SOMETHING GOOD FROM A TRAGEDY.
The birth of Puppy Stairs ...
by Jeanne
Wolfington
Several years after the death of my husband I decided that I needed some living creature to love. I decided to get a female Yorkie and name her Angel. I looked at several litters of pups and didn’t find one that I knew was mine without question. One day I found out about a tiny puppy whose mother refused to feed. It was a male but I decided to look at him anyway. One look at the puppy and I knew he was mine and Angel became Raphael.
A year ago, at the age of one and a half, Raphael was injured and instead of recovering, he became increasingly lame and was in terrible pain. I was heartbroken and found it impossible to bear seeing my precious pet in agony. The Veterinarian kept him for the weekend for observation and after taking ex-rays of his spine realized that he had one vertebra missing which left his spinal cord vulnerable. The only hope for him to live a live a life without excruciating pain was to have neurosurgery. The surgery was expensive so all my friends who joined me in affection for Raphael pitched in and helped pay for the surgery. Dr. Rodney Bagley, D. V. M., Associate Professor for Neurology and Neurosurgery at Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, in Pullman Washington, performed the surgery.
It was a very delicate operation, especially since Raphael weighs only 5 pounds. The Doctor thought he would do better if we took care of him after the surgery because he was so terrified of all the strangers. We took him to our motel room held and rocked him for three days and nights, taking turns sleeping. It was the only way he would rest or sleep.
At first Raphael could just barely stand, but couldn’t walk, and unless we were holding him, we had to keep him confined to a small area. We were so concerned about him trying to jump up or down on furniture after his recovery that we looked around for some steps to buy to help him. All the stairs or ramps we found were heavy and were made from hard materials. When the comment was made, “It sure would be nice if we could find something made of a substance that doesn’t bruise your shin each time you bump it,” my business partner said, “wouldn’t it be great if there were stairs made from foam rubber.” I thought the idea was so great that I bought a sewing machine, had some cubes cut from industrial foam rubber, and made removable washable covers. Raphael took to the stairs immediately so I made another set and gave them to our dog sitter; all his dogs loved them including the larger dogs.
We felt that Puppy Stairs should be shared with the animal world to help animals that have injuries, arthritis, or other bone and joint diseases. We had a web site created and it soon became apparent that I would have to abandon my sewing machine and employ a factory to fill our orders.
We have recently expanded our company to include Puppy Stair ramps. The ramps were designed to fill the need for dogs with injured spines, dogs too injured to step up and down, and those with impaired pelvic limb function.
It is gratifying to have something good come from a tragedy.
Posted 3/2006
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Puppy Stairs
Roaming
Times' pets sections
WAL-MART AND RVING - ALWAYS NO PRICE.
ALWAYS.
Unfair competition?
by David Mottram
Wal-Mart's policy is famous: "Always low
prices. Always." Critics argue that
this provides unfair competition to mom-and-pop
retailers and, as a result, has decimated them.
Wal-Mart also has a policy of allowing RVers to
stay overnight in their parking lots. In
this case, "Always low prices" becomes
"Always no price"; America's RV
park owners generally argue that this provides
unfair competition.
In the case of retailing, and in the case of
RVs, are the criticisms justified?
Retailing: Wal-Mart has about 8% of total
American retail sales. Huge, but in no way
an enormous market concentration. Many other
big industries have leading players with a bigger
market share.
RVing: These are just my own
guesstimates:-
According to the Wal-Mart
Locator - widely used by RVers to find their
way to the nearest friendly Wal-Mart - there are
about 3,500 Wal-Mart and Good Sam Club stores
(these are the number listed in the Wal-Mart
Locator). Just supposing, on average, each
store has 5 RVs per night. That would make
the total number of RVs parked in Wal-Mart stores
at around 17,500 per night.
RV parks: According to the RVIA there are
around 16,000 public and privately owned
campgrounds nationwide. Guessing at 100 RVs
per park per night, there are about 1,600,000 RVs
parked in RV parks every night.
Wal-Mart's share: 17,550 divided by
1,600,000. This gives them just over 1% of
the RVs.
Another interesting estimate: According
to Larry Hahn (National President of the Wal-Mart
Bound Club), every RV spends about $72 per night
on food and supplies. On the numbers we
guessed at above, this works out at about $45
million per year gross income from RVs.
There's method in Wal-Mart's madness.
Unfair competition? I guess if you have a
campground close to a Wal-Mart store you would
think so. Otherwise, you - the reader - be the judge.
Join the discussion at:
http://www.roamingtimes.com/walmart/index.asp
Posted 2/2006
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NOT CHEAP RV PARTS, BUT RV PARTS CHEAP!
by David Mottram
There is a large market for RVers who are not
looking for cheap RV parts, but are looking
for RV parts cheap.
Catering to this market are companies located
in the RV capital of the world - Elkhart,
Indiana. Their close proximity to parts
manufacturers, converters and RV manufacturers
gives them the opportunity to sweep up stock and
offer parts at close-out prices.
They buy RV and van surplus, over-runs,
inventory buy-outs and close-outs and pass these
on to RVers at great savings. Most of the
items have manufacturers warranties.
RV furniture is a particularly interesting
area. What do you do when your captains
chair or your sleeper sofa starts to look
tired? This is an area where the Elkhart
surplus companies can really save you money.
One such company is Surplus Online. This
company goes one stage further, you can choose the
furniture item on-line and then choose the fabric
and they will personalize for the item for you at
surplus prices.
This is all good news for RVers and it applies
particularly to fulltimers living on a fixed
budget. But then again, I guess it applies
to us all, we're all looking for a bargain:
we don't want cheap things but we do want the
things we want cheap.
Posted 12/2005
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THE BENEFITS OF SOUTH DAKOTA RESIDENCY
by David Mottram
South Dakota has many advantages for residency:
It has NO state income tax, inheritance tax or
personal property tax. For residents
purchasing vehicles or RVs etc., it has only a 3%
excise tax. It's also said to be ranked 47th
in lowest private passenger car insurance.
According to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader,
South Dakota has the nation's lowest per capita
taxes.
There are estimated to be more than one million
people living fulltime in recreational vehicles,
traveling America with no fixed home. The
world we live in generally prefers people to have
a permanent address of course. In order to
own a vehicle you need a drivers license, a
license plate and vehicle insurance. So,
practically speaking, a fulltimer needs to have
residency somewhere.
A handful of states make it easy to establish
residency. South Dakota requires only a
mailing address and spend a single night in the
state. For eight dollars you can get a
five-year driver's license. You can also get
your vehicle registered for less than $100
(provided you paid sales tax on the vehicle in a
recognized state). South Dakota does not
require that your vehicles have an annual safety
inspection.
Many fulltime RVers get a South Dakota driver's
license and make the state their legal home.
And then they can get all the legal benefits of
course. One company - Alternative
Resources - helps RVers establish South Dakota
residency. The company also performs mail
forwarding and other services for the RVers,
customized to meet their needs.
Many of the RVers who are attracted to the low
taxes in South Dakota also go on to register to
vote.
The following is a link to a website that lets
you compare taxes by state and answers many other
questions:
http://www.retirementliving.com/RLtaxes.html
Posted 11/2005
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