Lucky's Been Adopted

Lucky was turned over the sheltie rescue in late November 2007. At the time, he looked like this:

He was severely underweight and dehydrated. He had been run over by a car at some previous undetermined time, never taken in for vet care and his hips healed poorly. We didn't know if he could walk at all. But, even though you can't see it in the picture, his eyes were shiny and he hadn't given up.

He spent a week at Holly's vet and a day at a vet specialist's office before he came into foster care at my home. The poor little guy was also Lyme positive, very weak and had liquid poo (a technical term, that).

At first, the only food he would eat was chicken and rice. After a few weeks of this, I started mixing in dry Wellness puppy food. Eventually, he was able to eat, quite happily, Wellness Adult dog food.

Then, he started straining when he tried to poo. And, he didn't seem interested in his food. So, he went to my vet, where he stayed for a few days. He had a blockage. Of poo. See, when his hips had healed, one had healed pressed against where his intestine and colon came together. This caused the opening to be smaller than normal. He became constipated and was only able to pass a small bit of stool at a time. My vet had to perform surgery to remove the stool.

Sadly, there is no affordable surgery that a vet can do that would fix where his hip is. So, in order to prevent this problem from happening again, we humans have to make sure that his stool remains soft. While fiber and other natural methods might be OK, my vet recommended that we keep him on stool softeners. It is just far too easy for Lucky to become blocked again and surgery into the intestines carries its own risks.

After letting him heal from the surgery and figuring out the proper number of stool softeners he would need each day, I contacted Hilary and her family, since she had been very eager to adopt Lucky before he got ill.

What can I say about this family? I just wish I was a dog! They are some of the nicest people I have ever met and their grandson is a very nice young man. We arranged to meet them halfway between their house and mine (they live in another State) and the adoption day went very well. Lucky was kissing their grandson in no time and it was very obvious that this was the perfect home for him.

Lucky is right.