Part 1/2: Peach update!
Where has the time gone? 😱
Little peach first came to us on 6th June 2023 and has gone from strength to strength!
Looking back it’s amazing to see Peaches' has made tremendous progress in her recovery from Meningoencephalitis (MUE) including …
❤️🩹 1. Regaining her vision - initially arriving with almost complete blindness!
❤️🩹 2. Reduction in Circling - The relentless circling behavior has significantly decreased. She can be in a pen, roaming, or found sleeping in a pet bed.
❤️🩹 3. Learning Commands - Peaches has learned basic commands, including "up!", "dinner", and "toilets".
❤️🩹 4. Crate Training - Successfully crate trained, sleeping peacefully in her crate overnight.
❤️🩹 5. Improved Coordination - Enhanced control over her speed, balance, and coordination.
❤️🩹 6. Play and Enrichment - Initially, unable to enjoy normal doggy activities or exhibit dog behaviours.Peaches now enjoys playing with enrichment toys, her Lickimat, and chew toys, once again demonstrating improved cognitive engagement.
❤️🩹 7. Independence - Peach shows increased independence, capable of indicating when she needs to go outside or be fed. She happily rolls around on the grass outside or investigates her back yard.
❤️🩹 8. Establishing a Routine - Peach hasn’t just adjusted to a consistent daily routine, she thrives on it!
❤️🩹 9. Physical Activities - Engages in normal dog behaviors like rolling on the grass, grooming herself, and lead walks.
❤️🩹 10. Socialization - Comfortably interacts with foster parents and familiar individuals, showing excitement and affection. She’s able to form new bonds with others.
❤️🩹 11. Medical Management - Ongoing successful management of her condition and no regression!
❤️🩹 12. Stable Health - Regular vet consultations and blood tests indicate stable health and progress.
❤️🩹 13. Su
POV: when you really did “just get eyes for Christmas”… 😂😜 Peaches enjoying her day out and about helping do errands. Please do check out our fundraiser for little Peaches - we desperately need to book her in for the next stage of tests so we can keep her progression going! See: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/peachesprogress
How cute is our clever little warrior Peaches? 🍑 🐶
Our brave little fighter is enjoying her Eater holiday afternoon and enrichment toys at her foster home!
Since regaining her sight and alot more cognitive function - Peaches loves these enrichment toys. Peachy is VERY food motivated and eats most of her dinners via a snuffle or lickimat as it’s great for her brain! 🧠
It’s also amazing to see her quick pace and clear walking ability (without circles) when chicken is on offer!! 😂 🍗
Unfortunately though Peaches is stuck in terms of her progression while we are awaiting her CT scan and spinal tap to be booked. We need these results to be able to decide her next steps (medication wise).
We're incredibly thankful for the generosity that has supported Peaches' journey so far - but we still have a bit to go in order to cover the costs for her essential tests!
If you can spare even $5 please know this is still a significant step to helping us reach the goal.
If 600 of our social media followers donated $5 we could book her in for next week!
How can you donate? See the below links:
💛 Peaches medical fund (Givealittle): https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/peachesprogress
💜 PayPal: https://nzchihuahuarescue.co.nz/donate-via-paypal
🧡 To donate directly to the registered bank account for our charity with Westpac -
The New Zealand Chihuahua Rescue
03-0823-0074502-000
Please don’t forget to email us for a receipt as for any donations over $5 you can receive back 33.33% from the IRD.
We know times are difficult for many at the moment. So please know that if you can’t donate, you can also help little Peaches by sharing this post, tagging others, running your own fundraisers on her behalf, or donating whatever you can whenever!
We greatly appreciate all the support!
🥹❤️🩹🥰🥹😭
PEACHES - UPDATE 🧡🐶
Little Peaches is continuing to thrive in foster care with our trustees while we continue trying to raise the funds needed for her next step!
Our goal is always to have her live as “normal” as possible, with a bit of support when needed. Even the basics, like grooming herself or enjoying a chew treat months ago, was inconceivable!
Peaches needs to undergo a CT scan and spinal tap ASAP to confirm whether she has inflammation present 🧠 or can begin to reduce her meds!
This weekend marked her 14th infusion of Cyterbrine - the life-saving (chemo) drug that gave Peaches back her vision and much of her cognitive abilities. 💉
What’s next for Peaches?
We have booked Peaches in at Shirley Vet Clinic to be spayed mid-April, thanks to a @NZCAT desex grant secured by one of our amazing volunteers, Rory!
