Villalobos Rescue Center

People often ask me why I have chosen to rescue pit bulls. My answer, "Why not?"
These dogs are so misunderstood and it's my job to help teach people see the truth.

There are many wonderful people across the nation that have the same passion as I.
I am blessed to be able to spend a week with folks at the largest pit bull rescue in the nation...
Villalobos Rescue Center at the end of January. I can't wait to share my experience.

My new favorite song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGR9bs5oBEs

Feeling tired, gaining weight, depressed?

My doctor appointment yesterday in Austin was FINALLY the answer I've been looking for, for TEN years!!!!!! For 10 years I've suffered from insomnia, lack of energy, unexplained weight gain even though I exercise like crazy and eat healthy, thinning hair, fogginess/hard to remember things, painful periods that put me in my bed for a week, feeling of depression, anxiety, decreased libido and the list goes on & on. Doctor's would do yearly blood work along with my physical and tell me everything  came back in the "normal" range. I was  prescribed anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills, birth control, etc.  I was always told the way I was feeling  was "normal" or to get used to it since I was getting older! I would tell the doctor I wasn't taking synthetic drugs unless I absolutely had too.  I kept telling them I didn't care what the tests said, that I knew my body and something was wrong and there had to be an another answer. I was so tired of being handed a "band-aid". (just wanting to prescribe something to fix the issue at hand but never get down to the root of the problem.)

We are certainly blessed to have conventional doctors, however Pharmaceutical companies have been lining the doctors pockets for years hence, I believe, the lack of doctors willingness to prescribe safer (non synthetic) prescriptions. Many conventional doctors ignore the effectiveness of "bio identical's".

Fast Forward to my doctor appointment yesterday in Austin. (http://www.austinbioidenticaldoctor.com/)
There are only 30 "Board Certified" doctors in the United States that deal w/ Bio Identical Hormone balancing. (There are 28+ years of scientific research w/ 100's of studies in the US and Europe that have demonstrated that bio identical hormones are equally or more effective than synthetics and safer.) This gentleman has an office in Austin and Dallas (this was my first visit). I walked out of the office feeling validated...FINALLY. My blood work showed that again I came back in the "normal" range BUT because he tests for things that the average doctor doesn't, he was able to find what is wrong.
 
I in fact, suffer from hypothyroidism. My body is not producing nearly enough Progesterone. My body isn't producing enough testosterone. My body isn't absorbing Vitamins D (strange since I'm always in the sun), 3 of the 6 cortisol levels are extremely low, 2 of my 3 DHEAS's are low, I'm border line diabetic because of all the chemical imbalances. Thankfully once these are balanced I won't have to worry about the diabetes either. (I'm betting a  conventional doctor would have looked at my insulin issue and never have researched the root of the problem and this vicious cycle would have just continued. They would have just said I had diabetes and prescribed something. Again, a "band-aid" approach.)  I have an iron deficiency. My serotonin is extremely low and my adrenals are shot. (I think I got everything in here that's wrong with me. WOW, I'm FALLING APART. Good thing I still have my sense of humor.) Crazy how hormones play such a huge roll in our body and next to nothing is known throughout the medical profession. (I'm actually quite angry when I think about it, as TEN years have passed with much frustration on my part.) Thankfully my Melaleuca Vitamins have kept me dragging along. Without them, I wouldn't have even been dragging. Scary thought.

Positive side to all of this, I'm now on the path to wellness. A compounding pharmacy out of Utah is drop shipping my prescriptions to me early this next week (Progesterone, Testosterone, thyroid) along with my other supplements I picked up yesterday. (I"ll gladly take anything that's prescribed from this doctor since it's not synthetic.) Of course a conventional doctor would want to prescribe Synthroid (the possible side effects are almost as worse as the hypothyroidism, is ineffective with the weight gain and can cause serious or life threatening toxicity). Hmmm, I wonder how long studies were actually done on this synthetic drug.
(BTW, until 9 years ago women going to conventional doctors were prescribed the FDA approved synthetic hormone Premarin, derived from the urine of pregnant horses; Provera, a synthetic progestin; or Prempro, a combo of the two. Premarin was the bestselling drug in the US in 2001, generating $2 billion a year. In 1994 a study led by the National Institutes of Health called the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) was started w/ the hope of establishing that Premarin and Provera would, beyond relieving menopause symptoms, protect aging women from heart attacks, strokes, osteoporosis and cancer. On July 9, 2002, however WHI came to an abrupt halt. The study proved unequivocally that the drugs were unsafe and significant factors in increasing the risk of heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer in the more than 16,000 women studied. This led doctors to take millions of women off Premarin, Prempro and Provera overnight. Predictably, these women started to feel horrible in the aftermath of the drugs' sudden withdrawal, and their physicians told them there were no alternatives. Instead they prescribed antidepressants or birth controls pills with shoddy results. One year after the disaster, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology developed new guidelines that encouraged physicians to prescribe the same drugs in lower doses for shorter periods of time. Yet, and this is the key, the safety of this "low dose option" was NEVER proven scientifically.)

