We are selling costume and costume accessories at our Halloween Fundraiser at Ghost Town Brewing. All proceeds go back to out rescue! Get a costume and join the dog costume contest!
When we picked up Chance from the vet in Lakeport last week, they informed us that they wanted to keep him another day, because he wasn't yet walking. Given that we drove 3 hours to pick him up, we pushed back and they released him to us, so that we could monitor his post-op progress. It took a couple more days before we were able to get him to walk; first using a sling, but very shortly later, walking on his own.
He will likely never be "as good as new" after all this surgery. The FHO on the hip was to relieve the pain, but the hip is pretty displaced. The fractured leg shows some signs of nerve damage, which may be permanent. But he should be able to get around on his own. Further down the road, there will be arthritis that will have to be managed.
This is Chance. He is a 3 month old Labrador puppy that we pulled from the Turlock Shelter today. He had been hit by a car. We thought his only injury was a broken rear leg. Our plan was to amputate the leg and let him get on with his life. Unfortunately, on further examination by our vet, he also has a broken pelvis on the other side, essentially having two rear legs that don’t work. Our vet recommended that we talk to an orthopedic surgeon about repairing the broken leg, and letting the broken hip heal on its own.
We are struggling with next steps. We don’t have a foster or permanent home for him. He is currently staying at our adoption center. Based on our VERY POOR adoption rate these days, we have come to the conclusion that people simply don’t want the broken imperfekt dogs that we try to save. So we are heavily leaning towards euthanizing the puppy instead of trying to fix him since he has zero chance of finding a forever home.
If you think euthanizing him is the wrong thing to do, then PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE step forward and agree to give Chance a chance by taking him into your home while we work on fixing his fractured leg. Feel free to share this post. He would need a home within the vicinity of our location (Castro Valley, CA), due to his many vet visits that will be needed over the next few weeks.
This is our latest rescue. Yes, we have stopped pulling new dogs from shelters because we have no available foster homes. When the Turlock shelter reached out to us (and many other rescue groups) about this dog, we asked them if they also reached out to Wonder Dog Rescue, a northern CA Boston Terrier rescue group. We called the group to alert them that there was a Boston Terrier needing rescue. However, we learned that the rescue group has relocated to New York. However, they said that there might be one of their volunteers in the area that could foster her. So we decided to take her.
But then another rescue said they would take her instead, so we stepped aside. But after that rescue got to know more about her medical issues, they changed their mind, and we were back in the batter’s box. One of our volunteers drove to Turlock this afternoon to get her. We named her Abby. She was found as a stray. She was likely a victim of f**king backyard breeders - as soon as a dog is no longer able to produce “product” it is simply thrown away. She was very emaciated (13 lbs), and horrendous skin issues. She hasn’t been evaluated by a veterinarian, yet (the Turlock Shelter doesn’t provide veterinary care). She is scheduled to see our vet on Monday morning.
She is very sweet, cuddly, and maybe a little needy. She is gaining weight (we weighed her today around 16.5 lbs, but she is still very skinny).
* * * * FOSTER HOME NEEDED FOR SPECIAL NEEDS CAT * * * *
We have another foster animal that needs to be rehomed. Yasmina (a.k.a. "Pepsi") came to us from the Oakland Animal Shelter. Someone turned her in a stray (who knows it that was true), but 3 weeks into her shelter stay a volunteer observed her having a seizure. She was at the shelter for another month. There was no direct observation of additional seizures, but the shelter suspected that was having about one a week, so they called us. We took her straight away to our vet and started her on phenobarbital. She is currently being fostered in a cat hotel. There are cameras monitoring the resident cats' activities. In the 7 months at the hotel, there hasn't been any evidence that she has had any additional seizures (so maybe the phenobarbital is working great?).
Yasmina is little over a year old. In the hotel, she got along with all of the hotel's clients with whom that she shared a room. What contact she has had with the staff of the hotel has been okay - she is playful and seems seeks attention most of the time.
The hotel is gearing up for the holiday season and is no longer able to keep her (and it would be nice to put in a real home, instead of a hotel). She is pretty good about taking her medication which needs to be administered every12 hours on the dot (give or take 30 minutes). If you are able help Yasmina, can you please reach out to us? We provide all of the needed supplies including her medication.
A Tail of Two Puppies
We pulled Nugget and Roth about 6 weeks apart from the same shelter. Although, they are both German Shepherd mixes and are believed to be approximately the same age (about 10 months old now – we got them when they were about 2 months old), they are not related. In fact, they seem to have come from VERY DIFFERENT circumstances.
Roth was likely some family’s new puppy until they dumped him due to a medical issue. While Nugget was no one’s loved pet – likely born feral and left to fend for himself in the wild. God only knows what happened to his mother or any littermates. Maybe he was the only survivor? He was in terrible shape – bite wounds all over his body, bloated, horrible skin condition and an injured eye (that eventually had to be removed). At first, it wasn’t clear if he would even survive.
Both dogs are in the same foster home – and are best play buddies (which the foster family is thankful for as they exhaust each other’s energy very nicely). In spite of them being best friends, they have VERY DIFFERENT personalities, and as a result, people tend to treat the dogs VERY DIFFERENTLY from each other. Roth is social, outgoing, always seeking attention from visitors and volunteers. He is very smart and learns new things quickly. EVERYBODY loves and wants Roth (although, no one has ever applied to adopt him). While Nugget, on the other hand, is distrustful of strangers, slower to pick up on training, and can be a little nippy if he gets overstimulated (mostly from Roth’s energy). Outside of his foster family, whom he adores and they him, no one really likes Nugget – trainers, volunteers, visitors.
It will be interesting to see where these two puppies eventually end up. We can only hope and pray for the best possible homes for either of them.
When we were looking for a new location last year for our adoption center after being kicked out of the BayFair Mall, we hoped to find a place where we might be able to have an outside area for the dogs. We’ve been in our new location for a little over a year and we FINALLY got around getting it done.
The dogs are loving it, and hopefully there will be plenty of “not too hot” days when we can use it.
Looking for a fun time with some fun dogs? Stop by our adoption center on Saturday or Sunday afternoons and spend some time with our great dogs looking for forever homes.
Pomeranians are popular mostly due to their coat. However, maintaining that coat requires discipline. Woody’s coat has been neglected, where the undercoat was very matted. With the warm weather season right around the corner, we decided he needed to be shaved - a risky proposition, but there really was no other option.
