Super Adoption Event at IFA

I just found out that the Enoch Shelter is going to participate in the Super Adoption Event at the new IFA on Main Street in Cedar. It's on April 30th from 9am to 2pm. PLEASE tell everyone you know to come adopt a wonderful dog or cat!

Conjunctivitis/Pink Eye

There is an epidemic at the Shelter. Pink eye is everywhere and all the cats are miserable. That makes me miserable. Antibiotics are SO expensive and some times they don't even help. I found some natural remedies that I'm going to try tomorrow. I'll keep you posted! Holistic Treatments Use a homemade saline solution. Combine 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1 cup of lukewarm water. Drip saline solution into your cat's eye using a cotton ball or eye dropper 3 to 4 times a day. Bacteria can form in homemade saline mixes so make a new solution for each treatment and use a separate cotton ball for each eye. L-lysine is an amino acid and can be found in most health food stores at a low price in capsule or tablet form. Look for 500 mg capsules of lysine that can be mixed into canned cat food twice a day, for 1000 mg total per day. Continue for five days. Owners may want to continue mixing 250 mg of lysine a day in your cat's food as an immune booster. Applying apple cider vinegar, undiluted or diluted with 1 tablespoon vinegar with 2 tablespoons water, to the scruff of your cat's neck is a favorite home treatment for all types of eye infections, including conjunctivitis. Adding a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to your cat's water is also said to prevent allergies, which can cause eye irritation, from bothering your cat. If the symptoms are not improving after using these treatments bring your cat to the vet to rule out any more serious problems.

Black is Beautiful

In every sense of the word. And don't take offense. Black cats and dogs often times get overlooked in the Shelters. I don't understand why. Perhaps it's because they don't photograph as well as lighter colored animals. It's a shame really, because we have some of the most delightful black dogs and cats I've ever met!

Take Brutus - he's had a tough young life, through no fault of his own. He's a big, fun loving Black Lab. And all he's looking for is a home of his own.

Then we have Ralphie. Which cracks me up because I have a Tuxedo cat named Ralphie. Ralphie is a small Black Lab. And he's a sweetheart. He doesn't deserve to be here. He just needs a little training and he'll be good as gold. He's not a bad dog, but when you've been in jail as long as these dogs have, they tend to be rambunctious and not as well-behaved as they would be in established homes. When visiting, you need to remember that.

And how about those black cats??? Did you know that on the whole, black cats are more intelligent than any other color? Is that why they get bypassed so often? PJ was my first black cat and he was a pistol. He'd open all the drawers in the kitchen, pull everything out, then lay in the drawer. He also played fetch with his toys. He lived a good long life, and even though I now have other black cats, there will always be a special place in my heart for him.

Take a peek at these handsome boys and girls - they want, need, and deserve love just like everyone else!

Oliver and Crash - GOOD NEWS

I love good news, don't you? Oliver, the gorgeous Shepherd mix and Crash, the puppy, BOTH got adopted over the weekend. Not to the same family, but nonetheless, hopefully they will be well behaved and love every minute of their new Forever Homes. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers this week, that they pass their home tests!

