FDF Canine Services

08/30/2024

A farm full of VIPs: Very Important Puppers! 🐕

08/29/2024

Our head trainer Joe and training camper Havoc caught in the act! While yes, the goal with training is to learn manners and skills, sometimes you just can't resist a hug from a polar bear. 🤍🤍🤍 We know it's hard to leave your dogs for camp, and while they do put in a lot of hard work, we make sure they have fun and get plenty of cuddles too.

08/28/2024

Who let the dogs out? We did! 👋🏻

Happy Wednesday! 🐕

08/28/2024

Happy TOT!! 👅 🐕 ☀️

08/26/2024

National Dog Day?! 🐕 🐩
How is that different from every other day around here?! What a great day to be back full steam ahead with our daycare crew, and of course our boarders and training campers! 🐕❤️

Part 1

08/25/2024

Starting tomorrow Monday 8/26, we're back and ready for daycare!!!!!!!!

We absolutely cannot thank EVERYONE involved in getting us back up and running enough - more on that to come!

If you have a standing/scheduled daycare spot- we'll see you this week for regularly scheduled programming!

*Please note, due to the ground saturation and increase in rain we've had over the last week, we can still only use our turf area at this time. We don't want dogs playing in standing water for their safety and the safety of all staff. As soon as the back half of the yard is dry and stays that way, we'll open up the full yard space, but please know, as always, safety come first.
Also, although the place looks like a million bucks compared what it did 3 weeks ago, we still have a lot of behind the scenes work/projects/clean up going on. There will continue to be work trucks, pods, etc. out front and we appreciate your patience and understanding of the "driveway chaos" for the foreseeable future. We haven't started repairing our house damages yet, but hope to start soon now that FDF has had a face life and is getting back to normal.

Thank you all! ❤️❤️❤️

08/19/2024

Bessie is a recent graduate of our training camp program and is looking for the perfect family to call her own! A star student who deserves her happily ever after! We love that Humane Society at Lakewood Ranch always puts the needs of their dogs first and provides them with the training and support to succeed!

08/19/2024

Our new training camper Havoc supervising Ryan putting together furniture for the training building. Havoc says he appears to be doing it right!

08/17/2024

Kicking off the weekend with our finished brand new floors!!!!

After the floors are dry in a few days we can proceed with finishing the renovations and getting the walls fixed, finish panting, etc.

It's been a very exhausting few weeks, but we're getting there. ❤️

08/16/2024

Bow wow! Our boarding pups had a birthday pawty for Beau's 13th birthday today!!! Complete with doggy ice cream for the birthday boy! 🍦

08/15/2024

👏🏻 👏🏻 floor progress!!

08/15/2024

Even though we're working ourpaws and tails off with clean up and all the fun behind the scenes work that comes with a flood clean up, the dogs are still being dogs and having the best days ever!

As of tonight, ALL of our farm critters are back home and safely tucked into their safe and dry homes with all new goodies thanks to all of YOU!

❤️❤️❤️

08/12/2024

They're home!!!! 😭😭

So much work to be done on their space, but the fence is secure enough for them to come home so we decided to bring them back while we work on the area.

An ENORMOUS thank you to Angela and family for keeping them safe and rescuing them at nearly midnight from the rising flood waters.

And yes, the baby donk is still hanging out with us. No luck on finding his home so far. We will have the vet and farrier out to get everyone a once over and freshened up after their eventful week!

** the surviving birds and bunny aren't quite ready to come back yet, but the "Bigs" are back!!

08/12/2024

Good Morning! I apologize for the lack of update yesterday, we just needed a mental break for a day. Saturday was a hard day emotionally as we had to throw out a ton of personal items that were far beyond saving. Thanks to an INCREDIBLE team, we got SO much done this weekend! We would not be here without so many amazing people dropping everything to help us put the pieces back together. The training building is just about dry enough to put in new floors (woohoo!) that being said, we've chosen to take the most waterproof approach in case something like this happens again, which means we need some more time to be back up and running. Our HOPE is to be ready for daycare to return Monday 8/26. Please cross your fingers nothing unexpected pops up along the way and we can spend these next few weeks getting the building back and better than ever. We are aware that FEMA assistance is now live for this disaster, thank you all that have shared info, articles, etc. This whole process is extremely overwhelming and we are navigating it as best as we can. If you have not received a thank from us regarding an Amazon wish list item, please know it's not intentional and we're forever grateful! Sometimes there is only one gift tag slip for multiple boxes and it's hard to keep track of what goes with what. A big shout to our local Amazon drivers as well... not sure we are high on their favorites list at the moment. 🫣 Please note! If you have pre existing boarding or training camp reservations there is no change to our boarding/training schedule and you're all set! We hope all our farm critters will be able to come home in the next week, but there is STILL water in the back and we're still accessing the damage to our coops and livestock areas/fencing. Thank you all so so much, we couldn't do this without you!

