Volunteer Work

• Career

• Hobbies

Volunteer Work

      My soon to be wife and I have volunteered with the Hound Rescue since 2008. We became involved with the non-profit organization shortly after adopting our lemon beagle puppy we named Snoopy.  Snoopy was an extremely energetic puppy and no matter how much we exercised her, it just wasn't enough. We wanted to get another dog to socialize Snoopy, but we didn't want to commit to owning another dog for its entire life. We decided fostering would allow us to help get Snoopy the social interaction with another dog that she needed, and help save the lives other animals rescued from high kill shelters.

      After deciding to go back to school to work on a bachelors degree, we reluctantly put a hold on fostering due to the time constraints of working full time, going to school, and trying to keep up with the maintenance on our home.  I was, however, able to keep volunteering for the Hound Rescue in a different capacity. I helped implement and help manage the organization's efforts to utilize the power of social media. I started Hound Rescue's Twitter account, Facebook fan page (now a like page), and YouTube account.  I also created the avatar used on the accounts.

     In addition to managing the Hound Rescues social media efforts, I also donate my photography and video skills to help gain exposure for the group and the available fosters.  I also volunteer at Hound Rescue events such as adoption events at area malls, pet blessings and various other promotional events. I am currently in the process of producing several high quality promotional videos to post to the Hound Rescue's YouTube account.

For more on Hound Rescue, click here or on the link on the top of the page from anywhere in this site 

 

Hobbies

Career

Hobbies
Volunteer Work

Hobbies

I have many hobbies including, gardening / landscaping, barbecuing, photography and training my beagle just to name a few. I also enjoy doing craftsman type work such as building my dog's house, a fire wood shed, picnic table, and various garden structures. Click on the links above to see some of my posts about my hobbies.

Photography is my favorite hobby even though I don't get to do it as much as I would like. The I-phone is making it easier to take and edit simple photos.

 Its really fun when I get to merge two or more of my hobbies at once.

The picnic table I built, with the dog house and wood shed in the background

Even though it is a large part of what I do at work, I still enjoy editing video.

 

Alicia Ontiveros

This is some of my older work from 2005. Alicia Ontiveros was an intern at my work. She was a great model to work with. Unfortunately all the art on the wall has been painted over with a solid tan color.

Foster Jack Black update

On the morning of Saturday July 4th, Shannon and I woke to our foster Jack having a seizure. (Read my blog about canine epilepsy) I gave him his medication hoping that would help prevent more. After having multiple episodes throughout the morning we took him to the vet. They gave him a shot of phenobarbital which helped for a few hours. Then around 7 pm he started having them again and they were getting more and more frequent to the point he was having severe seizures every five minutes. I took him to the ER where his temp went from 104 to 110 in 25 minutes despite an IV pumping him with fluids, ice packs and fan on him. They gave him 2 more injections of phenobarbital, each having no effect. Then they tried giving him the animal equivalent of Valium which did not help either.

With Temps hovering around 110 for a prolonged time he was suffering organ and brain damage and was struggling to breath. The medication wasn't controlling the seizures. With little chance of recovery and the vets advise we decided not to prolong his suffering. He passed around 10:15

When we first took Jack in I used him as a subject in a blog posting for KSAT.com

Hoop it Up from William Caldera on Vimeo.