Another Animal Added to the Clan?!?

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about all the wonderful pets we have…we have quite a jungle going around here!

Well, as if that weren’t quite enough, we found out the city of Fort Worth animal shelters were participating in the national Clear the Shelters adoption campaign!  So for one day (Saturday, August 19th), all animal adoptions were FREE OF CHARGE! 

The kids really wanted to go and look at the animals, and they were convinced they wanted to bring home a 3rd dog.  I really just wanted to go see the animals but not necessarily adopt another one, mainly because I was concerned about an additional dog in our “pack” not being accepted by our alpha female, Lilly.  But my husband was sure to tell me the night before that he was not against another dog and that if I brought one home, he would not be opposed. 

So off we went to see the animals!  They brought them from all the area shelters to several adoption sites…the main animal care and shelter facility as well as two area Pet Smart stores.  We decided to go directly to the shelter, which has been overcrowded all summer.

I was totally overwhelmed by the sheer number of dogs without forever homes.  Stray animals are a serious problem in this city.  The lady at the shelter told me that they get more puppies than anything, because people make feeble attempts at breeding and then turn the animals loose when the puppies don’t come out like they wanted.  Very sad!

There was an enormous amount of large dogs, mostly pit bulls mixes, and so many of them had red marks on their charts indicating that they were highly aggressive, had bitten, or had even killed the owner’s other dog!  Crazy stuff.  I steered clear of the big dogs, though I did find one that was really sweet.

And of course, there were plenty of senior dogs that no one wanted.  That was heartbreaking, too.  At one point, I just sat on the floor and cried into a pile of tissues!  It made me truly sad.  My soft heart just couldn’t leave without rescuing one of these sweet, precious pets!

So in the end, we narrowed it down to two whose cages were side by side.  One was a shepherd mix (supposedly, but we think she is a border collie), and the other was a blue heeler mix.  Both were really friendly and pitiful and were starving for attention.  They had such sweet personalities.  But the black and white one really caught the eye of the kids, so we settled on her and named her Pepper.  The kids were so excited after we stood in line for ages and filled out all of the paperwork and then went back to tell her goodbye, only to find an “I’m Adopted…I’m Going Home” sign on her cage!  Yes!  She really was going home with us!  We had to wait a day, though.  They scheduled her for spay surgery first thing Sunday morning.  We couldn’t pick her up until late Sunday afternoon.

She was barely awake when we took her home.  She was still very groggy and sedated, and she was on a heavy dose of pain medication that would last about 12 hours.  We introduced the dogs together outside.  We were hoping to take them for a walk, but poor Pepper was literally falling sleep standing up!  So we let her sleep away the anesthesia on her new bed.  The poor thing is rail thing!  When we brought her home, you could see every rib, and even her hip bones were sticking out!  She must have been loose for a while before they picked her up.  I’ve made it my mission to fatten her up.  She’s eating a mixture of Purina Puppy Chow and some canned Purina Alpo high protein wet dog food.

Pepper is super sweet.  It’s a good thing we were off school last week, because it took all my time and attention to babysit the dogs’ interactions those first few days.  Lilly did a lot of growling and following her around barking at her.  It was really disruptive, because loud sounds echo through my house with all the hard floors!  By the weekend, though, they were even laying on the same couch together!

Lilly is still pretty guarded when I’m cooking in the kitchen.  She had a spat with Pepper just a couple of nights ago, so we find it’s best to keep Pepper out of the kitchen when I’m cooking.  There was another spat today when Pepper put her paws up on Lilly’s back when we were outside and they were looking out the door.  Lilly wasn’t standing for that!

The bad thing is that it seems Pepper must have gotten exposed to canine flu at the shelter!  She was a stray until 5 days before we brought her home.  We brought her home on Sunday night, and by Friday, Teenie was suddenly not interested in eating.  She had a runny nose and was sneezing.  Teenie was super sick on Saturday, and she had a fever all day.  She’s been very lethargic and sleeping most of the time.  I’ve been hand feeding her whatever kind of dog food or treats I can get her to eat, but it’s getting tougher each day.  Today, she’s only had a few bites.  I read that the canine flu is contagious for 4 days before any symptoms show and for up to 10 days after.  So it’s possible that Pepper was exposed at the kennel and then spread it to the other dogs.  It just affected Teenie more because she is small.

By the time Sunday rolled around, it was clear that ALL of the dogs were sick, though not nearly as bad as poor Teenie.  They are coughing, sneezing, dripping from the nose, and any time Pepper has an empty stomach, she is yacking up mucous.  I went online over the weekend and ordered some homeopathic drops for nasal symptoms from Amazon.  They arrived this morning.  I dosed all of them in their mouths, and it wasn’t long before the sneezing and blowing out of the nose had mostly subsided!  I was so glad to be able to bring them all some much needed relief.  Poor Teenie, though…if only I could get her to eat today.  She has to keep her strength up.  She’s the smallest of the dogs and is 5.5 years old.  She is the one I’m most worried about.  She seems so congested, and I know canine flu can cause secondary infections like pneumonia, which can be life-threatening.  If she isn’t better tomorrow, I’ll have to find a vet here and take her in.  In the meantime, I’m going to follow the protocol for a severe case and dose her with the drops 4 times today and see if that helps her.

Pepper already has her first vet exam next week, so hopefully, the vet can help if she is still coughing by then.  The shelter’s free adoption included free spaying, free microchip, and a free first vet visit.  I can tell that she has already put on some weight, so that’s good.  She was only 30 pounds when we got her.  I’ll be she should be closer to 40.

I will you posted on how they’re all doing!  We’re now at the local limit of 3 dogs per household, so there’s no chance of adding any more.  Three is plenty!