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
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.
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.