Trucker
update 05/09:
Just check out Trucker’s lastest photos! He is so grateful to all of you for your help… he is growing more fur every day! Our volunteer says, “I got to play with Trucker. I took pics which I am sending along. He is so smart. He knows “sit” and when they want him to return to his kennel, they point at the door and say “in” and he goes in. What a sweet baby!!! He LOVES the staff there.”
Update 5/3
One of our volunteers just went to see Trucker: “He is in the boarding area now. He was running and jumping and barking. I got to play with him. What a DOLL! He is so adorable and vocal. He is eating solid kibble although he was much more interested in playing with my daughter and me than he was in his food. He was very friendly. He had to run and touch noses with the other dogs in the nearby kennels. His fur is growing back and he is adorable. When we finally left he barked and barked and jumped up and managed to escape from his kennel. Did I mention that he is adorable?”
Trucker would like to thank each and every one of your for all your contributions, concern, and good thoughts! He also wants to let you know that GRR is having some trouble finding a foster home for him, so if you would like to have him come and stay with you, please submit an application. GRR will be very happy to talk to you about the care that he needs. Thank you!
Update 4/28:
Wonderful news for Trucker! Looks like he just may have beaten the parvovirus. He’s gobbling up all the food he can eat, drinking plenty of water, and keeping everything down. No vomiting, no diarrhea. His vital signs are all normal. He’s getting VERY frisky: barking to get out of his kennel, pursuing the techs in the exercise pen and nipping at their shoelaces, just like a normal puppy. The vets are now turning their attention back to his skin issues (mange and secondary skin infections), which will be treated with both oral and topical medications. But this little guy is all set to move out of the hospital and into a foster home!
Sometimes
we get a “highly adoptable”
Golden—young (but not too young), healthy, housebroken, good with cats, good
with kids, known vet history… how much better could it get?! However, as GRR’s
president once said, “Yeah, but if rescue were always that easy, you probably
wouldn’t need rescue groups.”
The truest
rescues are the dogs who are highly UNadoptable at the start—too young & weak,
too old, too sick, or too injured to walk right into an adoptive home. When a
shelter or a Good Samaritan looks at one of those Goldens and says, “Who could
possibly want a dog like THIS one?”… then we say, “We do.”
In the past
two weeks alone, we’ve taken in two such special-needs Goldens. One is just
starting out in life, the other has already lived a lot—but both of them need
new lives. Here are their stories.
Trucker: the little
puppy who could
Hotline
message from San Antonio on April 10: “There’s a Golden Retriever puppy under
our truck in the driveway. We just found him lying there a couple of days ago.
There’s something wrong with his skin & he’s really timid. We have been putting
food out for him, but he can’t stay here. Can you help? If you come while we are
gone, please take him. No one is
looking for him.”
Action stations! A flurry of phone calls, e-mails, and vet arrangements followed, and two GRR volunteers arrived the next day… and found a purebred little Golden in very sad shape. “Three or four months old. Lethargic, unresponsive. I literally had to pull him out from under the truck, although he did take a few biscuits. You can tell he feels lousy. No hair on his ears for the most part, lots of hair loss on face and legs. I just wanted to pull him close and hug him. His little life has been just miserable so far.”
Almost too weak to stand, the pup was carried into the clinic
and installed in a kennel. He still looked awful, but at least he now looked
like somebody cared. And it always helps to have a cheering squad! The clinic
staff promptly conducted a “name that pup” contest, and chose the perfect
moniker: “Trucker,” because this pup really does keep on truckin’. He has
sarcoptic mange (hence the bald spots), a skin infection—and worst of all,
parvovirus. For the first few days, Trucker went downhill. Vomiting, bloody
diarrhea, fever, extreme weakness. The clinic put him on IV fluids—vitally
important in treating parvo, since it kills in part by dehydration. Dogs
with this devastating illness can’t take anything by mouth, to spare damage to
their already compromised GI tracts, so Trucker is getting antibiotics and
anti-nausea drugs in his IV as well. He has daily blood counts, too, because
parvo also attacks the bone marrow. By April 16—five days after he arrived at
the vet’s—the diarrhea had abated, and Trucker was able to stand on his own and
give a tiny tail wag when the staff sweet-talked him. On Thursday the 17th, the
diarrhea stopped, the vomiting slowed way down, and he even went for a little
walk outside and wagged his tail when he saw another dog in the distance! By
Saturday the 19th, he hadn’t vomited for 48 hours and his temperature had been
normal for 36 hours. And by Monday the 21st, he was eating small amounts of
canned food, drinking water—and keeping it all down. And each time he goes out
for a walk, he wants to be a little more active. Everyone says, “He’s a
sweetie!”
Will
Trucker make it? We sure hope so, but he’s not out of the woods yet. Parvovirus
is very serious, especially in puppies—and more so for pups like Trucker, who
have other problems, too. His current bills are running about $69 per day, and
there’s no general rule for how long treatment needs to continue. But just take
a look at his pictures. And we’re all hoping that some day we can show another
“after” photo: a grown-up happy Golden with a plush fur coat and a loving family
surrounding him.
Over the
years we have brought in so many wonderful dogs who needed extra help. Maybe one
of them is even living in your home today. I have two in mine! –
Darla, #06-095, left outside the
San Antonio shelter with a huge, festering abscess on her neck (the fish hook
that caused the injury was still lodged in the flesh); and
Bebe, #07-031, picked up stray with
a horribly mangled front leg and slipping into shock. Without the help of GRR,
both dogs would have been euthanized at the pound. That didn’t happen, and every
day I look at my beautiful, lively girls and feel so grateful to have them.
Can you help give a special Golden a second chance? We can’t
save all of them, but we can always, always try. Please donate to our
Extraordinary Golden Fund. You can make a
general contribution or ask that your dollars go to caring for one dog in
particular. Any amount will help. Thank you from all of us at GRR!
After Photos:
