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Adopting rescue animals

Miii

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Have you ever adopted a previously abused/ neglected animal? What problems have you had, and how have they improved over time? Also feel free to post pictures :D

Over easter weekend, my boyfriend and I went to visit his grandparents who live an hour and a half or so from where we live. When we got there we saw that they had a new puppy (about 5 months old at the time). He was a little scared of us when we walked up to the fence, but when we opened the gate and got on his level he was instantly beyond excited to be pet.

We found out while we were there that this dog was thrown from a moving vehicle at about a month old. He suffered a lot of injuries like scrapes on his face, particularly around his eyes, cut and scraped up ears, and I suspect that be broke his tail too because it doesn't look quite right. He had mostly healed up by the time we saw him, though he did still have a nasty scab on his forehead. It was obvious, too, that he had been abused before, because he would cower if anyone moved too fast.

So after knowing this pup for a only a few hours, we decided to adopt him because my boyfriend's grandparents are well into their 80s and couldn't really play with him. He wasn't happy about getting in the car (not surprising), but we managed to get him in and get him home.

As for problems we've had... we found out he has demodectic mange (the kind that's not contagious to humans, thankfully). His skin was really red when we got him, and he was missing some hair on his legs, but we were told he had really bad allergies so he'd been biting himself and pulling his own hair out. He'd also already been to a vet, who said he didn't have mange at the time. After about 2 weeks, though, he'd lost a significant amount of hair, and his skin was infected from where he'd been biting himself. So I took off from work and we took him to the vet who took one look at him and said "yeah, he's got mange all over his body."

So we got him on a round of antibiotics to treat his secondary skin infection, we've been giving him 6 benadryl a day to take the edge off the intense itching and to help him sleep, and we're doing a skin treatment that smells like paint thinner once a week for 4 weeks. He gets his third skin treatment today (I had to put it off because it's been raining a lot here lately, and he has to air dry then stay completely dry after the treatment).

He's all done with his antibiotics now, the spots where he'd chewed his skin raw are all healed up, and he's even starting to grow a little hair back, though he's still almost completely bald from the neck down. He won't look normal and healthy for at least another 2 months, but he's improving and that's all that counts :3

I might update with some pictures later.
 
All of my pet sheep are orphaned. Their mothers either died in the floods on the high mountains, or abandoned their lambs upon discovering they are ill or simply not strong enough to tag along. Sheep mothers are pretty ruthless, I guess.

But all of mine are orphans and they're very friendly to humans (except the odd few that have had their mothers around for a long time). Here's a selfie I took with one of them recently:

LIUDeDdl.jpg
 
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All of my pet sheep are orphaned. Their mothers either died in the floods on the high mountains, or abandoned their lambs upon discovering they are ill or simply not strong enough to tag along. Sheep mothers are pretty ruthless, I guess.

But all of mine are orphans and they're very friendly to humans (except the odd few that have had their mothers around for a long time). Here's a selfie I took with one of them recently:

LIUDeDdl.jpg

Oh my god that sheep is adorable :D Do they try to eat everything like goats do?
 
I dunno, I adopted my dog from the Humane Society shelter when she was about three months old. She has always been hostile towards other animals and humans, some have suggested that could mean she was abused before she went to the shelter but i think its perhaps more her breed (Catahoula leopard hound).
 
I rescued a cat that was brought to the shelter twice because of litter box issues. He does scoop the litter all over and it makes a bit of a mess but he uses the box just fine and hasn't made a mess anywhere in the house even after a year. I just need to sweep more often than I had to before which is totally worth it.

Also he's a daredevil idiot which scares my husband but I really don't think the cat is as dumb as he leads us to believe when it comes to his physical prowess.

Meet Khufu: he's a coo' foo'.20161222_214938.jpg(double attachment)
 
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What a great story! And yes, I am 100% in favor of adopting rescue/shelter pets. Breeding for profit is honestly a disgusting practice in so many ways, and I always try to raise awareness for adopting rather than purchasing whenever I can. =^.^=

I have a household full of kitties, all of whom were adopted from a no-kill cat refuge where I used to volunteer. One in specific, Chuck, was badly abused by his previous owners and had been deemed "unadoptable" by the proprietors of the rescue. The people he lived with prior to his rescue had stomped on him hard enough to shatter his hip (which was never addressed by a vet and healed quite crooked as a result), and he also has a couple lumps of scar tissue in his rib area, most likely from repeated kicks. He had been at the shelter for 3 years when I began volunteering there, and he definitely did swipe and nip at me on more than one occasion when I'd get too close. They told me that when he was first brought in and for about the first year, he was so combative that they had to keep him in a separate room away from people because he was so prone to biting.