Photographer Ginger Monteleone

This is a long article, but well worth the read! She's definitely a woman after my own heart! Real estate photographer Ginger Monteleone has been making headlines recently -- but not for her pictures of dining rooms and yachts. Monteleone has been photographing a much cuddlier set: dogs in need of rescue. And she's taken her love for four-legged friends even further by starting her own rescue group, Big Hearts for Big Dogs Rescue. Cali, Monteleone's first foster dog, is to blame. After learning of the dog's mistreatment by its previous owners, Monteleone knew she needed to help. She began fostering Cali, and posted photos of her on Facebook to entice potential adopters. But when they came to pick her up, Monteleone had a hard time letting go. "With Cali, I got so much fulfillment from it that, even when I struggled, I wanted to keep her. When the Smiths came to pick her up, I was crying. My husband said, 'let them take her now or you never will.'" Monteleone realized that she needed to complete her mission -- not only to rescue Cali and foster her, but to find her a home. "I needed to complete the cycle," says Montelone. "Finding her a home left a space open in my home." Monteleone decided to offer up her skills as a photographer to animal rescue groups, taking color shots of dogs that allowed their personalities to shine through -- and helping hundreds of pets find good homes. She also began volunteering at Miami-Dade County Animal Services, helping individuals and families find the right dog for their situation, in addition to taking and marketing photos of the dogs on her own site. In November 2010, she took her mission of getting dogs adopted a step further: she created her own rescue group focused on caring for larger breed dogs that are normally overlooked. "I guess I did it so that I could help specific breeds of dogs that other people don't normally take in," says Monteleone. "Smaller dogs were being rescued more often, adopted faster. Big dogs were always left." She says that even donations to the shelter, like blankets for the winter, were geared at small dogs. Large black dogs, in particular, are repeatedly passed over for adoption; there's even a name for the phenomenon -- black dog syndrome. That being said, Monteleone will help any dog that needs it. "We've had some small dogs, we always joke, 'sneak' into our rescue somehow," she said. "We'll take them in. We are a big dog rescue but we wouldn't turn our back on small dogs in need." Since the group's inception, it has saved 30 dogs and adopted out 19. Many have been pit bulls, which are banned in Miami. Monteleone's rescue group is foster-based, with no shelter or facility. Their small network of foster homes varies in size, but always includes Monteleone's house, a satellite office in Fort Meyers and one in West Palm, and a select few others. Big Hearts recently took in one very ill dog after the Miami-Dade shelter was hit by a storm of infectious diseases and forced to get rid of all their dogs. The pit bull, who had been confiscated from a fight ring, was so sick Monteleone wasn't sure he was going to make it. But he's now recovering at a vet's in Fort Lauderdale, and Monteleone says he was a "pile of love" when she went to walk him last week. NBC News recently covered Monteleone's efforts to get dogs adopted through photographs. She says that since it aired, she's received a barrage of communications from photographers who want to do their own version of her photo project. "This week, I've been contacted by several photographers, professional and novice, who want to help in their communities. One photographer, a real estate photographer like me, emailed me to tell me that he wanted to do it; then he actually called me after his first photo shoot and said 'I just did it!' When he first contacted the shelter, they weren't interested. He forwarded them the NBC video, and after they watched, they said 'Absolutely! Please come in." WATCH: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy How You Can HelpSo what does Monteleone tell fellow photographers that want to follow in her footsteps? That the most important thing is just getting photos of the animals out there. "It's going to be harder for people that don't have a background in marketing to market their images for the pets, but a picture really is worth a thousand words. It generates a response, it generates an emotion. People will go down to a shelter because they saw one picture of an animal and just fell in love." (See below for more tips on how photographers can start their own photo pages.) As for the non-photographers that want to help? Though she says it's become cliché, Monteleone reiterates that getting pets fixed is still the best way to cut down on the number of pets in a shelter, because animals that haven't been fixed are the often the ones escaping from yards to follow their urges. "The number one thing is to spay or neuter. We've all heard it a thousand times, but I don't think anyone really realizes the seriousness until they go into a shelter and see how many dogs are dying." Monteleone's 12-year-old autistic son, Sebastian, has been a huge help with the rescue dogs; she refers to him as her "junior rescue super hero." Now, when he tells her, "Mommy, every dog should have their own home," Monteleone tells him, "we're working on it." Fellow photographers can share their favorite rescue photos, offer advice, and network on Monteleone's Flickr Group page. Donate to Big Hearts for Big Dogs Rescue. Buy a dog a toy or donate dog food from Big Hearts's wish list. It will be shipped directly to them. Want to act now? Check out dogs currently available for adoption and Monteleone's tips for volunteering your photographic services.

Anitra Frazier's Vita-Mineral Mix Recipe

Anitra Frazier's Vita-Mineral Mix 1 1/2 cups yeast powder (any food yeast; brewer's, torula, or nutritional) 1/4 cup kelp powder or 1/4 cup mixed trace mineral powder 1 cup lecithin granules 2 cups wheat bran 2 cups bone meal, calcium lactate, or calcium gluconate Mix together and store in a covered container. Be sure to refrigerate (everything but the lecithin and minerals perishes at room temperature). Add 1 teaspoon of Vita-Mineral Mix to each cat's meal (2 teaspoons per cat per day).

Chicken and Rice Recipe

This is what I fed Ralphie for about 4 weeks when he first came home. As you can tell from his Before and After pictures, it worked wonders!

Whole chicken 2 cups water

Cook chicken in a slow cooker until meat falls off the bone. About an 30 minutes before it's done cooking, put in 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup brown rice. Cook until rice is tender. Let cool and dispose of bones. Place chicken and broth into blender adding water as needed.

I add the following ingredients during the blending process:

5 tablets of L-lysine (good for the immune system and for eye problems)

5 tablets of bone meal

5 tablets of Brewer's Yeast

5 tables of Digestive Enzyme

1 Tbsp of Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C)

1 Tbsp general cat vitamins (or 5 tablets)

5 tablets Bio Plasma (cell salts to aid in pumping up the immune system)

(You can also make a blend of Anitra Frazier's Vita-Mineral Mix in plae of the bone meal and Brewer's Yeast Tablets. It's great stuff!)

I also add about 1/2 cup pumpkin. Pumpkin is an amazing fruit. It works for animals with constipation and with diarrhea. Must be the fiber. For a little color, I also add about 1/2 cup cooked carrots.

I also put in 5 pellets of a homeopathic called Arsenicum Album. It's for diarrhea. I give this to my cats and dogs (and me!) and it works wonders.

Blend this whole concotion together until it's the consistency of baby food. I usually only give about 1 tbsp to start in a glass bowl. Plastic bowls tends to hold bacteria. I can always tell when my cats eat out of too many plastic bowls because they get cat acne, the little black specks on their chins. Since it makes so much, you can freeze some and pull it out as needed, or cut everything in half and only make up half at a time.