The Great Foster Adventure: Our First Year in Review

Thought I'd let everyone know that Drew and I are taking a much-needed fostering break for the holidays. Coming off of a ten month foster bonanza, we need a minute to catch up with each other, things around the house, and of course our own pups. I feel like we were trying to take a break since early summer, but it just didn't line up that way. I can't believe we're down to just our three dogs again for the first

time in almost a year! It is insanely quiet and calm. I can tell they're super happy. They need a breather as much as we do. Having said that, it's not even been two weeks and I'm already going through foster withdrawal. I haven't been to the shelter yet during this time and I know it's going to be hard to go without having the option to take someone home. Must resist! With law school exams lurking right around the corner, I need this time to focus on life beyond dog stuff. It sucks, but that's how it's got to be for a little bit. Plus we're going away for Christmas, so we'd need a foster-free house for that period anyway.

Anyhow, I think it'd be nice to write a few posts on my

own 

doggies during this down time. I also have a couple more product plugs lined up. So even though there won't be any new dogues invading until after Christmas, be sure to check back every now and then for other posts. Rest assured, come the new year we will get back on track! In the spirit of reflection, check out the pictures of all the pups who 

passed through our home this year. What a great bunch! Paws up for all of them and their wonderful new lives! This first year of fostering was incredibly rewarding and super fun. It has been such an adventure...can't wait for the next chapter! As always, thanks for reading!

Farewell, Miss Jinny!

A true Georgia girl at heart

Transport Time!

Our sweet Miss Jinny left on transport today. She's heading for New York to find her forever home through Perfect Pets Rescue. Jinny came such a long way during the short two months we had her. She endured a really tough dental, survived the throes of heartworm treatment, kicked both a skin infection and a GI virus, underwent surgery to cut out two ingrown dewclaws, AND tolerated some pretty intense grooming sessions as we cut all the awful mats out of her fur and brushed her back to her full Collie glory. Out of all our fosters so far, Jinny was in the worst shape (even rougher than Oliver). This gal is a trooper! Now she's on a bus to New York where she'll start fresh. Jinny is free to leave all the neglect she suffered behind.

Hey, whatcha doin?

Looking alert and perky

Check out that sassy tail!

We finally started to see Jinny's personality peek through during the last week we had her. She's still definitely a very low-key girl, but there is a little sassiness that's been waiting to come out. With all the issues she had to recover from, it's no wonder she needed a few weeks to open up. For most of the time she spent with us, Jinny didn't even have the energy to pick herself up off the floor and go outside more than twice a day. She obviously did not feel well at all. Over the past week, we saw Jinny transform from a lifeless doorstop to a spunky lass. She got up off the living room rug! She began to carry her tail up in the air and even wag it a bit! She gained interest in food (hers and ours)! She trotted over to us for a head scratchings and belly rubs! We were so happy to see her feeling that much better. Miss J is such a good girl. She's about as easy as dogs can possibly be. Whoever ends up with her is a very lucky person. I hope they realize what a gentle gem she is. Good luck, Jinny!

HUGE thanks to everyone at Perfect Pets Rescue and The Veterinary Clinic in Marietta for helping restore Jinny to full health and happiness. If you'd like to donate to PPR so they can keep helping others like Jinny, please click here: http://www.perfectpetsrescue.org/donations-and-how-you-can-help.html

UPDATE: Jinny's adopted! Woohoo! Congratulations and BEST of luck to you, sweet girl!

Jinny's Journey: A Brief Overview of Heartworms and HW Treatment

Miss J resting more comfortably

I want to update everyone on how Jinny's doing since beginning her heartworm treatment this past weekend. As I wrote in my previous post, she had a hard time Saturday after her second Immiticide injection. She's since doing much better: she has her appetite back, she's not nearly as sore from the injections, and she's stopped panting all the time. This is great news. Of the three dogs we've seen through heartworm treatment (Oliver, Cowboy, and now Jinny), Jinny's initial reaction to the Immiticide was the worst of the bunch. We are very relieved to see her improvement since Saturday.

