Off to the Vet we go..

Elliott & I had to work on December 24th, which meant we wouldn't be able to take our Christmas puppy to a vet until after work. All we did that day was think about the dog and get choked up. We just couldn't understand why someone would let him get that bad. That morning before we left for work, a neighbor told us that he had seen the dog roaming our street for about 3 weeks. I wanted to ask him why he never helped the dog, but I felt it would be pointless. I would get an ignorant reply, which would then lead me to get really upset.

Elliott ended up calling his best friend's wife, Becca for some help. Becca works for The Sugarland Pet Hospital which we are very familiar with.

courtesy of The Sugarland Pet Hospital Website

Our Jack Russell, Leana Little was apparently hit by a car a couple years ago and ended up with Becca at The Sugarland Pet Hospital, hence the short hine leg. One of the Chihuahua's also had some teeth removed and was spayed there as well. Becca was able to get us an appointment with one of the Vet's for Friday afternoon.

We rushed home after work and loaded our Christmas puppy up and headed to see Becca. We received lots and lots of love from everyone at the Hospital. Everyone was very very concerned for our new puppy. Asking where we found him, how old he was, what breed he was...to which we answered to the best of our abilities. Our puppy was real scared but once he saw treats, he relaxed a bit and let the Doctor and the techs check him out.

The good news was that although he did have Mange, which we knew, he has the type of Mange that is curable. It's called Demodicosis or Red Mange. It's caused by a sensitivity to and an overpopulation of Demodex canis if the animal's immune system is unable to keep the mites under control. There are two types: localized and generalized. Localized consists of 4 spots or less, which we know isn't the case with our puppy cause he has it all over his body. Most dogs are immune to demodectic mange, however dogs with compromised immune systems and the elderly are at a higher risk. Another good news is that this type of Mange is not contagious to humans.

We were also told that he didn't have heartworm issues (yay!) and by the look of his teeth (which are super white) he must be under a year or about a year old. This leads me to believe that his previous owner must have either freaked out when the skin started looking bad or they just didn't want to spend any money on him. Easiest move for people who no longer want their dogs or cats is to open the door and let them go. This is may be the easiest way, but it's definitely NOT the best way to treat our four-legged friends. It then becomes the problem of the city or town, who doesn't always care about them. Leading them to capture them and put them to sleep, regardless of their health or age. Not to mention a lot of them are run over by cars or mistreated by people on the streets.

The Vet gave us some meds for our puppy and also gave us some bedding, which was very generous of course. We were told to shower our puppy every other day with medicated cream so that his skin could get better. We talked a bit more with Becca about the puppy and the four females at home. She told us to keep them seperated for a while due to the puppy being weak and probably a bit insecure. It's not healthy for any dog to be in a pack and be insecure. That makes them very vulnerable to attacks and stresses them out. Another reason to keep him away is because we are not sure if he has any other sicknesses like kennel cough. We won't know until he's a bit healthy and we can do a full check-up on him. We paid and left for home with our new puppy. We were estatic that he didn't need to be put down and that if we kept up with his Vet visits and meds that he would survive this horrible nightmare.

After that visit Elliott named our puppy Remi, short for reminder.
Reminder of how lucky we, as in us & our four dogs really are and how crappy Humans can truly be.

Remi with his new Christmas bone!

Stay tuned for more on our new puppy Remi!

P.S. We've said it many, many times..but we are very very thankful for The Sugarland Pet Hospital. I don't think anyone else would have treated us as sweet and loving as everyone in that office did.