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I started working at a vet clinic in college and recently got a job as a technician at another vet clinic when I moved in with my boyfriend. It is a really nice clinic and includes a boarding kennel, a grooming salon, and houses many of my boss’s breeding dogs. She has several poodles, golden retrievers, and cocker spaniels and typically breeds cockapoos and goldendoodles.
Today when I went to work we were really busy and my boss, along with two of her children, had come in to see some of her regular clients. We have several doctors on staff and she is not usually there when I am working, so it was a little unusual especially since we don’t usually have children in the back when we are working. One of her clients is also a breeder of several types of dogs including cockapoos and had brought in two of her dogs. One was a female with a prolapsed vagina and the other was a 4 week old, male puppy.
My boss asked her why she had brought in the puppy and the breeder responded that she wanted to put him to sleep. Apparently she was starting to wean his litter and she had not noticed until then that both of his forelegs were weird and he couldn’t use them to walk. His back legs were fine so he could scoot around by using his back legs to push his body forward but he was covered in urine and feces. She had several litters and didn’t have the time for this little guy. My boss said she would take care of it and the woman left.
My boss said she had never seen anything like this and proceeded to get a needle and syringe. Her daughters had come over to watch and she explained that he was deformed and what they were doing. In the meantime, I left to attend other patients, but mainly because I hate watching them put puppies to sleep when they are sick or deformed. I finished rounds and came back over to see the puppy lying on the table unresponsive. I left to go get a bag so we could move him into the freezer ( I know that is very morbid and seems insensitive but that is what happens with most animals once they have been euthanized and the owners don’t take them home or they are going to be disposed of by the clinic) when my boss looked me and said “do you want him?”. At first I was caught off guard and a little dumbfounded. My first thought was “Hell no, I don’t want a dead puppy”, then I realized that he was sedated! Turns out she had sedated him and taken radiographs because she wanted to see what his limbs looked like. She ended up not really seeing much of anything wrong except that his elbows don’t fit into the sockets correctly.
She looked at me and said, he may still have to be euthanized but I think there is a good chance that he might be able to learn how to walk. I would give him about a week and if he is doing okay then we can give him his first set of shots. If at the end of the month he is getting better,you could go forward and if not, I would suggest euthanizing him. Don’t get too attached though.
My thought process is like “ummmmmm, What just happend… I really don’t need or want a puppy. I already have five rescued animals and November hit my bank account hard when three of them got sick…but what the hell. It keeps me from having to put him into the freezer, which sucks and it would be awesome if we could rehabilitate him and get him a great home”. I had not agreed to anything at this point but I had pretty much decided that it would be worth a shot.
It’s our hospitals policy that you can’t bring your pets to work, so I asked “If I take this puppy, can I bring him to work with my for the month because I can’t leave him alone while my bf is at school” and she said, sure and I will help you out as much as I can. I asked questions about what he ate and other things. She said he was weaned and we went over some therapy techniques to help get his limbs moving. They have very limited range of motion and so far their is no diagnosis. I agreed to try it out for the week and then recheck him at the end of the week and go from there.
I shaved and cleaned up his bottom, which was all sore and red from the feces and put him in a cage on a heating pad, so he could wake up. Wolfgang, my boyfriend, came and picked me up for lunch and I told him what happened and we talked about what we should do.
The great thing about Wolf, is that he doesn’t get (too) mad at me when things like this happen. All of our pets and rescues that we rehomed came from crappy situations, and he just kind of roles with it. We get them better and if we find them homes, Awesome! If not, well they live with us until they die.
We decided to set him up in our bathroom and set up a feeding schedule, then figure out the rest when I got off of work. I told him to think of a name, since I named our last rescue, he could name this one. When I got off work, I grabbed the puppy, a bag of dog food, and my two fat cats who had come in for a recheck and headed out the door. When I got home, Wolf had cleaned up the bathroom and set it up with a bed, blanket, and food. Not two minutes into being set down, the screaming started. Full on puppy screams. I thought he might be hungry so i gave him the puppy food, only to have him spit them all back at me. More screaming. Well, forget staying in the bathroom. We moved the bed into Wolf’s room so he could see us. The screaming has finally quieted down but we will see how tonight goes.
Just before bed, Wolf picked a name….Winston. Hopefully this week will be the start of getting Winston on the road to a healthy start and eventually lead to a home. This blog is to record his little journey, hopefully his story will have a happy ending XD
