01/02/2026
This is not a feel good story. It is series of rotten circumstances and no one is blame. No one. I will forever wonder if he had been in a foster home situation or in the same place for 4-6 weeks if we couldn’t have had a possible different outcome, but it is too late for that. This guy was loose in a forest preserve for three weeks before he was trapped. After a brief hold in a county that does not have any animal control facilities, he was transferred to a local facility. After a few days there he was adopted and then got away from the new adopter the same day. After several more days he was closed in someone’s garage and with an assist cornered and brought to me for his new family to retrieve him. Given all that had happened (he bit the new owner, not breaking skin) they decided he wasn’t a good fit. He was picked up by the local facility who, at the request of the initial trapping county, returned him to that county. While the county looked for a foster home, he came to stay with me and have an evaluation done. He had a bare spot on his ear from a healed sore, antibiotics for anaplasmosis (a tickborne illness), but otherwise he appeared to be in relatively good condition. Behaviorally, he was fearful but avoidant rather than aggressive. It took about seven days for him to get very comfortable with me and then he was introduced to my dogs. He loved dogs. Just before Christmas he slipped in the yard. Not a bad slip, but he limped a little when he got up. The next day, the limp was much improved in the morning, but oddly it vacillated between walking almost normally and barely bearing weight over the next couple days. We called the vet to have him seen, it did not seem to necessitate an emergency room visit as I was able to move his leg all over without a painful response He was seen within a couple days and X-rays were negative on the leg, but in that image was part of his lung and that did not look normal. Further X-rays of his lungs looked like he had inhaled fuzz, not pneumonia but very not normal. He had a fever. After speaking with a colleague and replaying his history it seemed very likely we were looking at blastomycosis. He had not one respiratory symptom while he was with us. I learned later that he did have some coughing along the journey, but I didn’t know that until after this visit, and he never coughed here. I also learned a little bit more about his ear lesion. Blastomycosis often presents with lesions, it can also cause joint inflammation, and respiratory symptoms are common. It is an ugly, insidious, and merciless fungal infection. Often found in wet areas or in decaying wood. I’m sure he came across it while looking for food in his earlier days on the loose in a forest preserve. We got medication and started it immediately, but respiratory symptoms began within 12 hours of leaving the vet Yesterday he took a turn and we were headed to the emergency clinic, but did not make it. I’m glad he was warm, fed, had dog friends, and people he could trust, sad that I couldn’t put those pieces together earlier, but understand it wouldn’t have been the first line of differential diagnoses for any one of those symptoms singly. So, what do we learn from this? I still think it’s best to adopt from rescues that have the dogs for ideally 4 to 6 weeks, learning baselines are important for setting dogs up for future successes. Please, double leash your new rescues every time you take them outside for at least the first six weeks. No one, not the initial county, not the facility, not us would’ve had this on their radar with the single symptoms each one of us saw, but that’s of little consolation right now.
