Yay!
What a fabulous first day! Another $20 donation, plus someone contacted me by email to ask about sending some items. You people are wonderful! Thank you for the support.
Notes from our Donors
I plan to personally thank every person that takes the time to donate to help Marlee. Here are some of the notes I got back:
You are very welcome, I wish I could give more but we are a little
tight ourselves. We have a rescue dog ourselves, she is a part pit
bull who was abused but you couldn't tell now as she is one of the
friendliest dogs I have ever known and she seems to have forgotten all
about the abuse she had suffered in the past.
I am very glad there are people like you who care enough to try and
help out dogs like Marlee. Good luck with everything! Oh by the way
putting your vets number up there was a great idea, that is what
convinced me you probably were not trying to scam me, so hard to know
sometimes and that was a good way of proving it.
Another animal lover,
Bill
Marlee, October 8
Today Marlee went back to the vet for a thyroid check and for more meds. The good news was that she is now up to 35 pounds, which is just a pound away from what the vet said he thought would be a healthy weight for her. It is so good to see her healthy.
In the month that she has been taking meds to clear up her bladder infection and to help her thyroid, kidneys, and liver she has gotten happier and more energetic. (although she is still a very low energy dog)
She was handling the blood draw pretty well, and then I had to leave the room for a minute to supervise my two little boys that I took along to the appointment. (they were checking out a 3-legged cat that lives there...very impressive how fast that cat can move!) When I came back into the room Marlee was shaking a lot. I thought she was upset about the blood draw and the tech told me that she only started to shake when we left the room! I guess that she is attached to us, or at least knows that we love her. Poor sweet girl!
The bad news was that this was yet another $81 expense, even with the little discount that our vet gives us. Today is the day that I have decided to reach out and ask for help.
In the month that she has been taking meds to clear up her bladder infection and to help her thyroid, kidneys, and liver she has gotten happier and more energetic. (although she is still a very low energy dog)
She was handling the blood draw pretty well, and then I had to leave the room for a minute to supervise my two little boys that I took along to the appointment. (they were checking out a 3-legged cat that lives there...very impressive how fast that cat can move!) When I came back into the room Marlee was shaking a lot. I thought she was upset about the blood draw and the tech told me that she only started to shake when we left the room! I guess that she is attached to us, or at least knows that we love her. Poor sweet girl!
The bad news was that this was yet another $81 expense, even with the little discount that our vet gives us. Today is the day that I have decided to reach out and ask for help.
Marlee, September 2
When I took Marlee to the vet for her checkup (she had gained a few pounds, which was great!) our vet wanted us to get a panel of lab tests done to see what underlying health issues she may be dealing with. Within 24 hours we learned that she has:
hypothyroidism
kidney disease
liver disease
pancreas disease
muscle wasting disease or just significant muscle wasting because of being malnourished
and, finally, a bladder infection.
No wonder the poor girl is none too perky.
So, in addition to the many other expenses that have come with rescuing this dog, we now had another $70 to the vet for three medications, and we can look forward to more of the same as long as she lives. I am not sure how we are going to be able to do this. Expensive, sick, elderly, deaf dogs are way outside the realm of our usual budget.
hypothyroidism
kidney disease
liver disease
pancreas disease
muscle wasting disease or just significant muscle wasting because of being malnourished
and, finally, a bladder infection.
No wonder the poor girl is none too perky.
So, in addition to the many other expenses that have come with rescuing this dog, we now had another $70 to the vet for three medications, and we can look forward to more of the same as long as she lives. I am not sure how we are going to be able to do this. Expensive, sick, elderly, deaf dogs are way outside the realm of our usual budget.
Marlee, August 15
Marlee-the-rescued-dog is living the high life here, with plenty of food and clean water, warmth, shelter, safety, TLC (all of which she apparently didn't enjoy in her previous life), PLUS perks such as hand-sewn beaded monogrammed capes to wear on cool mornings. For a deaf, geriatric, half-starved dog, it doesn't get much better than this!
