Demonstrating one of the ways to carry an injured animal or pet was Paul McNamara, DVM, Chief of Surgery at the Dutchess Highlands Veterinary Group in Hopewell Junction. The program on Pet First Aid drew a large audience to the Amenia Town Hall on Wednesday, June 5.
AMENIA — Pet First Aid is essential knowledge for any person who cares for an animal and it is best to know in advance what to do in a stressful emergency.
On Wednesday, June 5, a two-hour class detailed Pet First Aid applications described by Paul S. McNamara, DVM, Chief of Surgery at Dutchess Highlands Veterinary Group in Hopewell Junction.
“The informational class was designed to help pet owners be a bit better prepared,” Dr. McNamara said.
The program was sponsored by the Medical Reserve Corps of Dutchess County (MRC) and the Dutchess County Animal Response Team (DCART). In addition, the local Top Dog 4-H Club was collecting pet food for the Hudson Valley Animal Rescue. Representing the club was Maddie Santori, president.
While the program was free, the 150 participants who registered for the program were asked to donate pet food, and many did.
Speaking on behalf of the Medical Reserve Corps, Dr. McNamara said that the organization is full of people who serve during a crisis, working alongside EMS personnel. He added that DCART is now working with MRC at a community-wide level.
Dr. McNamara additionally provides training in tactical first aid for the canine partners in military or law enforcement applications where emergency first aid is often required.
Drug-sniffing dogs are at risk if they inhale substances, McNamara noted. Two milligrams of fentanyl, a tiny amount, is sufficient to kill the animal, he said.
“Every person should carry Naloxone,” he advised.
The class covered recognition and treatments including pet CPR, heat stroke, hypothermia, gastrointestinal issues, allergies, poisonings, burns, eye issues, injuries, wound care, and more.
“Never initiate CPR unless you determine first that no pulse exists,” Dr. McNamara said.
Awareness of your pet’s behaviors and personality is key to knowing when something is off, Dr. McNamara said.
“How does your pet act or look normally,” is a question to ask in determining the presence of a problem.
A first aid kit for your pet is an essential accessory to have on hand. Only include items that you know how to use, Dr. McNamara advised, adding that including the animal’s medical history is a great idea. Always include a muzzle, no matter how docile your pet is usually.
Never feed your pet chocolate, grapes, raisins, or chewing gum, toxic both to dogs and cats.
“Nine grapes will kill a standard poodle,” Dr. McNamara cautioned.
The program was organized by Wendy Cady, Medical Reserve Corps Coordinator for the Dutchess County Department of Emergency Response. Volunteers are welcome to pursue medical or non-medical training to help in responding to a range of disasters. Pets and other animals are often victims needing attention.
Graham Corrigan
New York State Senator Michelle Hinchey buys two books from Oblong Books in Millerton on Thursday, April 23, after inducting the business into the state Historic Business Preservation Registry.
MILLERTON — Fifty-one years after Dick Hermans and Holly Nelson opened Oblong Books, the Millerton bookstore has been recognized as part of New York State history.
Following a nomination from state Sen. Michelle Hinchey, Oblong Books was added to the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry. Hermans and his daughter and co-owner, Suzanna Hermans, celebrated the designation Thursday alongside Hinchey, North East Town Supervisor Christopher Kennan and Kathy Moser, acting commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
Hermans and Nelson opened Oblong Books in 1975 after graduating from college, finding a home for their bookstore at 32 Main St. Multiple relocations and more than 200 employees later, the business remains a fixture in Millerton.
“We’ve been through thick and thin,” said Dick Hermans. “I think we’ve been successful because we stay involved in the community.”
Employees of Oblong Books and local Town of North East and Village of Millerton officials gathered with State Senator Michell Hinchey on Thursday, April 23, to honor the bookstore’s placement on the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry.Photo Provided
The designation honors New York businesses that have operated for at least 50 years. Oblong is the first business from Millerton to receive the honor. “Oblong has stood the test of time, even in the age of e-commerce,” Hinchey said. “It has remained authentically true to its mission of human connection.”
In 2001, Hermans opened a second store in Rhinebeck. Hermans’ daughter Suzanna started working at Oblong shortly thereafter, helping the store navigate the newly-imperiled physical market.