08/09/2024

Looking for someone local who can peruse marketplace for 2 used refrigerators. They don't need to be pretty, think garage fridge style. One standard size, and preferably one apartment sized. We are NOT asking for someone to buy them or donate them, we will purchase, we just don't have time to search right now. Will pay for delivery as well since our flat bed trailer is up a 💩 creek, literally.

Please message me if you're able to lead this fridge hunt.

Thank you!!!

08/09/2024

Good morning all, not that exciting of a video, but just a little update to show you where we are at. Starting to cut the walls out of the building, and as you can see, the spray foam is still saturated with water so that is coming out today as well. Our hope was that since the walls of the building were not drywall, that we would be in better shape, but that does not appear to be the case. Lots of work ahead of us.

We are continually amazed by everybody's generosity, especially with the GoFundMe. All of this cleanup and renovations are happening as a direct result of our community and all of you. Thank you. 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

Also, holy spoiled critters, they are going to be so excited to come home! I plan to deliver some of the donations that have come in to their temporary homes over the next few days to make sure their caretakers have everything that they need. 

We have some storage pods and a dumpster being delivered today so we can work on emptying out our shed, which is confirmed as a total loss. Including the building itself will have to be replaced in time.

08/08/2024

Hi all, based on the "reasons" for the flood/water damage, whatever you want to call it.. business and homeowners insurance are of no help during this significant mess. We're feeling a little defeated at the moment, but please don't mistake defeat for ungratefulness. We expect NOTHING, but appreciate everything. ❤️‍🩹

Some amazing news: all the outlets in the training building were replaced today (you know who you are, THANK YOU) which means the electric is up and running, and we can proceed with the gut job and rebuild what is now just basically a shell.

Fixing the house will come later, FDF is our priority.

It is incredibly difficult for us to continue to accept help when everyone has already gone above and beyond, but we have some big financial hurdles in front of us at the moment.

https://www.facebook.com/share/Vb9t9iSbnp4bSMyJ/?mibextid=WC7FNe

My name is Carson Plank and I am asking for help for some of th… Carson Plank needs your support for Help FDF and the Menendez family rebuild after the flood!

08/08/2024

Pickles, Harriet, Penelope, and Harold share our immense gratitude toward our community... they would also like to live up by the house forever now 🤪 all four of our piggies are rescues, two were from an animal shelter in Port Charlotte, one was set loose after she outgrew living inside of a manufactured home in Colony Cove (sure the HOA loved that), and one needed a new home due to a divorce. They bring a lot of character and chaos to our farm and we are so thankful that they are OK!

08/08/2024

Hi all

I sound like a broken record, but there really are no words... thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

The clean up crew knocked it out of the park today and made great progress on getting things cleaned up and picked up!

The training building flooring and baseboards have been removed and the trashed hauled away... we literally would not be this far ahead of it were not for ALL of you.

SO many people have helped, donated, brought food, groceries, etc. You name it, you guys have done it and it's literally incredible.

The Amazon list has been bought out twice!!! As we come across things we need we will update it again as needed.

If anyone wants to help (ugh this is so hard for me!) we will likely need gift cards to Lowe's/Home Depot. It's quite likely all of our personal tools are ruined, as well as our large generators, basically anything that goes in a shed... is still sitting in standing water. Joe said when he opened it things started falling all over the place and the first several feet of items on shelving units are totally ruined. A project for another day..

We have plans in place for tomorrow to determine if the electric in the building is okay, and if so we're working to get it dried out as much as possible to get a team together to knock out as much renovations in the building as possible for Saturday. We need our little space to get daycare back up and running and do training lessons!!
We will need help with painting, flooring, doors, etc. We will keep everyone posted on this project.

Our house needs some work, but minimal compared to the training building. It's dry now and that's literally all that matters, we will get it fixed up in time. We will need to replace some of our personal dogs items, a fridge and freezer, etc but for now that's bottom of the list.

We are currently down to one vehicle, unsure if Joe's car will be considered totaled, but it's pouring water from the exhaust and soaked.

The back of the property is still in anywhere from 2-6+ ft of water depending on the spot, so for now ours critters stay in their temporary digs, but wow are they in for a treat when they get home and will be so comfortable back in their familiar space thanks to your incredible generosity.

We're incredibly thankful for our village, and appreciate you all more than you know. We will literally never be able to thank you enough. We do not feel deserving of all this help and I've cried more times than I care to admit. We still have a ton of work to do, but we'll get there!

And I have to give a huge shout out to our staff for jumping right in as soon as they could safely get here and never complainining. They've done so much cleaning and leash walking all the dogs, (temporary fencing coming tomorrow!) and I KNOW this is not what they signed up for. Again, without them we'd be lost.

I am buried in as many emails/messages as we are gallons of water, I promise I will get back to you all and hope to make a good dent in those tomorrow. ❤️

Waterline level below, so hard to even believe..