I of course wanted to know when I'd feel better and no longer be fat. :-)   I was told this was a common question and of course they couldn't pin point a date as we each heal at a different speed. However, in 3 months I should notice a change, 6 months I should see a significant change.In a year I'll be a brand new woman!!
In 3 months I'll go back in for another blood work up to gage where I'm at. I will re-visit blood work every 3 months the first year and hopefully only have to visit once a year thereafter.

High five to walking the natural path and finding the answer!! :-) 
Looking forward to a year from now.

Michael Vick was wrongly convicted!

We had dinner awhile back with my daughter's soccer coach. Police officer, nice family man, cares alot about the team. We were discussing the team's upcoming season, athletics in general and somehow he turned the conversation to Michael Vick. I felt my body instantly tense up and my stomach start to do flip flops. Coach went onto to say that he didn't know all that much about what he had done to the dogs, etc but that Michael Vick was one heck of an athlete. (I did send an email to Coach with some links he could read showing how sadistic and brutally Vick treated the dogs along with my personal feelings on this subject.)

Michael Vick was Wrongly Convicted:
http://chrisdurant2000.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/michael-vick-was-wrongly-convicted/

A for Pits Sake Christmas

http://vimeo.com/18179816

This video just brings a smile to my face and puts Christmas in my heart.

Body damaged, but not her spirit, and not her soul.

Shelbyville, TN - Though many animal shelters leave much to be desired, there are some that go above and beyond for their homeless charges.
Such is the case at the Bedford County Animal Control where orphaned, newborn puppies have been given a second chance due to a nurturing surrogate mother, and some out of the box thinking by a staff worker.
In early December, a man discovered seven orphaned newborn puppies huddled in an outbuilding near his home. The puppies had lost their mother - someone had either abandoned her or dumped her and she had been struck and killed on a nearby road.
The man took the newborn pups to the Bedford County Animal Control where staff did their best to care for the orphaned babies. But a human hand is not the optimal substitute for nursing puppies.
Shelter staff member, Brenda Goodrich, shared her plight with rescue contacts on Facebook and then something wonderful happened. Goodrich found another rescuer that had a mother Pit Bull with milk, but no puppies.
Nobody knows what happened to the homeless Pit bull's babies, but what they did know what that the stray was gentle, and perhaps she could help these 7 orphaned pups.
Celina Weissenborn, with the SPCA, had the puppy-less mother in foster care in Nashville. Goodrich drove the 7 puppies to the gentle mother and instinct took it from there.
Motherly instinct on the part of the homeless Pit Bull, and the natural instinct of a newborn pup to nurse on the part of the young babies.
The new mom quickly took to her orphaned charges - nurturing them as if they were her own. The mother, and the 7 puppies, will all be in need of new homes as soon as the pups are weaned.
Of special mention in this story - the mother that so graciously and warmly took on pups that were not her own has had a hard life of abuse. Her body is covered in scars and a portion of her front paw is missing. Her body is damaged, but not her spirit, and not her soul.

Why I don't watch the NFL

Dog owner can't forgive Michael Vick (either can I)

Quarterback shows greatness on the field, but evidence of former cruelty remains.

November 16, 2010|Bill Plaschke

While Michael Vick was screaming toward the sky, a black pit bull named Mel was standing quietly by a door.
On this night, like many other nights, Mel was waiting for his owners to take him outside, but he couldn't alert them with a bark. He doesn't bark. He won't bark. The bark has been beaten out of him.

