A Tail to Tell: January 2010

Babar was not the first (and certainly not the last!) foster that I’ve taken home. But he has struck the strongest chord and the one that I most regret that I was not in a position to keep.

I had been at the shelter a little over a year and showed up to work one day, early in the morning, ready to unlock all the doors. As I was doing so, someone informed me that there was a small carrier in front of the building, apparently left there overnight. I went to look for the carrier and found what was….a puppy? a piglet? a baby elephant?…shivering inside.

We immediately brought it in the office and found this:

Obviously, I was immediately in love.

Here was this poor, defenseless little creature. He had almost no fur, but instead was covered in scabs and open sores. His skin was so swollen that his paws were HUGE, almost the size of a full grown dog! He had a long scar along the length of his back (from God knows what), was severely malnourished, had badly cropped ears and stunk to high heaven. (This is a smell I’ve almost grown fond of over the years, only because I know that it CAN go away!)

We immediately vaccinated and bathed him. I gave him a bowl of wet and dry food. He ate it and very slowly wagged his tail. We did a skin scrape to determine what condition he suffered from and discovered hundreds of Demodectic mites. These mites are common on all dogs, but depending on their immune systems it may or may not develop into an issue. Most dogs are fine,but some develop patches of hairloss that if not treated turns into a really big problem.

After getting the okay to treat him, we waited through his stray hold to see if anyone would reclaim him. We were hoping no one did, since his previous owners (if any) obviously did not treat him well. No one ever came for him and the time had come, someone had to foster him.
And, well, you can guess how that went.

We started him on a treatment of daily antibiotics, fish oil capsules, ivermectin (to kill the mites) and medicated baths. It definitely was a handful, but worth every moment. Every time I walked him around my apartment complex, people would comment on what a sweet boy he was despite his condition. And lo and behold, after five weeks, he was a completely different dog! His fur had grown back, he gained about 15 pounds and was quite the little porker. Everyone loved him and now it was time to find his forever home.

I couldn’t even imagine a better family to adopt Babar. They had already previously adopted two Staffy mixes from the shelter and thought their family was complete. They came to take pictures of their dogs with Santa and I happened to run into them in the hallway. It was love at first sight! I was crying, they were crying, everyone was crying. They adopted him on the spot and even went back and took a new family photo with Santa and their new addition.

I still see him several times a year and occasionally puppy sit for their pack when they are out of town. His parents even made me a photo booklet of Babar’s first year with them and I love it to death. He is such a ham.