Freddy
Freddy, age 5
#12-122 Freddy, update 6/3
Weight: 100 pounds (tubby)
AVAILABLE
What the heck has been going on with Freddy? His story hasn’t been
updated for many months… in fact, not since he arrived in care way back in
September of 2012.
… but “nothing posted” doesn’t mean “nothing happening.” Far from
it! All sorts of things have been going on, and we’re finally here to fill you
in. For starters, you’ll recall that Freddy had been living on his own with
feral dogs, and when he was rescued, he was weak,
pretty beat-up and underweight… and heartworm-positive besides.
And today? Heartworm treatment completed – rah!
He is housebroken, loves being close to his human and will chomp on a
raquetball for hours. (He brings the ball over to play, but will need more
instruction to drop it so the game can continue.) He also enjoys shredding an
occasional toy. Freddy’s learning about grooming, too,
and getting “more used to it.”
He rides well in a car and loves to go traveling and see the sights.
Freddy sleeps well through the night; his favorite locations are under or at the
side of Foster Dad’s desk or right inside the front door. (He has to guard the
house, after all.) He has been left
alone in the house for more than six hours with no trouble at all. He’s mostly
calm and very loyal… and charming, and bouncy, and a delightful fellow!
Foster Dad says, "Freddy is really playful.
He never leaves my side. If I
sit down at the computer, after 10 minutes Freddy is nudging me,
wanting to play. He is a
great dog."
And far from being underweight – he has gone in the other direction by a long
way! The prednisone he took & the tight activity restriction during his HW
treatment and spinal problems (more about that below), and the fact that he
LOVES to eat and was getting generous helpings… well, now he is overweight by
(gulp) at least thirty pounds. It did not help that
clever Freddy figured out how to open cupboards & dogfood bags & was in the
habit of helping himself, until foster dad figured that out! But now,
he’s eating low-cal food plus green beans, and jogging for 15 minutes each day,
with plans to slowly work up to more. He also gets exercise by playing fetch. He
will need a family committed to keeping up the lean diet and good, regular
exercise for the long haul – it will take a number of months to pare him down to
a nice trim weight.
So why the long delay in getting Freddy all ready for a new home?
For one thing, his heartworm treatment took a lot longer than expected. He’d had
his first shot at the end of January, and was on track for the next one a month
later, when suddenly he fell ill. He was lethargic, hunched over, clearly in
pain. X-rays revealed that his spine was inflamed, but the vets weren’t sure if
this was an infection or a pinched nerve/pulled muscle. They put him on a
lengthy course of antibiotics just to cover all the bases—and a couple of months
later, all was well. “Peppy, friendly, feeling good—I give him the all-clear.
We’ll likely never know if he had an infection or just a back strain,” said the
vet on April 10—and five days later,
Freddy finally had that long-postponed second heartworm shot. No issues, and
activity limits officially were lifted on May 15!
Update 10/11/12:
Update 9/26/12:
“This must be the worst
part of town there is for dog dumping. You can’t rescue them all and you just
get these packs of dogs running wild. It’s awful but I do what I can…”
Off
and on for the past couple of months, as she travelled the highway to and from
work, the caring dog-lover & one-woman rescue “group” had seen a blond Golden
Retriever by the roadside. Thinking at first that he might belong to the
property owner, she hesitated to collect him—but as she noticed him getting
thinner, she began dropping off food and water for him. “He was always real
friendly and came right up to me.” Then, on September 3, she saw he was
stumbling and weaving, barely staying upright as he approached… and: “That’s
it,” she decided. “He’s coming home with me.”
“Freddy” was dirty, matted, covered with ticks and fleas and burs, his
head scabbed and scraped, his ribs and spine sticking out—but safe! That night,
he was so weak he could hardly struggle to his feet once he lay down. He ate a
bowl of rice with plenty of warm water, and then trustingly fell asleep—with a
roof over his head for the first time in who knows how long.
By
the next evening, Freddy was in GRR care. “First impressions: this dog belonged
to someone,” says foster mom. “He is familiar with a house, knows stairs, knows
cars, knows a doggie door. He is
sooo hungry and keeps trying to get to the kitchen, so he knows what a kitchen
is!” A vet visit revealed that Freddy has heartworms and intestinal worms (not
surprising), and he’s anemic as well (also no surprise). But a few good meals
and a few bubblebaths have made a very big difference already! “He is full of
energy, especially for an anemic, HW+, starved stray.
I fed him and gave him his first dewormer.
I’ll feed him three times a day for a couple of weeks and then move him
to a twice-a-day schedule… this is a food- and love-starved baby boy.
He is super sweet and gets along with the other two female dogs in the
house. His one annoying habit is he likes to paw you for attention and his paws
are HUGE so it can hurt! But he is so responsive to commands (he already knows
SIT and he will even STAY for a second) that it shouldn’t be hard to break this
habit.”
Freddy needs to add at least ten pounds, if not more, to his current 59, get
cleared of hookworms, and boost that blood count. Once he’s healthier, he’ll
have his neuter surgery, and then we’ll begin thinking about heartworm
treatment.
There’s nothing better than watching your rescue dog snoozing on his soft bed or
enjoying a good meal and telling him, “You’re home, and you never have to worry
about anything ever again.” And that’s just what some lucky family will be doing
a few months from now, when Freddy is a beautiful, healthy Golden all ready for
adoption!
