The Tragic Shepherd

We rescued two shepherd mixes from a high-kill shelter that were on death row yesterday afternoon. The shelter told no one that one of the dogs was very sick. Amazing that they didn't notice his very labored breathing (watch the videos I took this morning and you too will wonder how they missed it).
The poor boy. I rushed him to my vet this morning. He was really struggling. Breathing was difficult. He'd walk a little bit, but then he'd give up and lie back down again.

My vet said his tongue was blue and that he would need oxygen right away. Also, the dog would need the usual blood and urine tests and x-rays. Naturally, he would have needed to be hospitalized. There were lesions (I think that's the word they used) on the tongue and eyelid.

But the vet said that he could tell by the way he was breathing that he had partial laryngeal paralysis. (And likely pneumonia, even a possibility of cancer.) They couldn't even find out the extent of the paralysis because he'd have to be sedated, which was not possible in his current condition. Basically they said that his prognosis was so guarded, coupled with the fact that the laryngeal paralysis could only be managed for a time before he would suffocate ... the vet said that there really wasn't much of a choice but to put him down.

I cried buckets and went through almost a whole box of Kleenex. I petted him for almost 45 minutes, telling him what a good boy he was. It was so awful. I wanted to save him so much. You could tell he had been a pretty dog when he was young. I rubbed his ears a lot and talked to him. I told him I loved him.

I couldn't stay in the room with him when they did it ... I was already a basket case, so they took him in the back. When they opened the door to take him into the back, he got up and walked through the door.

But at least he got another day with his sister, the dog he came in with. He wasn't at that horrible shelter in an outside run with no bedding to keep him warm. He slept on blankets last night and spent some time in the sun this morning. But I'm still devastated. I really wanted to save him. I'm crying as I write this.

I had called the shelter on the way to the vet to find out what I could about him. Turns out that the dogs' owner had died and the next-of-kin didn't want them, so they dumped the dogs at the shelter. Nice.

This shelter does not have a vet on staff like many shelters do. A vet does a visual exam of the dogs at intake, I was told on the phone. If all seems well, the dog does not get looked at again by a vet unless it stops eating and drinking. This poor boy did not receive any medications while he was at the shelter. He arrived on the 7th and exited on the 23rd.

I called the shelter again to see if they could tell me the other dog's name or if there was a way to get the rabies info (both dogs had their rabies shots in Dec. 2010), but seems the family didn't bother to supply any of that.

We'll need to vet the other dog soon. She has diarrhea, but we don't see anything that requires immediate vetting.

Compare his intake photo taken on March 7 to the photo and videos taken today. What a change.