George, a Rescue Dog: Day Two
George is a 10 year old toy poodle mix, who was dumped by his owners at the Baytown Animal Shelter. He was found there by Lou Sisk, and Holly Dool found him rescue with the Blind Dog Rescue Alliance. I’m fostering George and updating his story to show that rescue dogs straight from the shelter make wonderful pets.
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I got George late Thursday night and made a bed for him in the bathroom of our bedroom. I knew that he had kennel cough and fleas, and probably other things, and I needed to keep him away from my dogs until he’s better. At the same time, I wanted to be close to him in case something happened.
It turns out that the master bathroom was a bad idea for a blind, deaf dog. It was just too big and he spent a lot of time pacing and trying to feel out the space. It was just too big for him. Eventually, though, he got either comfortable or tired, I’m not sure which. But he got into his little bed. Unfortunately, he was up and down for most of the night because of his terrible cough. He coughed long and hard, and he coughed up blood.
On Friday morning, I took George outside to do his business and noted that he has worms too, poor little guy. I couldn’t wait for our veterinarian to come and take a look at George.
In the meantime, I fed George and decided to tackle his matted hair. I’m not a groomer, and I don’t have buzz clippers. I put on medical gloves and took George outside. I spread newspapers out on the driveway and pet George to let him know that it was going to be ok. I decided that I needed to cut the hair away from his first, so I could see what’s going on there.
So what’s going on there? Well the first thing you can see is that his snout is covered in what looks like dirt. It’s not dirt, it’s flea poo. It’s really tragic when a dog has suffered with fleas for so long that he’s given up even trying to scratch them off. They just dig in and feast on the dog, and leave their mess everywhere. There’s not much I can do about that until the vet gets those fleas off him for me, so that’s for tomorrow.
The second thing you’ll notice is that George has a cataract in his left eye. I didn’t see one in the right eye, but there’s so much crust and nastiness in his eyes, it’s hard to tell. I cut all that hair out of his eyes. Then I turned him around and began to get some of the matted hair off him. His ears were matted with flea poop, so I cut as much as I could there. I watched the fleas crawling all over him and tried not to scream.
His bum was matted with urine and feces. He’s definitely been sitting in his own mess for a while. I cut as much off as I could with scissors, and by then George was really trying to pull away. I didn’t want to hurt him or to stress him out, so I put him in a kennel until our vet came. I gave him another small meal –I’d decided to feed him small meals because, without knowing what’s going on with him, I didn’t know how his little tummy would react.
Dr. Eich and Bobby pulled into the driveway just an hour later (yay for mobile veterinarians!), and Dr. Eich got to work. She took blood, a stool sample, and gave George all of his shots while Bobby multitasked, comforting George, distracting him with cheese, and taking notes. Dr. Eich buzzed the remaining matted poop from George’s matted behind, and clipped his long, overgrown nails.
Dr. Eich, Bobby, and George in the mobile vet van.
Dr. Eich estimates that George is between 10 and 16 years old. He’s microchipped, which makes the fact that his owners dumped him even sadder. He’s neutered as well. After Dr. Eich looked at George’s blood, we learned that he has heart worms. Additionally, he’s got worms in his stool, kennel cough, fleas. She started him on meds to get rid of the kennel cough, start on the heart worms, and get rid of the fleas. She gave him a dewormer for his intestinal worms.
After all that, George is starting to come around! Look at that little face!
George, after his vet visit, looking improved!
I made up George’s bed in our powder room instead of the bigger bathroom, and blocked the doorway off so my dogs can’t get near him (because he’s sick). As I walked George back into the house, I got my first reward – a tail wag! This is the first time that George has wagged his tail! I know he’s feeling at least a little bit better. At the same time, I know he’s tired, so I didn’t want to push him by giving him a bath or cutting any more hair. Tomorrow’s another day.
