When contemplating getting another dog recently, I put the big ix nay on getting a puppy. I refused to even look at a puppy because I knew that if I held a puppy that I would immediately run to the front desk of the shelter, plunk down the money to buy, run home and snuggle it to death. Then I'd immediately have buyer's remorse when it would pee on my floors, chomp my shoes, woodwork, bark, chase everything in sight, eat anything not nailed down and generally make a pest of itself. So we "window shopped" online and picked out Blue from the hundreds of NON-puppies at the Wake County animal shelter. He was estimated to be between 1 and 2 years old. Good enough for me!
Turns out when we got him though that he was quite sick and was tremendously hurt. His pelvis was fractured in 4 places, as was his femur, along with a few fractured ribs and a broken jaw thrown in just for fun. His hip socket was shattered so completely that his bone had formed a pseudojoint, meaning that the head of the hip joint carved out a socket for itself in the spine itself. Then toss in hepatitis, a case of worms and some sort of upper respiratory infection, and this dog was a basket case.
When the physical rehabilitation vet saw the X-rays, the first thing he said was "how are you alive?". Yes, he saw not only our regular vet, but also the NC State orthopedic vets and a physical therapist specialist vet too... can we all say expensive? But he's worth it.....well, maybe.
After all of the treatments, the passage of 6 weeks, and lots and lots of exercise to strength his very badly injured back left leg, he is playful, full of pep, impish and rambunctious now. He used to be lethargic and rather pathetic to be honest. I called him my little old man. He slept ALL the time, he didn't play, and he was just downright tired. NO MORE. He is a new dog.He is now a puppy. Having been a stray and having probably missed his puppy hood having to fend for himself in the wild with a hideous painful injury, he is now all
WOOOOO-HOOOOO I GET TO BE A BABY DOG NOW!!!! and he is sure living it up. In the last week he has: eaten 2 buttons off of one of my favorite pair of shoes (expensive shoes by the way)*, he chewed and made a mess of one shoe of at least 3 pairs of shoes (I think the PTSD made me lose count around 3, so it could be more). He also chewed and ate 3 different sections of the baseboards/chair rails (poor Wheeler, he could hear Blue chewing at the baseboards but could do nada to make him stop).
Crate training, coming right up!
* Due to the distinct possibility of the buttons causing a traffic jam in important areas between Point A and Point B in Blue's body, I needed to be sure that said button actually made it from Point A to Point B. Therefore I began to carry plastic gloves with me on my walks with Blue to check all material that emerged from Point B to see if it contained said buttons, until such time as said buttons appeared. Thankfully, after 4 checks, the two buttons appeared and I no longer needed to suss through his poo.