Marlee is still very weak. The vet noticed that she has very poor muscle tone. Our hard floors are quite slippery for her, and often she is unable to stand up or walk on her own. Sometimes when she tries to get up and walk out of her kennel, as soon as she gets on the hard floor her legs splay out in four directions and she collapses. P-i-t-f-u-l, I'm telling you! The poor, poor thing. She is just so bad off in so many ways. She sometimes eats and drinks while laying in her splayed-out position, and we usually need to help her get up and walk out of the house when it's time to go out. She isn't strong enough to go down the deck stairs, so we have to carry her down those too. She can walk alright once she gets on the grass, and is learning to use just one corner of our yard for the bathroom.
She does so few "normal dog" behaviors that it is a news item around the house when she does. "Marlee ate a piece of food off the floor!" "Marlee licked her own paw!" She's really just the most unusual dog I've ever met. It sure makes us wonder what on earth she has been through in her life to be in such a condition.
Last night she was kind enough to bark to be let out a mere FOUR times after 12:30AM. Thankfully my husband was here to take care of that. (and the accident that happened when he didn't get to her fast enough) We are trying to get her digestion settled into a more predictable, non-nocturnal routine, but since she came to us starving, it's not completely straightforward yet.
Marlee, August 11
So the doggie that we rescued from the road lived through the night. However, we hadn't realized how chilly it would get. The poor thing is so skinny that she was shivering when my husband went out to see her this morning. She couldn't even stand up.
We got her wrapped up in some blankets and brought her into the house. Here's how she looked around 7am:
Here's a full body shot of her this morning. The picture doesn't show it that well, but her hair is very coarse and full of burrs. When you pet her you realize that she has almost no body fat at all. She's very, very thin.
In this picture you can sort of see the back of her neck and the bad condition of her fur. She looked a lot worse in person.
We called our local vet and were able to get her in there bright and early today. Thankfully, what they learned is that although she is very underweight (only 24 pounds) and somewhat dehydrated, she doesn't seem to have any illnesses except for some worms. (yumm!)
The vet said that he would guesstimate her age to be 5-7 years, so we were way off there. We had thought that she was maybe 6 months old.
And, the big twist is that she seems to be deaf. Which explains some of her behavior when we first found her in the road. Oh, she has cataracts too. So she probably couldn't even see me at first either.
After we got her home my husband gave her a hair cut to get all the nasty crud off of her, and then it was bath time:
She was mighty dirty. Here's what the tub looked like afterwards (and, yes, it was actually a clean tub before she got in there):
The big question at the vet's office was: What is going to happen to this dog now? Did we want to keep her?
What can I say. My compassion for the hungry, sick, and needy of the world extends to animals as well.
So now apparently we have a dog. At least until we get her back to health and see what's what.
The kids are so excited. They are saying things like "This is a dream come true!" and "God sent us the perfect dog!" She doesn't show even the slightest bit of aggression. Very submissive. She seems to have almost no expectations from people, either good or bad. We wonder if she has been around people very much at all. She is very calm. Of course, she doesn't have the strength to be anything but calm. So, things could change as her health improves. The vet thinks that she should gain around 12 pounds to be at a normal weight.
I can see that it will be a challenge to figure out how to train a dog that can't hear. She doesn't react to any finger snapping, clapping, or vocalizations. How on earth do you correct and teach a dog like this? I will be googling "training deaf dogs" right after I'm done writing this.
We brainstormed about possible names for her. The kids were suggesting things like "cocoa puff" and "oatmeal chunk" and "jasmine." As I was watching the dog out the window and thinking about how cute she is, and about her being deaf, I thought of the talented deaf actress Marlee Matlin, and realized that Marlee would be a perfect name for her. Everybody agreed.
So, meet Marlee, my deaf, worm-ridden dog. My guess is that she's here to stay.
We got her wrapped up in some blankets and brought her into the house. Here's how she looked around 7am:
Such a sweet face!
Here's a full body shot of her this morning. The picture doesn't show it that well, but her hair is very coarse and full of burrs. When you pet her you realize that she has almost no body fat at all. She's very, very thin.
