Hot Dogs on a Hot Day

We did have fun baking ourselves on the street last Saturday at Hot Dogs in the Strip with the Animal Rescue League! It was so hot that we had to be careful of the animals—the kitties had to go back to the shelter—and even the humans were hiding inside the hot dog shop, but once the street fell into shade we had many more people to visit.

I was next to my friend Karen Litzinger, author of Heal Your Heart, who helped me to set up—and clean up when my tent blew down later in the day! I rarely take the large original paintings here, but when there’s a chance of marketing commissioned portraits it’s best to have a live one on hand. Nothing was broken, and only a frame on one of my photos was damaged in a way that I can use just for display or at home, so no great loss, though I did decide that I would finally purchase a real festival tent, not the cheap thing I’ve used for years and always had problems with.

I also got to meet several people I’d only corresponded with, and also bought a bag of cat food from a holistic practitioner who spent a few years developing her own pet food. I’ll be checking back with her after the kitties finish this bag to talk about her process of developing and manufacturing the food.

One of the vendors was offering spray-on tattoos, and a person had their dogs “tattooed”. Love the big flower! The decorate swirls on the other dog looked so natural that at first I didn’t realize they were a tattoo.

One of the dogs for adoption was indeed adopted by a couple who came to the event intending to find a dog, and they did. I’m not sure which dog it was because of all the shuffling, but I do know it was one of the pit bull mixes. There are so many in shelters and they are so hard to adopt that it’s always good to see one go home with a family.

The animals from the wildlife center had to wait because of the heat as well, so Martha the Demonstration Owl came to visit later in the day. She is a great-horned owl, and was found on the side of a road with a broken wing. She had apparently been coming in for a landing to scavenge some road kill on the berm when a car clipped the end of her wing. She was still alive and not in bad shape, but the wing had begun to heal with the bones twisted inside.

Martha’s handler explained that avian bones are very lightweight and hollow and can’t be re-broken and re-set as mammalian bones can be, so they just had to let the bones continue healing, but she can’t fly, so she can’t be released. Any animals that are rehabilitated that can’t be released for any reason are kept for the rest of their lives, though not all of them are pressed into service like Martha, though she doesn’t seem to mind.