Desexing Peaches will have so many benefits. Aside from the obvious, her hormones affect her cognitive abilities and sometimes make it difficult for us to track her overall progress. Plus with the ever present risk of pyometra in an unspayed bitch, we feel it’s the right time to get this completed!
We are so grateful to all those who have donated to Peaches so far - but we have a fair way yet until we can book her in for the tests she needs, and until then we’re stuck!
🧡 To donate directly to the registered bank account for our charity with Westpac -The New Zealand Chihuahua Rescue
03-0823-0074502-000
💛 Peaches medical fund (Givealittle): https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/peachesprogress
💜 PayPal: https://nzchihuahuarescue.co.nz/donate-via-paypal
Please don’t forget to email us for a receipt as for any donations over $5 you can receive back 33.33% from the IRD.
You can also help little Peaches by sharing this post, tagging others, running your own fundraisers on our behalf, or donating whatever you can whenever.
We know it’s a difficult time for lots of us and greatly appreciate all the support!
🥹❤️
🍑 🐶 PEACHES UPDATE:
A couple of weeks ago, we updated you on Peaches' progress and plan for her future. Our clever, brave little Peachy needs a CT scan and CSF (spinal tap) as soon as we can fundraise enough for it to go ahead:
Why?
The tests enable the vets to reduce (or even eliminate) some of her medications. As the dose she’s on now for some of them (Prednisone for example) simply isn’t sustainable long term without organ damage.
But any reduction or elimination of medication needs to be slowly and delicately. We cannot risk all this progress to date, by just withdrawing the medications too early!
Hence the tests for updated information before the next crucial step. We can eliminate some undesirable side effects (💦) if her prednisone can be lowered - Improving her quality of life further.
Peaches spinal fluid could even confirm she’s reached remission (which would be AMAZING). 😻
We can start to plan for her long term needs, future and even possible adoption!
What are the costs?
1️⃣ Option 1: a CT scan, CSF analysis, hospitalization, sedation, fluids, and a detailed image report. Estimated from $5,464 to $6,272.
2️⃣ Option 2: in addition to the above, this package offers blood tests, a skin biopsy for ear lesions, and her crucial spay procedure—all performed under a single anesthesia to minimize stress and risk. But estimated between $7,708 and $9,066.
Our goal is to fundraise for at least the CT, CSF and spay - as completing the spay, the scan and CSF in one session would be ideal.
Hormonal imbalances have been observed to affect her cognitive functions negatively. Additionally, there's the risk of pyometra, which could necessitate emergency surgery, especially dangerous for an immune-compromised dog.
If you can, please donate and share her medical fund page. We would be so grateful for any assistance to reaching her goal! 🙏🏻
🍑 To keep track of our goal and progress we have set up a separate givealittle pag
PEACHES - UPDATE 🧡🐶
Peaches is a lucky girl to have so much love and support in her corner.
To thank you all for your help, love, support and sharing, please enjoy another one of her “special moments” AKA. Something that may seem regular for any other normal dog but was impossible to expect from Peach before you got involved and saved her life!
🥹❤️🩹🥰🥹😭
Thanks to her amazing veterinary team, her committed and patient foster parents and YOU - the kind supporters who made it possible, this once critically ill and brain damaged stray dog has dodged death 3 or 4 times now! 😨
What happened to Peaches?
Peaches has “MUE” 🧠 a neurological issue caused by her immune system attacking her brain, resulting in inflammation and some damage. This led to her scary symptoms of blindness, circling etc.
We didn’t know back then whether this damage was permanent or temporary, but committed to a short trial of medications as advised by her specialists. Peaches urgently began an invasive and expensive combination of strong immunosuppressant drugs to stop the attack and calm down the inflammation.Thanks to this, Peaches has regained her sight 👀 and so much of her normal cognitive abilities, but even 8months on, she continues to improve.
This has been the most stressful, scary and expensive challenge we’ve undertaken as a charity. Truthfully, we weren’t sure she would get this far, so we’ve been taking each cautious step as it comes and following vet advice. Plus trying to pack her time with us here with as much love and fun as we can. ❤️
February Update:
Last week Miss Peaches had a check in with her specialists to discuss the next steps in her ✨ long term ✨ plan. 😱🥹 Like us, her vets are all excited to see her progress and stability.
Here peaches is, surpassing expectations. 😭 As Peaches has gotten better, shes also regained more of her doggy-self and blossomed. Peaches is sweet, curious, goofy and very
Happy New Year from the Team here at New Zealand Chihuahua Rescue and little Dottie in her party dress! 🐾
As we reflect on 2023 we also want to thank you for all of your support and generous donations.
