FIPS CARES: Can Someone Pls Adopt This Cat?

Come on!? PLEEEZE? I don't even like cats, and I think this dude is cute!

Someone dumped the poor guy in a box in front of the animal clinic. Yep, on one of the coldest nights of the year. And now the poor guy is just stuck there in a cage. His eyes are so pretty! And his nose is pink! You can adopt him for a $51 fee.

Someone? Anyone??

Prospect Park Animal Clinic
105 prospect park west
718-768-6125

(via Grace from Fearless Cooking)

Who Gives A Shit: 'Is Your Dog Friendly?'

So, dog owners do this thing when they meet each other on the street: in order to gauge whether one dog will bite the other dog's fucking head off, we'll call out "is your dog friendly?"

Seems kind of innocuous, no?

But this being Park Slope-n-all, there is no such thing.

I'm lucky enough to have a super duper friendly dog. In fact, Oliver is utterly fucking dumbfounded if your dog is walking by and doesn't want to say hello to him. It's like his brain can't compute the information, and he just stares, watches the dog pass, and takes one last long look back as if to say: WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU TO DESERVE THIS SORT OF TREATMENT!?"

So, ok: granted if your dog *is* friendly, there's not much more to say than "yes!" or "very" when another dog owner inquires as to their level of approachability. However, I've begun to notice something lately from the "not friendly" dog owner camp and it usually makes me wanna vom.

Rather than just saying "NO...he's not friendly" and leave it at that, everyone needs to come up with some sort of War and Peace explanation as to why their dog may or may not get all cujo: "well, he's VERY friendly, but only with female dogs...is your dog a male or a female?" or "he's almost always super friendly, but sometimes on long walks or if he's really tired he might be a bit unpredictable" (said as the woman felt confident enough to approach me and my dog with her "unpredictable" pooch." Or this one was my fave from yesterday: "he's friendly, but he doesn't get along with old dogs." UHM, what!? Your dog is an ageist? Or a sexist? Or a racist!?

HONESTLY, I DON'T GIVE A SHIT! I JUST WANT A SIMPLE "YES" OR "NO."

I will not judge you or think you less of a person because your dog is not friendly. I will not assume you don't care about society, or animal rights, or locally produced food. I will not assume that you are a bad fur mommy or fur daddy. I will not assume that you (or your dog) are in therapy.  I just wanna know, quickly and without bullshit, whether or not I should be concerned about your dog biting my dog's face. That's IT.

Sheesh.

This Just Happened: A Catpack

I guess this is a new thing we all need to be aware of: Catpacks.

Let's use it in a sentence: I would make fun of catpacks all night and all day, except that I now wanna buy a dogpack for Oliver.

NOT.

Can someone please add this pic to the wikipedia entry for Park Slope...like immediately.

Dog's Den Closed By NYC Marshal

image: Here Is Park SlopeAfter some crazy Kennel cough outbreak, Dog's Den has apparently been seized, shut down by the NYC Marshal (whatever the hell that is), and is now for rent.

Back when we first moved to Park Slope several years ago, we needed a daycare solution for Oliver and Dog's Den had just opened. It was sort of the only game in town, and the facilities looked pretty OK, so we started sending him there. But we quickly realized that the place sucked a gigantic dizzle.

Here's some reasons why:

• It didn't take long for the place to start smelling like a piss factory...on a hot day in the middle of summer....during the middle of a piss storm. It was never ever ever never clean in there. 
• They had a "puppy cam" that was supposed to allow you to watch your dog every day. First they told me it would only work with PC's...then I heard it was "broken." It pretty  much stayed that way for the duration of our time going there (8 mos or so).
• One day when I was picking up Oliver I was privy to an "interview" meeting that the owner was having with a potential new employee. Why the eff he felt it appropriate to conduct this meeting in front of me, I do not know. The dude did not ask this person what his experience with animals was, how he felt about animals, if he was a pet owner. He basically just emphasized that it was a minimum wage job and "not very much fun." This attitude was very evident with most of the employees who (with the exception of one or two) were not people who were there because they loved dogs...they were just there cause they needed a paycheck.
• I go to pick up Oliver one night and they bring him up to me with a bloody cut on his nose. I ask what happened and they tell me that "Oliver got into it" with one of the other dogs. We've had Oliver for 9 years now, and had never once have seen O-town "get into it" with any other dog. They didn't really have much more of an explanation. He looked to me at the time like he needed stitches so we took him to vet (for an emergency after hours appt, thank you very much). As it turned out, he didn't need stitches, but he does now have a permanent scar from the incident, ruining his chances forever at a John Casablancas modeling contract.

It was soon after that we decided WE'RE NEVER STEPPING FOOT INTO THAT HELL HOLE AGAIN.

How rad would it be if some responsible, conscientious, Doggie Daycare owners took the place over, changed the name, cleaned it the fuck up and turned it into a rad Doggie Daycare facility?? Cause the Slope desperately needs one and I'm pretty sure that with all the dogs around here, it could make about a billion dollars.

(via Here Is Park Slope)

FIPS CARES: LOST DOBERMAN

From FIPS reader Arthur:

Just found a really nice Doberman freezing and crying outside my door. 311 isn't really of any assistance in finding his owner, so hopefully Brooklynian will be.

He's young, got a spiked collar on (no tags) wearing a gray and orange/red vest. Super well behaved, seems to like Cheerios.

Please respond if you know who lost this good guy.

HELP!

He found the dog on Eastern Parkway near Franklin Ave in Crown Heights.

And then this update after he went to the vet this morn:

An update, Dobby (as we've taken to calling him) has no RFID chip. I'm making some contacts with more sources for help but if anyone out there happens to be hankering to foster this big guy, it would be a huge help. This time of year is crazy busy, and having a stray dog to look after isn't exactly what my apartment is capable of right now.

Anyone have any info? Recognize the dog? Have room/desire/ability to foster?

This is obviously someone's dog...he's wearing a coat and seems well cared for. Let's get this guy home!

Here's a thread on Brooklynian as well.

Email me at effedinparkslope at gmail dot com if you have any scoop.

UPDATE: Dobby is Mello! And he was reunited with his owner last night!

From Arthur:

"The dog (Mello) was playing with his owner at a tennis court but managed to slip out of the fence.  In the process, his tags became disconnected from him collar and off he went.  His owner was a really nice guy and Mello recognized him immediately... great to see him get so excited to be reunited with his owner.  His owner, Shawn, was very appreciative for everyones help.  Turns out his girlfriend saw the posting on the FIDO site and tracked me down that way.

Thanks again for the help with all of this... great to see the results of combined online efforts!"

Indeed...nice work, team!