Is this a Cairn Terrier?

This  is the little dog with a tumor. She seems very nice and loves mom. She is having her fourth chemotherapy session on Thursday. We all hope she makes it. She is a bit of a joker like Tequila was. Mom says she looks like a Cairn Terrier. We think she is just another Vira lata. What do you think?

Sam is not a pedigree, Mom found out. We all love her playful cute character anyway especially mom. Here are some of the e mails mom got about her

You e-mail was blocked for some reason so we missed it. We apologize for our late response.
We are a family from Belgium and we love animals and dogs in particular. We have several dogs, most are Havanese.
It's a great job you do with the street dogs. We think it's wonderful that people help them. We try to support friends of us who do the same here in Belgium. We used to work as volunteers in a local animal shelter, but since we have several dogs of our own now and we do lots of activities with them we don't have time anymore to do that. Dogs mean a lot to us. They are trustworthy and so attached.
The dog on the picture is a very special dog. We are so sorry to hear that she has cancer. 
We don't think that she is a Havanese. Her coat is different and she is too large in size. A Havanese is between 23 and 27 cm. It's like a Maltese but a little bit larger and can have all kinds of colours and patterns.
The coat of a Havanese is long, but doesn't touch the ground. It's silky or wavy.
Her head is also different. The ears are placed higher than in Havanese.
But she is a pretty dog though. We can't define the breed. It's possible that she's a mix of several breeds.
We've also visited your blog. Great job! Keep up the good work!

Lots of greetings,
Linda, Kristine, Laura
& i nostri Felici Animali
www.felici-animali.be





And here is another one
No this isn't a Cairn terrier. They do not have drop ears. The coloring is
similar and she could be a Cairn mix of some kind. Possibly with some
Soft-coated Wheaten terrier - do they have that breed in Brazil? She is
beautiful whatever she is - thank you for taking care of the street dogs -
what a wonderful thing to do.

All the best,
Susan
Volunteer Coordinator - CPCRN

yet more bad news

The little dog mom picked up starving who she thought had a prolapsed uterus apparently has a vaginal tumor. Mom took her to vets who removed it and spayed her. She was started on chemotherapy immediately. Oh my God more money going out and not enough coming in. Hey what could mom do leave her to die? A lot of people would in fact the majority here would. I love my mom! I wish other people could see how good she is and how she sacrifices for her canine family here. Not a single donation and less than two weeks t go!!!

YET MORE PROBLEMS

Well mom is still very depressed but she is so busy with illnesses that she has not had much time to reflect on the impending doom looming over all of our heads. Still nobody responds to our cries for help. Erica Jong wrote if God was a Dog--huh obviously not. Well one of the two new dogs here (photos soon) had a pyometra, which is an infection in the uterus that is very common in unspayed dogs. She was abandoned because her owner moved to an apartment in Rio apparently. This will cost mom and dad another 500 reais and the other little dog that mom took last week wwho was hanging around town for over five months while  Mom watched her get thinner and thinner until all her ribs and spinal column became visible and saw that she was not going to make it alone. She was here for three days and has now got a prolapsed uterus so she will be spayed on Friday i fshe is up to surgery by then because she is very mal nourished. Her uterus is visible and open to infection, so this will mean more money. Mom says we are all in deep, deep trouble and if we are all angels then we should all pray. We are doing all we can to help and we are eating less food to help although some like Cassie are complaining. I don't complain because I can see her suffering in the house and I know that she is also eating less and cutting back on everything. Although without a Guardian Angel it is obvious that we won't make it.  

We are worried

Well as you can imagine we are all very worried about the dire situation here. Mom has given up and sunk into depression and we all want to help her. It is only the humans who don't want to help. We can all sense there is something very wrong just like the first few moments after a human abandons a dog. We usually panic suddenly feeling very alone and begin to run frantically along the streets looking for the people we depended on. When that wears off we begin to get hungry and afraid. We know what mom is suffering. The only difference is she can't visit restaurants and sit looking at the clients wagging her tail hoping they throw a scrap of food her way like we can. The general consensus of opinion from friends and family is that she is stupid to have wasted her money on us. Some have even suggested get rid of the dogs.Well! of course, we despise this sort of advice and we know that mom loves us with all of her heart and won't abandon us. These people just don't understand what it is to love. We understand because loyalty and love are canine traits and not normally human traits.