I also want to explain heartworms a little bit better than I thought I had in past posts. For those

who are not very familiar with heartworms and what the treatment entails, I'm sorry this blog has gone on for so long without breaking it down. Heartworms are just what they sound: worms that grow in a dog's heart, lungs, and blood vessels. The disease is spread by the bite of infected mosquitoes and is rampant in the southern part of our country. These nasty worms are like angel hair spaghetti noodles and can grow as long as 14 inches. You can google a picture of an infested heart...it's disgusting. You may never eat spaghetti again (unless you're me, then that's just simply an impossible thought). If left untreated, heartworms will ultimately cause heart failure. See why it's SO critically important to give your dog heartworm preventative each month?

Going through treatment to get rid of a heartworm infestation is not a walk in the park. Just ask

Oliver keeping Jinny company while she rests

Jinny, Cowboy, Oliver, or any of the lucky dogs from DeKalb County Animal Services who beat heartworms thanks to the sponsorship of rescue groups like Perfect Pets / See Spot Rescued / Friends of DeKalb Animals. It sucks. I told Jinny as I dropped her off at the vet on Friday: "Last time we brought you here, you walked out the door feeling much better. This time isn't going to be the same, but I promise you it will be so worth it very soon!". I wasn't lying. The fast kill method that Jinny, Oliver, and Cowboy endured involves two shots of a drug called Immiticide. Immiticide is an arsenic-based drug (yes, arsenic) that is injected very deeply into the dog's lower back muscles to kill the adult heartworms. The infected dog gets the first shot on day one and a second shot on day two. Drew thinks of it as being injected with liquid fire. I think that must be accurate. The worms slowly break down and are absorbed by the body. The dog must stay VERY calm during this time because the dying worms clog the arteries until they're absorbed. If the dog exerts itself during this phase of treatment (whether through exercise, excitement, stress, or anything that gets the heart/breathing rate up), the dead worms are more liable to break away, clog the lungs' main artery, and cause death. After 30 days, the dog gets an oral dose of ivermectin to finish the process. Ivermectin is the same drug that's in your regular old monthly heartgard. It kills off the remaining heartworm eggs. At this point, the dog can gradually return to normal activity level. Slowly but surely is key here. At the six month mark, a blood test is done to be sure the treatment worked. After this long and painful treatment process, the dog should now test heartworm negative. And that's how it works! Yikes, right?

I'll never forget the day Oliver tested negative and I am so excited for Cowboy and Jinny to get to that point. We like fostering dogs through heartworm treatment. It's super rewarding to help a dog get rid of what's likely his/her greatest obstacle standing in the way of adoption. We have a very structured routine around our house and it seems to work well for keeping dogs calm during their treatments. We've also been so fortunate that Oliver, Cowboy, and Jinny have all been so incredibly mellow. That makes our job WAY easier. I'm so thankful that there are awesome rescue groups willing to take HW+ dogs out of the shelter and into their programs, despite the high cost of HW treatment. Thanks, Perfect Pets Rescue, for helping Jinny and so many others like her! To help Perfect Pets Rescue cover this summer's medical costs for Jinny and her rescued friends, please follow this fundrazr link: https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/4Yqqf

Jinny Goes to the Vet

This is how Jinny spends most of her time

Now that Jinny is recovered from her spay surgery, we took her to the vet to evaluate the next step in preparing her for adoption. After talking through some of the issues we've noticed over the past two weeks, the vet decided that it's best for Jinny to postpone her heartworm treatment for a couple more weeks. Jinny has a couple of bad teeth that need to come out and a piece of her gum has grown down around a rotten back molar. This causes Jinny a lot of discomfort and difficulty eating. The vet said her belly irritation is a staph infection that looks like it came from licking razor burn around her spay incision. Poor girl. She'll be on antibiotics for that. Her ingrown dewclaws healed very nicely.

One of a few broken/rotten teeth

A full dental (which requires general anesthesia) and heartworm shots all in one weekend would tax Jinny's system too much. So, we'll get the teeth taken care of and get rid of any infection before taking her back for heartworm treatment. Jinny should feel much better in a couple of weeks without those painful teeth and that itchy skin infection. We ought to see her energy level and personality pick up a bit. She's been wanting to do nothing but lie on the living room rug 24/7. I'd feel junky too with rotten teeth and a fever. It will be wonderful to see her perk up a little! We'll keep you posted on her progress...she still has a few hurdles to clear before she's ready for her trip to New York.