08/07/2024

Here is the start of our Amazon wish list. I'm sure things will be added as we think of things. Our immediate need is replacing all of our care items and supplies for our farm animals. We are very much struggling with accepting help/donations, we prefer to do the helping, but have to put our pride aside to make sure our critters have what they need. Also this is just a rough idea, if anybody has any of the supplies that are used, we are certainly OK with that, they do not have to be brand new from Amazon. This is just a general list of the items we need! 

I'm told the cleanup crew was doing a fantastic job and making great progress!

THANK YOU!!!!

08/07/2024

The clean up crew is on site! 🙌🏻😭

I'm told they are in need of shovels, rakes, wheelbarrels and additional trash cans or even something like a portable dumpster.
If you have any of those items to spare, please just feel free to swing by. I am back on the road and will not be able to answer messages quickly.

THANK YOU!! 

08/07/2024

What a day.... Joe, Ryan, and our amazing friend Carson literally kicked BUTT today doing clean up. 🧼💪🏻

Here are some pics throughout the day today... and the best ones of all at the end SAFE ANIMALS, A CLEAN AND DRY KENNEL AND A VISIBLE FRONT YARD!!! 😭😭😭
I have no idea how they managed to clean up so quickly and get so much water moved out today, but they did it. All of your babies are back in a DRY and deeply cleaned kennel area. We unfortunately lost some chickens and our sweet little peacock, but overall we are VERY lucky with the vast majority of our animals alive and safe... including a stray baby donkey that was rescued from the rushing waters of 675 and is currently safe with ours. We will attempt to find its family, but for now all that matters is it is safe. So many people took our critters without a second thought, with literally zero supplies. I'm speechless.

Tomorrow begins the tearing apart of our training building and trying to get a better idea of what is salvageable, if anything...
we have lots of help coming tomorrow and I think for the time being we are set on volunteers for tomorrow.

To those sending gifts/donations, thank you isn't enough, there aren't enough words to thank you for your generosity.

A huge thank you to all who brought supplies today, and kept Joe fed. There's just so many people to thank..

I've been asked to make an Amazon wish list and as soon as I'm home and have a better idea of what we need for immediate help I'll get it together. Likely farm animal supplies to help care for our critters in their temporary homes and when they eventually come home. Our shed still isn't quite accessible and all items (including multiple hurricane generators) are likely destroyed. The back of our property past the house is still in an immeasurable amount of deep deep (gator occupied) water. We aren't sure when our farm animals will be able to safely come home and what remains of their housing.

We wouldn't be where we are without all of your incredible support 😭❤️

08/06/2024

Hi all, I apologize, having trouble keeping up with the messages as I am trying to get home as quickly as possible and I'm driving all day and into the night. 

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 7th, we are looking for 1-2 people that can come tear the floor out of our training building. Some of it is already floating so it shouldn't be difficult, they are working today on getting the water pumped out, but we need to get the floor out of there ASAP to try and dry things out.

Thank you to everyone that has taken our animals, brought supplies, and brought Joe food. I don't have words for how thankful we are. As at this point, you can reach our property from 64 or Rye Road, but not from 301. Jim Davis is still buried in water and we are told that will likely be days before you can get through that way, but there are other ways to get in.

Please note, if you are coming to help, please be careful, there are gators that have been seen close by.

All the dogs are still fine, and very happy that they have a little space to go potty now. They are all still in the house and are a-ok... they may want to give us a few less stars than their usual ratings after this trip, but they are safe and dry!

I'm sure we will need additional help tomorrow as well, but I know right now the immediate need is getting the floor out of the building.

THANK YOU!!

08/06/2024

Our house... 😩
Just unbelievable, we aren't even in a flood zone..

**11pm, donkeys (including a stray mini donkey found on 675 earlier), and goats are out and on their way to dry and safe ground. THANK YOU SO MUCH to the small but mighty group for a late night rescue. Piggies are safe on the porch up on furniture on a makeshift bed. Hoping tomorrow we can get back to our coops and hope for a miracle with our birds... thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

** 10:30pm, truck and trailer are on their way... fingers crossed they can get in, and animals will cooperate with getting out!!

** 9pm update. Currently the only thing we need is a big lifted truck to go pick up a trailer and bring it to load up our animals. We have found a trailer, and we have found a dry place for them to go, but we need a truck that's big enough to pull the trailer and get to us. 

08/05/2024

This is what we are dealing with currently... this is... was... our training building. 😭

NO dogs are in this building and haven't been since the first threat of flooding started.

08/05/2024

If anyone has any ideas on moving our farm animals to higher ground, we are open to ideas. Water is in our house now, not bad, but it has started to come in. Dogs are being moved to second story of our house just in case, and they are fine aside from not currently being able to go outside, but we need help relocating other animals. As far as we know we are still only accessible via boat... any ideas....?

08/05/2024

All dogs on property are safe and have been moved inside to our house. All kennel areas have started to flood, but the house is fine and dry. DO NOT attempt to access us at this point, you will not make it. Water rescues have already occurred on 675, do not add to it please!

07/18/2024