Your kindness has been the driving force behind our charity and enabled us to save the lives of several difficult intense and difficult cases this year! 🐶 ❤️🩹
…
After a bit of a break from incoming dogs to focus our resources on our neediest, we are ready to restart in 2024 better than ever.
➡️ We will be looking for more foster parents (Christchurch based) to help change furry lives. Please check out our website to learn more.
➡️ Plus some team core members (nationwide) to join us behind the scenes (we will post more about this soon so please keep an eye out!)
So we hope you’ll continue to join us as we aim to make positive impact on even more canine lives in 2024 - so here’s to a brighter year ahead for all of us!
🐕❤️
⚠️ ATTENTION PLEASE!
Do you love Scentsy products?? or things like diffusers, oils, candles, melts and body products?
Please check out Karen’s new Scentsy Fundraiser for NZ Chihuahua Rescue (on NOW!!)
🩷 Scentsy have something for everyone and make great gifts!
💜 Scenty carry a huge range of beautiful oils, diffusers, wax warmers, melts, vet products, purifiers and pods, soap and body products, laundry products… the list goes on!!
How do we participate? It’s quick and easy!
▪️ Head to the link here: https://scents4paws.scentsy.co.nz/party/18043028/nz-chihuahua-rescue view and click purchase!
▪️Then click “share” on this post to show your friends and family. The more people we reach, the more we can raise!
How does it help NZCR?
🌸 For all purchases made via Karen’s link from now raise until (at this stage) the end of the second week of January - Karen has graciously pledged her commission proceeds. So the more customers, the more we raise!
🌼 Every Scentsy product you buy, enables us to continue funding little Peaches treatment.
🌺 But we also have a waitlist of pups needing assistance from NZCR in the new year! This year has been difficult for us, so we’ve taken a break from incoming dogs for the last couple of months to focus on our current super needy cases and ready ourselves for the new year. But we need your support to make this happen!
Dive into the world of amazing Scentsy products - where each purchase helps a pup in need!
➡️ Link for purchase: https://scents4paws.scentsy.co.nz/party/18043028/nz-chihuahua-rescue
Thank you for the support!! 🐾
We also want to A huge thank you to Dr Karen Valu (and the gorgeous Mr Odie) for running this fundraiser for us and all of their support. You may actually recognise Karen as she’s a vet and expert physio here in Christchurch! Karen has done wonders for our own dogs and the rescues (Peachy included). Learn more about Dr Karen (vet and physio) here: www.i
There’s always that one person at the family Christmas who lets loose… 😜!
There’s always one that gets a little TOO loose at the family Christmas… 😂😜
Merry Christmas to our adopters, fosters and network of kind supporters! 🎅🏻
Thank you so much for all of your support this year. 🧡 We couldn’t do this without you - Peaches sends her thanks directly to you too!
The team and dogs here at New Zealand Chihuahua Rescue wish you and your loved ones (both furry and human) a very Merry Christmas! 🎄
Have fun, but be safe and avoid After Hours this Christmas! 🐕 😘
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Life is peachy! Rescue dog Peaches enjoying the sun.
Took a video originally of my two sunbathing griffons (mum and daughter duo) and who do we have here? A goofy little Peaches, enjoying some sun!! ☀️😂
Peaches has been undergoing treatment for 6 months now! To learn more about her and how you can help support her recovery please see: https://nzchihuahuarescue.co.nz/peaches
Every bit we raise for her to continue treatment helps her continue to enjoy life!
PEACHES UPDATE 🐶 🍑🐾
Peaches, our special little soul in rescue care, has blossomed in the past 6 weeks. She has adapted well to being fostered (temporarily) with our trustees and their 5 other small breed dogs in the home. 🏡 🐕
Plus this brave little lady shows more of her funny, loving little personality once familiar with her household. Peaches daily routine involves plenty of snuggles, naps, and enjoying a booster seat in the car. 🚗 Peaches has also begun her playful zoomies and mouthing to show she’s excited. Plus regularly flops on her back to enjoy the sunshine outside. Peaches is also able to enjoy things like her lickimats, hoof chew toys, and other enrichment toys. Things she couldn’t focus on prior!
A huge development in the past 6 weeks has been Peaches learning to simply “hang out” normally in the home environment. So not in a pen or crate, just as a free-range pet Peach without circling (from anxiety).
🐶 Peaches is also enjoying spending some time with Rochelle of Raw Muttz each week. It’s helping her learn to reduce her anxiety in a foreign environment so she circles less, while her foster mum heads to the office.
🏥 Medical updates: Peaches is stable and weaning down her daily medications. As she gears up for her 9th Cytarabine injections (next weekend) we were happy to learn she’s “ahead of the curve” in terms of expected progress - 6months in to a possible 12-24 month medical journey.
