Ya know, every time I read that one there is at least one animal that instantly comes to mind. This time it's a little Jack Russel that was surrendered to us the other day after spending her entire life out side in a box. She's 4 years old.
The man who brought her in said that she had started showing signs of aggression towards his family and that she'd snapped at his little granddaughter so they couldn't keep her anymore. She was pregnant by the way and had given birth to 2 stillborn pups 2 days before he called us and brought her in.
When he arrived at the shelter with the dog, as I was walking out to his car to get the dog (who was in a crate in his trunk) he proceeded to tell me that her belly is still "pretty big" and that his wife and daughter think she might still have puppies inside her.
I wanted to slap him so badly... then hunt his wife and daughter down and do the same thing... to say the least.
When we saw the condition this poor little dog was in... she smelled so foul... she was dirty, dehydrated and TIRED, because she'd spent the last 2 days in labor and trying to birth the rest of her DEAD puppies.
He said that the father was his male Shitzu but there was no way in HELL that the daddy was a small dog. He demonstrated with his hands, the size of the pups that she was able to give birth to, and according to his measurements they were a good 6 inches long. Shitzu/Mini JRT pups... I think not. Something pretty big got a hold of this sweet girl. (Which our vet later confirmed.)
He kept telling me how mean this dog was "for no reason"... and I wanted to snap his head off and tell him that there was a DAMN GOOD reason for her attitude and that if he'd been in labor for the last 3-4 days, in pain and with infection such as she had... he'd be an a-hole too.
This guy gave us the run around about her vetting too... said he'd bring her records to us and that she'd been cared for blah blah blah... well, we called their vet to have them fax the records to us so we could get her into surgery... they remembered the dog, but had no records of her being seen since she was a young puppy.
An hour later we had her at the vet to preform an emergency c-section where 2 more dead pups were removed, one of which was stuck in the birth canal. She was "rotten" and our vet was pissed, as were we. Penny (the dog) was of course spayed at the same time, and put on antibiotics. Her temp was 104 so we didn't vaccinate right away.
She's doing MUCH better now after 2 days of healing and she pooped and started eating again yesterday. This dog hadn't had a BM in 4 days! She couldn't!
The man, before he left, actually had the gall to ask me if it'd be alright for his wife to call us and check up on her "baby". Ummmm.... "No sir, that's against our policy... I can't give you any information about the dog." That's all I could tell him. What I really wanted to say was... "Are you out of your ever loving mind??? You jerk! How DARE you have the nerve to ask me if you can get status reports on this innocent animal after what you and your family put her through! That is ANIMAL ABUSE and if I wanted to I could have you arrested right here and now! Bring us your Shitzu and don't you EVER get another dog... you don't deserve one! And I better NEVER see your face in here to adopt because I will kick your butt off of this property so fast your head will spin and you'll wonder for days what hit you! Get back in your car and leave us, the people who CARE, to do right by this poor dog!"
Here she is feeling better and becoming sweeter and sweeter by the day as her hormone levels decrease and she slowly comes to terms with the loss of her litter. We've given her stuffed toys to "care for" which is helping a little... but nothing beats a loving touch and kind soft voices.
ascc.rescuegroups.org/animals/detail?AnimalID=1176810
I look forward to learning much here