In this picture you can sort of see the back of her neck and the bad condition of her fur. She looked a lot worse in person.
We called our local vet and were able to get her in there bright and early today. Thankfully, what they learned is that although she is very underweight (only 24 pounds) and somewhat dehydrated, she doesn't seem to have any illnesses except for some worms. (yumm!)
The vet said that he would guesstimate her age to be 5-7 years, so we were way off there. We had thought that she was maybe 6 months old.
And, the big twist is that she seems to be deaf. Which explains some of her behavior when we first found her in the road. Oh, she has cataracts too. So she probably couldn't even see me at first either.
After we got her home my husband gave her a hair cut to get all the nasty crud off of her, and then it was bath time:
She was mighty dirty. Here's what the tub looked like afterwards (and, yes, it was actually a clean tub before she got in there):
The big question at the vet's office was: What is going to happen to this dog now? Did we want to keep her?
What can I say. My compassion for the hungry, sick, and needy of the world extends to animals as well.
So now apparently we have a dog. At least until we get her back to health and see what's what.
The kids are so excited. They are saying things like "This is a dream come true!" and "God sent us the perfect dog!" She doesn't show even the slightest bit of aggression. Very submissive. She seems to have almost no expectations from people, either good or bad. We wonder if she has been around people very much at all. She is very calm. Of course, she doesn't have the strength to be anything but calm. So, things could change as her health improves. The vet thinks that she should gain around 12 pounds to be at a normal weight.
I can see that it will be a challenge to figure out how to train a dog that can't hear. She doesn't react to any finger snapping, clapping, or vocalizations. How on earth do you correct and teach a dog like this? I will be googling "training deaf dogs" right after I'm done writing this.
We brainstormed about possible names for her. The kids were suggesting things like "cocoa puff" and "oatmeal chunk" and "jasmine." As I was watching the dog out the window and thinking about how cute she is, and about her being deaf, I thought of the talented deaf actress Marlee Matlin, and realized that Marlee would be a perfect name for her. Everybody agreed.
So, meet Marlee, my deaf, worm-ridden dog. My guess is that she's here to stay.
How We Found Marlee
On August 10, 2008 we saw a pitiful dog staggering down the middle of the road. Cars were slowing down, honking, and going around her when she showed no response. We went out to try to call her to come off the road, not quite sure what we were getting into. Her behavior was so odd that we wondered if she had rabies, or had already been hit by a car, or what.
Despite our efforts she just kept walking down the middle of the road for about 10 minutes. Eventually we used some food from the dinner table to coax her to the side. Then we could see that she was emaciated--truly starving, and in quite bad condition. Her fur was filled with burrs, and she was very weak. She ate the food we gave her, but showed no signs of being aggressive toward us nor about protecting her food.
A neighbor was driving by while we were on the side of the road. He stopped to say that he thought he had witnessed a dog being dumped out of a truck farther down our road earlier in the evening.
We had planned to call the dog warden to come take this dog away, but once we saw her weakened condition, we felt that if we turned her over to someone else she would probably be euthanized right away, because she didn't seem to have much going for her. We decided to let her sleep in our fenced in back yard overnight, and take her to the vet in the morning.
Despite our efforts she just kept walking down the middle of the road for about 10 minutes. Eventually we used some food from the dinner table to coax her to the side. Then we could see that she was emaciated--truly starving, and in quite bad condition. Her fur was filled with burrs, and she was very weak. She ate the food we gave her, but showed no signs of being aggressive toward us nor about protecting her food.
A neighbor was driving by while we were on the side of the road. He stopped to say that he thought he had witnessed a dog being dumped out of a truck farther down our road earlier in the evening.
We had planned to call the dog warden to come take this dog away, but once we saw her weakened condition, we felt that if we turned her over to someone else she would probably be euthanized right away, because she didn't seem to have much going for her. We decided to let her sleep in our fenced in back yard overnight, and take her to the vet in the morning.
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