We also want to thank the team at Veterinary Specialists Aotearoa VSA (Christchurch) 🐶 who met with Peaches and our trustees last month. The specialists took a look at Peaches and her diagnostics + records and were able to assure us that her septum abnormality won't hinder her quality of life and there is no concern it could progress. So another piece of good news for Peaches!
Thank you to everyone who has donated to Peaches, sent well wishes, shared her posts, purchased from our online store! Her medical journey requi
UPDATE - “PEACHES” 🍑🐶🧡
Little Peaches recently came back to her original foster home with two of our Trustees, Casey and Alex.
It’s been a privilege to spend more time with Peaches. She’s got a sweet and loving little personality. Peaches loves giving a kiss or 10!😘 She enjoys a walk, exploring the yard, or chasing moths at night when you ask her to “go toilets”. 😂 You can see glimpses of her little goofy side (in the video below).
Peaches has coped with the change of home fairly well! Change can be especially difficult for a dog with brain damage, who thrives best with familiarity and routine. But overall, Peaches is very clever and even with her condition, continues to shock us with her progress. Now she’s learnt a new house routine and layout, she will happily take herself outside, or come back ip the steps inside. Peaches hops into her playpen (for her food, a nap in her fav bed or a drink from her rabbit dropper when needed).
We’ve now been working on increasing her comfort and comfort extending her independence to other areas that are outside of her “safe zones” (ie. crate, playpen, car seat, or in someone’s arms!).
As part of this, Peaches has been spending some time in the Casey’s home office (while she works her normal day job) and now learnt to settle herself happily in random sunny spots, or one of the pet beds there. It may not sound like much of a step to some, but one of the concerns we had about Peaches was whether she could integrate herself into “normal pet life” and had the autonomy to decide things for herself. With time, patience, consistency and support, Peaches has made so much progress and we’re eager to continue and build upon this.
In the meantime - We hope you enjoy this little montage, mostly of Peaches’ weekend just been and some snippets of her week so far. Just a heartwarming little “thank you” and a visual of how much she’s enjoying the extra time her amazing vets, carers
Peaches 🍑 cruising the streets of Christchurch!
Sorry it’s been so long between updates!
Little Peaches has come a long way from her former self only 3 months ago….
Peaches has a neurological condition which led to her suffering brain inflammation. Intially she was almost fully blind. You can read more about her journey here: https://nzchihuahuarescue.co.nz/peaches
Peaches has required a careful combination of medical and fostering expertise to make progress. It has been a joint effort to source the medications needed and vets willing to treat such a complex case.
But also to locate a foster parent who is able to put ALOT of hard work into Peaches becoming more independent and living her life as best she can. Peaches has good and bad days and needs a dedicated supportive foster.
Before meeting her foster mum, Peaches had to be on a person, in a sling, or stroller near a person to feel ok. If not, she’d become anxious and circle relentlessly to indicate anxiety.
Her foster mum Penny spent hours with P slowly supporting her into w better habit - by giving Peaches some sling time, then crate solo time, reward cuddle time, play pen solo time, over and over. Now Peaches is happy in her pen solo and sleeps in her crate. Penny even trained her to be ok in a booster seat in the car, where she happily enjoys rides!
Peaches and Penny have put in so much hard work. Peaches is still a brain damaged and special needs dog but has come so far already with help from you guys funding the treatment she needs, her amazing foster mum and caring passionate vet team.
We also want you to know that Peaches is alive thanks to all of your kindness and support - that’s what your donations and care has done.
So please do continue to donate to peaches fund if you can, so we can continue to help her progress. We are need to order into NZ some more of her infusion meds to make sure she has enough for her next cycle and your donations make it possible. You can donate by:
The New Zealand Chihuahua Rescue
03-0823-0074502-000
Elvis 💔
When we say Elvis has an abnormal walk, we mean….
😢🥺😭
Despite his sad history, Elvis is a little honey! He is very cuddly and friendly, and LOVES human attention!
Elvis has had a preliminary check is heading to visit Aunty Tracey (Dr Tonkin) tomorrow, who has made space to see him ASAP and on her day off. 🏥
🖤 UPDATE - GUILIANA (“JULES”):
Normally, we wouldn’t be impressed by a video of a bitch humping her toy. Guiliana came into season (on heat) soon after arriving in care with us, so it’s not too impressive lol. It also means we had to rebook her spay operation!
BUT…. For the first week or so of her care, this little dog was basically a half-comatose shell of an animal. Guiliana would sit staring into space, shaking and shivering with her eyes wide open 👀 and terrified.