 While Michael Vick was running for glory, Mel was cowering toward a wall.
Every time the 4-year-old dog meets a stranger, he goes into convulsions. He staggers back into a wall for protection. He lowers his face and tries to hide. New faces are not new friends, but old terrors.
While Michael Vick was officially outracing his past Monday night, one of the dogs he abused cannot.
"Some people wonder, are we ever going to let Michael Vick get beyond all this?" said Richard Hunter, who owns Mel. "I tell them, let's let Mel decide that. When he stops shaking, maybe then we can talk."
I know, I know, this is a cheap and easy column, right? One day after the Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback officially becomes an American hero again, just call the owner of one of the dogs who endured Vick's unspeakable abuse and let the shaming begin.
Compare Vick's 413 total yards, four touchdown passes and two rushing touchdowns against the Washington Redskins to the 47 pit bulls who were seized from Bad Newz Kennels, his interstate dogfighting ring. Contrast one of the best three hours by a quarterback ever to the 21 months he spent in prison.
Cheap and easy, right? Not so fast. Vick's success is raising one of the most potentially costly and difficult perceptual questions in the history of American sports.
If he continues playing this well, he could end up as the league's most valuable player. In six games, he has thrown for 11 touchdowns, run for four more touchdowns, committed zero turnovers and produced nearly 300 total yards per game. Heck, at this rate, with his Eagles inspired by his touch, he could even win a Super Bowl, one of the greatest achievements by an American sportsman.
And yet a large percentage of the population will still think Michael Vick is a sociopath. Many people will never get over Vick's own admissions of unthinkable cruelty to his pit bulls — the strangling, the drowning, the electrocutions, the removal of all the teeth of female dogs who would fight back during mating.
Some believe that because Vick served his time in prison, he should be beyond reproach for his former actions. Many others believe that cruelty to animals isn't something somebody does, it's something somebody is.
Essentially, an ex-convict is dominating America's most popular sport while victims of his previous crime continue to live with the brutality of that crime, and has that ever happened before?
 Do you cheer the player and boo the man? Can you cheer the comeback while loathing the actions that necessitated the comeback? And how can you do any of this while not knowing if Vick has truly discovered morality or simply rediscovered the pocket?
If you are Richard Hunter, you just don't watch football.
"When you look at Mel," said Hunter, a radio personality from Dallas, "you just don't think about how Michael Vick is a great football player."
A couple of years ago, Hunter and his wife Sunny were watching a documentary on Best Friends Animal Society, the Utah sanctuary where the court sent 22 of Vick's 44 seized dogs. It was after 1 a.m. when the show featured a Vick victim that had been so badly abused, it refused to move, behaving as if paralyzed.
"My wife said, 'Get out of bed, get on the computer and e-mail those people, I want one of those dogs,' " Hunter recalled.
Nearly 18 months later, they became one of six people to adopt one of the dogs. The process included a home visit by caseworkers, an extended visit to the southwest Utah sanctuary, home monitoring by a dog trainer and a six-month probation period.
"These dogs were scarred in many ways both emotional and physical," said John Polis, Best Friends spokesman. "It was something we had never really seen before."
Hunter and his wife quickly saw Mel's scars. The dog wouldn't bark, wouldn't show affection, and would spend nearly an hour shaking with each new person who tried to touch him.
It turns out that Mel had been a bait dog, thrown into the ring as a sort of sparring partner for the tougher dogs, sometimes even muzzled so he wouldn't fight back, beaten daily to sap his will. Mel was under constant attack, and couldn't fight back, and the deep cuts were visible on more than just his fur.
"You could see that Michael Vick went to a lot of trouble to make Mel this way," Hunter said. "When people pet him, I tell them, pet him from under his chin, not over his head. He lives in fear of someone putting their hand over his head."
 On Monday night, no, Mel was not hanging out by the televised football game. He was hanging on his owner's bed as they watched something on HBO.
"How can you support football when you know one of their stars did this to a dog?" Hunter said. "If more people saw Mel at the same time as they saw Michael Vick, he wouldn't be so lauded."
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the lessons learned from Vick's crimes were on display in a postgame quote from Eagles star receiver DeSean Jackson.
"We were like pit bulls ready to get out of the cage," he told reporters.
Cheap and easy, huh?