“We thought that was going to be the death knell of books,” she said, “but it turns out a physical book is actually a perfect object. You can share it with a friend, or you can keep it for 50 years.”
The bookstore is known not only for its literary inventory, but also for author events, music selections and children’s toys.
The owners’ commitment to community also extends to the nonprofit world: since 2023, Oblong has partnered with the Beacon Prison Books project to provide free books to incarcerated individuals in the region.
E-books are now available on Oblong’s website, too. But the space has largely remained the same, with its weathered wooden floorboards and cozy nooks. There’s a section for music and records upstairs, and Oblong Jr. downstairs for younger readers and toy connoisseurs.
Next time visitors stop by, they will see something new: a window decal bearing the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry logo.
Nathan Miller
A group of gardeners and community members hear Maryanne Snow-Pitts explain proper care for newly-planted tree saplings near the Harlem Valley Rail Trail in Wassaic after Snow-Pitts planted two serviceberry trees in celebration of Arbor Day on Friday, April 24.
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Leila Hawken
AMENIA — The proposed workforce housing subdivision on Route 22 is awaiting feedback from the Amenia Fire Company after developers added more water tanks to plans for the property.
Planning Board members discussed other outstanding questions involving the Cascade Creek workforce housing subdivision at their regular meeting on Wednesday, April 22, continuing a conservation subdivision process that began nearly a year ago.
Board engineer John Andrews said that once the conservation analysis step is approved by the board, the next step will be the preliminary subdivision approval process that will likely need a public hearing. When that preliminary approval is granted by the board, then the developer, Hudson River Housing, will be able to begin the application process for final subdivision approval, which can involve another public hearing.
The next step in the present process, outlined by board attorney Cassandra Britton, is for the developer to submit to fire department officials the completed, agreed-upon package defining fire suppression plans, including water holding tanks, and a traffic study to measure estimated numbers of daily trips to be generated by the development.
The developer is working through the state Department of Transportation to develop more traffic studies. The planning board indicated that such studies must be completed before May 15, while schools are in session. Previous traffic density studies were done in June.
Summarizing the overall project, Peter Sanders of Rennia Engineering, representing the developer, said that Cascade Creek would consist of 28 lots on 24 acres, including two conservation parcels, arranged along a single 24-foot-wide road. Current drawings show two road cuts off of Route 22 to service a one-way subdivision road, although discussion continues on whether a single two-way entrance would be better.
Sanders recalled that the planning board had visited the site on Wednesday, March 11, and had developed additional comments based on that visit, resulting in plan adjustments.
After consultation with fire officials, a tentative plan calls for the installation of two 30,000-gallon water storage tanks on site, though final approval from the fire company is still required.
Also, one of the lots that would have abutted Route 22 was moved to the interior of the subdivision, with more vegetation to be planted throughout to provide screening.
Responding to board concerns about wanting to promote diversity in home design, Sanders said that various flexible components will add variety, including garages, porches, decks and a variety of exterior paint colors. He added that the variables will become clearer during the design approval phase when the site plan drawings are presented.
Important to the planning board and to member Ken Topolsky in particular is an ongoing debate with the developer over whether local residents could benefit from a preferential system for selection to be able to purchase the homes in the development.
“I will continue to push on this,” Topolsky said. “What we need to do is serve residents of Amenia.” His research has shown that preferential systems are in place in some communities, leading him to reason that they are allowed.
Representatives of Hudson River Housing have maintained that such systems are not allowed.
Discussion is expected to continue at the next planning board meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 13.
Natalia Zukerman
Tremaine Gallery exhibit ‘Vulnerable Earth’ explores climate change in the High Arctic.
“Vulnerable Earth,” on view through June 14 at the Tremaine Gallery at Hotchkiss, brings together artists who have traveled to one of the most remote regions on Earth and returned with work shaped by first-hand experience of a fragile, rapidly shifting planet, inviting viewers to sit with the tension between awe and loss, beauty and vulnerability.
Curated by Greg Lock, director of the Photography, Film and Related Media program at The Hotchkiss School, the exhibition centers on participants in The Arctic Circle, an expeditionary residency that sends artists and scientists into the High Arctic aboard a research vessel twice a year. The result is a show documenting their lived experience and what it means to stand in a place where climate change is not theoretical but visible, immediate and accelerating.