Jules would not eat, or sleep. Instead Guiliana would opt to spend the night barking repeatedly and digging at her bedding. If you let Jules outside she would become frantic and pace up and down with no idea what else to do. Jules then did the same inside when let out of her crate.
Jules seemed to be in her own world and had 0 reaction to her name, other dogs or people around her. She was on a whole different wavelength. We even went back to discuss this and whether it was normal, with her former owner.
But she’s now had the benefit of some time and care with our amazing vet Dr Tracey Tonkin, of Tram Road Animal Care Services, who spent a lot of time researching and considering allllll our options.
We decided to treat her with something for pain and epilepsy. After a few days on Gabapentin + Metacam + The Purina Pro Plan calming sachets added to her raw food and she is doing so much better!!
It feels a bit miraculous 🥺😭 this dog was so close to being compassionately euthanised 😔 It’s a sad and sobering fact when you begin a rescue to learn that you simply can’t “save them all” and we were worried Jules was one of the dogs we could not save… We were concerned that 9 years of untreated epilepsy had essentially damaged her brain irreparably and this behaviour was the result.
We couldn’t keep a dog alive that was so anxious it couldn’t relax, that seemed cruel. We weren’t sure it would be ethical to keep a dog alive that was now relaxed but also also so
Vito the Love Bug
This little love bug, Vito, is still patiently waiting for his forever home 🏡 ❤️
Vito is a happy-go-lucky, clever, active, social little guy, looking for an owner who can implement that careful balance of love and boundaries for him to thrive!
Vito is toilet-trained and great in the car. Vito also knows how to use a doggy-door and his basic commands.
Vito is a very vibrant, energetic little dog who will need an active home. He would do great with learning obedience or agility!
ADOPTER REQUIREMENTS:
- Vito is available for adoption preferably in the Canterbury area. However, we may consider Applicants with suitable rescue dog knowledge from outside the area.
- Vito needs to be homed with a doggy-experienced owner who is able to implement boundaries. Must be willing to ensure that he is under effective lead control at ALL times on his walks and not able to chase any cats.
- Vito is an active dog, he needs an owner who would be able to walk him at least once per day.
- Vito cannot be homed with cats or small animals. Please do not apply if you have cats or small animals - no matter how confident they are! We will not be accepting a home with cats for him. Please do not ask or query this as we have been very clear.
- Must have a fully-fenced property, with no holes or gaps. It must be secure!
- Vito has lived with children prior. But any children in the home must be 6-years or older. Please do not apply if you have children in the home under 6 years of age.
- Vito would suit a home with another dog (small to medium breed) of a similar (playful) energy, or fine as a solo dog (with human companionship).
- No full time workers who are out of the home for large periods of time each day. We would only consider, very part time workers, those working from home permanently, or someone recently retired yet active. We don't adopt out companion dogs to full time (out of home) workers.
🧡 Please read more about Vito here: https://nzchihuahuarescue.co.nz/vito
13 and 11 year old, rescues chihuahuas happy to be groomed!
Remember these two gentlemen we collected earlier this week? 11 year old Peanut and 13 year old Smudge!
Well, they went for a much needed groom today and it’s taken years off of them! Here is a sweet little video taken by their foster mama!
Both had matted fur and very long nails that would effect the way they were walking.
After a bath, blow dry, nail and fur trim - They’re clearly feeling pretty good about themselves!!
A HUGE thank you to Cerise of PETstock for doing an amazing job (as always) on these two VERY grateful wee boys! Cerise is not only experienced and skilful at grooming, but also very patient and caring. So she does a wonderful job of all of our rescue babies.
Their foster mama reports that Smudge is quite energetic and spritely for his age! He’ll probably be all the more so, once we get some weight off of him.
Peanut prefers to stay cuddled up on your lap for as long as you’ll let him! We’re working on the opposite with Peanut, we’d like to see him gain a wee bit.
Both are toilet and crate trained, living with their foster sister (the other small Chihuahua x that you see in this video!)
WHAT’S NEXT?
🔸 Next up for these two little dudes is their vet check, bloods, vaccines and booking in their dentals.
🔸 Hopefully they can be sorted medically and we can begin the search for their forever home!
ADOPTION?
♥️ Know someone looking for two spunky little gentlemen, in the prime of their lives, and who love cuddly little dogs? Send them our way!
♥️ The boys won’t be available until medically cleared, but hopefully we can then find that forever loving home they deserve!
♥️ For more information on these two - please see their profile on our website!
I’ll post the other cute wee video recieved from their foster mama in the comments ⬇️⬇️