Lost the house

well the bad news is mom and dad remortgaged the house and now can not afford to pay the payments so we are all moving hope they can find someone to accept all of us. Mom is crying and angry because nobody gives a damn not even those closest. Nobody wants to know you when you are down and out we know that because we were all in the street and down and out. They remortgaged the house to find a way of paying for our huge maintenance bills and bought a bakery but it is not makng enough to pay for everything we need. It probably will some time in the future but by then it may be too late. Mom tried everything to save it but it is not to be. Let's hope we don't lose the only two people who ever loved and treated us with respect. What a shit world we live in! Just because mom is not a registered charity nobody helps. Mom gets up at 5.30 to clean kennels feed and let us all out in rotation. Dad goes to the Bakery at 4.30 and does not return until 8.pm He does this seven days a week. They say God helps those who help themselves, but he doesn't. They do not have the money to construct all of our kennels in another location. Mom works all day until 6.30. She cooks for us because it is cheaper than buying food. She cooks vegetables, rice and meat, with dog ration. There are two new dogs here as well. Mom took one in that was half her normal body weight. She is really a sorry sight. Mom said to St Francis 'if I accept that dog, which I really cannot afford to with all of my problems then help me, but he didn't. She told us today to forget the big dog in the sky because he is probably just as indifferent as the human one, or maybe they are one and the same!

Emergency Leishmaniasis

We are all very frightened here. The neighbours dog has a disease called leishmaniasis which is fatal. The vet is doing a second test on her and should it prove positive she will be killed by the vet. We are no more than twenty metres from her. The disease is transmitted by mosqiutoes known as sand flies. There is a vacination for dogs but it requires three shots at 80 reais each, so mum needs 240 reais per dog times twelve now that poor Harry is dead. Totalling 2,880 reais. A huge sum of money here and impossible for her to get. She has been praying for a miracle but they are few and far between in todays harsh world even we know that. Mum and Dad can also get this disease as humans get it too. We are desperately hoping someone will help but still there has not been any response from any of the 'animal lovers' worldwide. Incredible!It is one problem after another for mum and dad they try so hard to do good things but without a proper income and infrastructure they are very vulnerable financially. Mum is still very upset about Harry we all miss him so much.

Really Bad News

Hi!
I`m Emmy`s mum writing because Emmy and the others are all too shocked and sad to speak right now. Harry died on the 19th July at around 11.15am Brazilian time. He came early in the morning to give me his usual morning nuzzle, which normally goes on for a full five minutes. He was in perfect health and ran to the gate barking as usual. Everything was totally normal. He ate his breakfast and hung around as normal. He even came into the bathroom with me because he always took a shower with me. We had noticed he was looking older lately and slightly thinner but he was just as fit as ever. He played with Misty like a young pup. We heard a weird scream around 11.15. He was in the bathroom, which also was totally normal for him. We went running to see what was going on and found him dead. I tried artificial resusication for more than ten minutes until a vet arrived but it was hopeless. He seemed to have suffered a massive heart attack. Since then I haven`t stopped crying. I miss him so much. Th house seems so quiet and empty without my beautiful Harry. We will never really know how old he was as he was a street dog from Copacabana. We reckon around 10 or 11 years. We tearfully buried him in a coffin and laid flowers on his grave. I can`t pass the grave without talking to him. I hate to think of him out there all alone he was so dependant and desperate for attention all the time. God how we all miss him. Misty is at a loss and Emmy has no one to hassle. This mission is very hard to bear at times. He was with us eight years and was one of our five house dogs. He like all the others was unique and irreplaceable. The only consoling factor was that he did not suffer like Tequila and Bonnie.

Visit Draw the Dog to see hundreds of delightful dog cartoons.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1991134,00.html
here are just a small percentage of the huge number of stray dogs in Brazil living in misery waiting for a miracle. Adoption here is minimal and large numbers are killed by traffic, starvation, and cruelty.