After some time volunteering there and observing Chuck a bit more, his intelligence became more and more apparent to me. It was like he was really looking at me and sizing me up anytime I'd get near him and talk to him, and I started to wonder if it'd be possible for me to rehabilitate him if I he came to live with me. I finally made the decision that I'd like to give it a shot, and I took Chuck home on my birthday 7 years ago.

Chuck is now the most loving, amazing, adorable, loyal, and incredible cat in the world. He's come so far and I'm so, SO happy I made the decision to adopt him, because he had so much potential and just needed to be loved in order to become the cat he was always meant to be. He still gets a little hissy and snappy if someone he doesn't know tries to pet him before he's ready, but I just tell people to keep their distance until he decides he's ready to hang out. :blush:

I definitely wouldn't recommend taking on a special needs animal unless you have the proper time and resources to put into rehabilitation, but if you're prepared, it's one of the most rewarding things you could ever do. Chuck is not the same kitty he used to be, and I feel so honored to be the person who earned Chuck's trust. I can't imagine my life without him.

And now, here's my Chuck chattering at the birds that used to hang out on the deck at my old house (fast forward to :24 for cuteness overload):

 
My poor baby dog had such a rough life. She went through a tornado and lost her family because their house was destroyed so they obviously couldn't keep her any longer. She was adopted by horribly negtlectful and abusive people before us, and returned to the shelter promptly with injuries, missing fur, etc after having escaped their back yard multiple times. Anyway she had been in the shelter longer than any of the other dogs but I was volunteering there for the first time and as soon as I met her I just fell in love. I found out later that she was up to be euthanized so I literally saved her. She was very difficult at first, very high energy, clearly hadn't been trained, and was kind of acting out. But she just needed some time, she was already an adult so the training was hard, and she still gets a little bit too energetic sometime, but anything is possible if you love your pet
 
I only adopt shelter animals. It's not worth supporting a lifetime of torture for an animal in the exotic pet trade or in pet store supplier mills (and backyard breeding).

I have two rats called Sam and Max, who were severely neglected and abused. They weren't fed for multiple days and become extremely aggressive over food. Everytime I stick my hand in the cage they shriek in terror and/or bite.

In the future, I don't ever see them getting better. I have to wear animal handling gauntlets (look it up, it's the gloves that bird of prey handlers use and shelters that have to handle stray/feral cats). Sometimes they'll let me stroke them wearing the gloves, sometimes they'll clamp onto the glove and try to tear into it out of fear.

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I think I posted a photo in the Post Here Everytime You Get Something thread, but here's Sam
DSCN3741.jpg
HE A FAT BOI

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I dunno, I adopted my dog from the Humane Society shelter when she was about three months old. She has always been hostile towards other animals and humans, some have suggested that could mean she was abused before she went to the shelter but i think its perhaps more her breed (Catahoula leopard hound).

There are no bad breeds.

When dogs haven't grown up around animals, they usually don't like them/be wary of them.

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Oh yeah, my cat was found as a kitten tied up in a bin bag and thrown in a skip. She hates bin bags.
 
All three of my dads cats were rescued from people we knew who had found stray cats on the road or in their yards. We took them to the vert and got them vaccinated and chipped. I love my kitties more than anything but I do think that because they were usually very rough/neglected kittens before we had them, they're not as friendly as most cats are to strangers. They're very independent cats and they love running around the bush.

I think that rescuing animals makes it extra special, knowing you did something to help a little animal.
 
No I haven't personally, but I wanted to say your story was really touching. I would ONLY adopt, if circumstances allowed me to have a pet. My apartment is paid by my work and both the building and my work say I can't have any pets. Plus, I'm slightly allergic to fur. I get phlegmy. I'd want to foster older pets that were abandoned. There are a lot of rescues that have foster programs for their aging pets so you can be with them in their last years but I'm also afraid I'll get too attached and that doing that over and over would wreck me emotionally. Pet factories/puppy mills and even a lot of breeders treat their animals horribly. I would never buy from a pet store. Where I currently live, there are so many stray dogs and cats. I see at least 2 a day. The laws are a lot more lax here so there's no punishment for when people abandon their pets.
 
I don't have any pictures on my laptop but we adopted a black pug named Daisy. She is sweet and adorable and crazy, definitely my precious little girl. She, along with her brother, were left outside for almost a year in the Ohio climate. No place for pug puppies as it can get dangerously hot and dangerously cold. Then the previous owner took Daisy from his parents and left her in a cage all day due to his hours of working. My brother heard of it and told my mom and I and we decided to adopt because my mom did always want a pug. She had worms and bites and scabs due to bugs from being outside. Her left eye (my left) was poked at some point and has a small blind spot in it. But now she's happy, healthy, and full of energy! I couldn't ask for a better pug.
 
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