For those of you who rescue, have rescued, thinking about rescue, I want to tell you a story. It's a basset story since we mainly focus on bassets.
I posted 'bail' for this hound at a shelter 104 miles away from me (one way drive), he was only going to be given 2 days on the adoption floor because they thought he was too old, I got there the last day, about 2 hours before they had him scheduled to be put down:
This image does not tell the full story, it does not show the real detail of how bad off this poor dog was thanks to my nice nifty anti shadow flash on my camera. This skinny dog weighed in at 34 pounds and promptly lost 3 pounds when we got him home on the 12th. He was far sicker than we knew.
This is the day I picked him up, on the drive home, December 12th, 2008. They wouldn't let me take him without having him neutered before leaving the shelter, it was a big risk, vet gave 80% odds he wasn't well enough to survive the surgery but we couldn't get any type of medical waiver to get him out so we had to take the chance. He would have been euthanized anyway had we not.
Progress videos for those who want to know more about his story:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?gl=CA&hl=en&p=96EEB7AAE813676F
And his page that I really need to update one of these days:
http://www.krausdesigns.com/Kelvin.html
We had 4 potential homes lined up for him but...
He had kidney problems and wormed his way into a hardened rescuer's heart. I refuse to let myself get attached to my rescues, and there have been a LOT of them, but well... this old man was different. And still is. Originally he was thought to be around 9 or so, my vet thought closer to 11 in the spring so his probably getting close to 12 now. He's a pitiful excuse for a well adjusted dog. He whines because of everything, he's a master at pouting and putting on the pity me face. He is still a velcro dog and probably always will be. His kidney issues are under control for now with a strict diet and supplement program. He also weighs in at 55 pounds. He chews on everything not above his head by 3 feet. And he stinks when he gets wet, seriously this is not your normal wet dog stink. We have to be vigilant on the cleaning of his ears or else we end up with ulcers practically overnight. If you pull out a barbell or any kind of weight lifting equipment he will hide and pee himself. If he sees a baseball bats he pees himself while trying to hide. And now that Sally (one of our other long term fosters) has gone to her forever home... he has decided to howl. Often. Loudly. Off key. And with a certain grating screech right at the end of it.
And we wouldn't give him up for the world. He has defied vet predictions on his quality of life with CRF and defied what we were told on potential life span, see we should have lost him back around August. His latest test results show ALL his blood values are normal. All of them, every single thing they check for and my vet is shocked. Now the vet is thinking years instead of weeks or months.
These were taken on 12/3/09:
If you have a chance to adopt on old guy/gal.... don't pass it up. This is what you could end up with
I posted 'bail' for this hound at a shelter 104 miles away from me (one way drive), he was only going to be given 2 days on the adoption floor because they thought he was too old, I got there the last day, about 2 hours before they had him scheduled to be put down:
This image does not tell the full story, it does not show the real detail of how bad off this poor dog was thanks to my nice nifty anti shadow flash on my camera. This skinny dog weighed in at 34 pounds and promptly lost 3 pounds when we got him home on the 12th. He was far sicker than we knew.
This is the day I picked him up, on the drive home, December 12th, 2008. They wouldn't let me take him without having him neutered before leaving the shelter, it was a big risk, vet gave 80% odds he wasn't well enough to survive the surgery but we couldn't get any type of medical waiver to get him out so we had to take the chance. He would have been euthanized anyway had we not.
Progress videos for those who want to know more about his story:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?gl=CA&hl=en&p=96EEB7AAE813676F
And his page that I really need to update one of these days:
http://www.krausdesigns.com/Kelvin.html
We had 4 potential homes lined up for him but...
He had kidney problems and wormed his way into a hardened rescuer's heart. I refuse to let myself get attached to my rescues, and there have been a LOT of them, but well... this old man was different. And still is. Originally he was thought to be around 9 or so, my vet thought closer to 11 in the spring so his probably getting close to 12 now. He's a pitiful excuse for a well adjusted dog. He whines because of everything, he's a master at pouting and putting on the pity me face. He is still a velcro dog and probably always will be. His kidney issues are under control for now with a strict diet and supplement program. He also weighs in at 55 pounds. He chews on everything not above his head by 3 feet. And he stinks when he gets wet, seriously this is not your normal wet dog stink. We have to be vigilant on the cleaning of his ears or else we end up with ulcers practically overnight. If you pull out a barbell or any kind of weight lifting equipment he will hide and pee himself. If he sees a baseball bats he pees himself while trying to hide. And now that Sally (one of our other long term fosters) has gone to her forever home... he has decided to howl. Often. Loudly. Off key. And with a certain grating screech right at the end of it.
And we wouldn't give him up for the world. He has defied vet predictions on his quality of life with CRF and defied what we were told on potential life span, see we should have lost him back around August. His latest test results show ALL his blood values are normal. All of them, every single thing they check for and my vet is shocked. Now the vet is thinking years instead of weeks or months.
These were taken on 12/3/09:
If you have a chance to adopt on old guy/gal.... don't pass it up. This is what you could end up with
