal shelter and the idea for creating AWK came about in 2001.

Since that time, German veterinarian Martina Greve has been volunteering on Karpathos twice a year to neuter and spay dogs and cats. She also tends to any farm animals in need of medical treatment.

The organization's clinic is always busy. In between vet visits, Alf gives routine injections, hands out flea and tick treatments and does lots of dog grooming. 25¢ from each copy of Almost Perfect sold goes to support this worthwhile group.

Thanks, Roberta!

Well, bust my buttons! I'm holding my head up high this morning -- this blog has been given the Sisterhood Award by fellow author and blogger Roberta Beach Jacobson (also a contributor to Almost Perfect!).

Roberta blogs over at the Seattle Post Intelligencer site, and had this to say:

Almost Perfect Pets
Mary Shafer is a wonder who balances twenty projects at once. Her blog offers a pleasing combination of opinion, news and humor. How she has time for it with all her books and other endeavors, I have no earthly idea. I suspect she never sleeps.

Well, THANK YOU, Roberta! It's always nice to be recognized by someone you admire. Roberta is something of a wonder herself, what with all her own books, her blog and her tireless work on behalf of animals. 25¢ from each copy of Almost Perfect goes to support Animal Welfare Karpathos, an all-volunteer animal rescue organization that Roberta helped found and still volunteers with.