Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

SATURDAY APRIL 3 2004

Adoption Day is in full swing as we post our update at noon; results tomorrow

    Shawna and Emily

      A man called us this week inquiring about Shawna and Emily. He wants a small adult dog for his two-year-old daughter, a dog who will in no way be a threat to the child's safety. He didn't want a puppy because of the tremendous amount of extra care involved whenever a puppy is brought into a home--potty training being the number one issue. I agreed with the man that bringing up a puppy is more work-intensive than bringing up a human baby, but I also advised that when a small child is involved, a puppy is the safest pet to start out with. We'll report more on this later.

    Kerry

      You'll remember last week a man came into PetsMart with a husky mix named Walter, looking for a companion for Walter, and Kerry (also a Husky mix) got along well with Walter in the store and during the home visit. The man was supposed to get his fence fixed this week and pick up Kerry today, but the fence isn't fixed yet, so the adoption will wait.

      Full report on Adoption Day probably won't come till tomorrow noon.

Prince is bleeding from the rectum this morning

      Juana got ahold of Dr. Morton, and he met Juana and prince at his clinic, which is closed Saturdays and Sundays. On the phone the doctor had thought it was probably a popped anal gland, but after examining Prince he said there was a mass just inside the anus, and he asked Juana to make an appointment Monday morning for surgery for Prince. The tumor will be sent off to a lab to find out if it's malignant, and we'll report on that next week as soon as we know something.

A neighbor of Juana's called her about a sick dog who didn't make it through the night

      This unfortunate incident happened Thursday night, but I didn't report on it because of the sad outcome for the dog and because at the time there didn't seem to be anything we could do. Now that I've heard the end of the story, however, I feel I must share it with our readers.

      At first Juana's neighbor thought her dog had been poisoned, but when Juana went over to the neighbor's house and saw the dog, it looked more like the dog had been hit by a car or had suffered some other trauma, because the dog had a swollen area on his head, and he was just lying on the ground motionless. He wouldn't eat or drink and didn't wag his tail.

      Although the neighbor said she had no money and couldn't possibly afford to take the dog to a vet, Juana started calling local vet clinics right away, but could get no answer--even the emergency numbers just rang and rang and rang. Another neighbor, who was all upset over the situation, gave the guardian of the dog $40 and said to get the dog to the vet as soon as possible!

      Not being able to get ahold of any local vet, Juana suggested they take the dog to the Animal Emergency Clinic in Tyler (where we had taken Becky a few weeks ago when a piece of Becky's ear had been torn off), but Juana knew from our experience with the Tyler clinic that they would demand $75 up front before they would even look at the dog. Juana offered to lend the woman the rest of the money needed to take the dog to Tyler, but with the $40 cash in her hand the guardian of the dog decided to wait and take the dog to a local vet in the morning. They made the dog as comfortable as possible, and Juana went over to her own house next door.

      The really sad (and truly pathetic) part of this story is that a little later Juana was looking out her kitchen window and saw the neighbor's car pull out of the driveway and leave. Then about 15 minutes later the car returned and the neighbor got out of the car carrying several bags of burgers, etc., from a nearby fast food place.

      The poor dog died later on that night.