That shared experience — weeks spent together navigating the waters around the Svalbard Archipelago —forms the connective tissue of the exhibition. Artists work across video, photography, performance and digital media, but what binds them is proximity: to the landscape, to one another and to the evidence of environmental change.
“The residency is fantastic,” Lock said. “You fly into the most northerly airport on the planet, get on a ship with a bunch of artists and then sail around the archipelago and find a bay or a glacier, get into little rubber boats and go to shore. There are three guides with rifles … and they form a triangle around us to protect us from polar bears, and then you’re just there.”
That immediacy — of risk, of beauty, of isolation — is evident in the work on view. “Everyone is concerned with the environmental shifts that are occurring, and you’re witnessing it out there,” Lock said. “We were cleaning the beach one day and there’s so much trash on this beach in the middle of nowhere … because there’s plastic in the sea. We are witnessing these things firsthand.”
Lock’s own contributions underscore how quickly the landscape is changing. In one piece, two photographs are mounted on a glacier-shaped metal stand. “I went to photograph the glacier, and we were sailing around and because of the map, we knew we were at the glacier, but we couldn’t see it,” he said. Dense fog, created by warming air meeting cold ground, obscured what should have been unmistakable. Only later, in post-production, did the glacier emerge. “In Photoshop, I could extract the glacier, but to the naked eye, it was no longer visible.”
Other changes are even more stark. Lock recalled the reaction of the ship’s captain comparing current conditions to his charts. “His ‘up to date’ map showed that the glacier was 8 kilometers between one side and the other, but we parked at one side, sailed and moored on the other side and it was 1.4 kilometers,” Lock said. “So, it’s just like bam. It’s happening so fast.”
There is a sense of urgency in these images, but the collection also is a testament to process and to the community that forms in such extreme conditions. “There’s quite a nice network of artists who are pretty tight,” Lock said. “We were on a ship together in tight quarters for three weeks, so we got to know each other really well. And I found connections across the work with my own practice.”
Mindful of the environmental stakes embedded in the work itself, Lock made decisions aimed at reducing impact when curating the exhibition. “A lot of this work I printed with their permission to cut down on my carbon footprint,” he said.
And yet, for all its focus on fragility and loss, the Arctic exerts a pull. “It was funny, I’ve been twice,” Lock said. “When I left the last time, I was like, oh, I don’t know if I need to go back. And then I got back, and all I wanted to do was go back.”
The Tremaine Gallery is located on the Hotchkiss campus at 11 Interlaken Road, Lakeville. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, 12 noon to 4 p.m.
Millerton News
Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office Harlem Valley area activity report April 19 to April 25
April 19 — Deputies report the arrest of Benjamin L Wormell, age 50, for driving while intoxicated during a traffic stop in the Town of Dover. Wormell is to appear in the Town of Dover Court at a later date.
April 22 — Deputies report the arrest of Adriana Barreto Angamarca, age 41, for operating a motor vehicle without a license and without proof of inspection after a traffic stop on Route 22 in the Town of Pawling. Subject to appear in the Town of Pawling Court at a later date.
April 22 — Deputies took a report of identity theft occurring in the Town of Amenia. Unknown subject(s) opened a NYSEG account for a property at 216 Depot Hill Road in Amenia under the complainant’s name. Matter under investigation.
April 24 — Deputies responded to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail in the Town of North East for a report of a bear that was blocking the trail and hampering access. The bear eventually left the area on its own free will.
April 25 — Deputies responded to the area of 2390 County Rt. 83 in Pine Plains to investigate an automobile accident that resulted in property damage. Investigation led to the arrest of Juan S. Chavarro-Rios, age 25, for Aggravated Unlicensed Operation of a Motor Vehicle in the 3rd degree.Subject to appear in the Town of Pine Plains Court at a later date.
PLEASE NOTE: All subjects arrested and charged are alleged to have committed the crime and are presumed innocent until proven guilty and are to appear in local courts later.
If you have any information relative to the aforementioned criminal cases, or any other suspected criminal activity please contact the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 845 605 CLUE (2583) or Emaildcsotips@gmail.com.All information will be kept confidential.
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