Get well soon, Jinny!



Update on Jinny!

Hey everyone! Thought I'd hammer out a quick little update on our girl, Jinny. She's settling in rather well. She hasn't had a single potty accident, not ONE! She sleeps perfectly through the night with her crate door open (sometimes she likes to lay inside it, other times she just sleeps on the floor next to it). She usually spends all day just laying quietly on the living room rug. She seems to like Bunkin and Oliver quite a bit. Bunkin is convinced she's his fluffy Collie girlfriend.

We haven't had a female dog since little Cindy Lou back in December, so I forgot how much they

seem to even out the doggy dynamics in our house. With all of our boys, things tend to stay fairly rowdy. Jinny is completely unfazed. She's like, "Whatever, boys. I do not have time for your crazy games. I'll just sit here next to the air purifier and enjoy this nice breeze while you all bound around like a bunch of fools." Oddly enough, the boys tend to do less bounding around since Jinny's been with us. She never protests or gets snippy with anyone, but she does seem to demand a certain level of order. Everyone just kind of falls into place around her. Even Pickles, who LOVES to play (oftentimes roughly) with other dogs, hasn't jumped on her once. They all respect her space and just go about their own merry ways. Fine by me!

Slowly but surely, Jinny's beginning to show a little more personality. The first few days we had her, she just laid around and hardly wanted to move. I'm sure it was mostly because of her recent spay (she's had to wear the comfy cone because she's been licking at it a lot), but you could just tell she really needed time to decompress and regain her energy after leaving the shelter. It's a very overwhelming process and each of our fosters has dealt with it differently. When my alarm clock goes off each day, my dogs go bananas. Totally nutso. They spring into action, jump all over me, lick my face like crazy, bark like mad, and cry cry CRY until I finally sit up. See, alarm clock = breakfast. During this morning ritual, Jinny just kind of sits back and looks like what the heck are they making all this racket for...some of us are trying to sleep! Then something exciting happened yesterday: when my alarm clock went off and all the other dogs did their usual batty routine, I sat up to find Jinny standing alert in front of the bed and happily wiggling her butt. She was downright jolly! As soon as I opened the bedroom door, she bolted out with everyone else and did a very brief breakfast dance before deciding that was enough exertion for one day. It made me so happy to see her face brighten, even for just a few minutes. I love watching all of our fosters come out of their shells. It's such a rewarding process (even though sometimes ya wish they'd go back into their shells, just a little!).

Jinny gets a little more comfortable each day. Her toes look MUCH better and her coat is beautiful now that she's had a bath and two weeks of regular brushing. Jinny will go to the vet for her heartworm treatment shots soon. She'll stay the weekend at the vet's office, but once we pick her up I'll be sure to write a blog post all about how she's doing. Check out the video of her and the rest of my crew enjoying their bones from Park Pet Supply. Paws up for Jinny's progress!



Introducing Jinny, the Fairest Lass in all the Land

Jinny's intake photo at animal control

Another photo from AC

Meet sassy Miss Jinny, our newest foster gal! Jinny is a 5 (ish) year old rough coated Collie / Sheltie mix who weighs about 40 pounds. She's super sweet, very quiet, ever so polite, and just a really good girl. A DeKalb County animal control officer picked Jinny up as a stray in Doraville on June 9th. The shelter has been at max capacity recently and poor Jinny never made it into the relative safety of the adoptions ward. We pulled her from the main ward for Perfect Pets Rescue yesterday.

Drew grooming Jinny on Day 1

Jinny's poor dewclaws post trimming

Drew picked her name and prefers it spelled with a "J" instead of the conventional "G". I don't think it's ever taken us quite this long to name a dog before, but we wanted to take our time picking something feminine that suited her personality well. Jinny is short for Virginia, which means fair maiden. This seems to fit her nicely. 

What a lovely lady!

Jinny resting on Day 1

Jinny tested positive for heartworms, which means we'll have her for 3-4 months while she undergoes treatment. After that, she'll board the FODA transport bus and head up to PPR in Poughkeepsie, New York to await her forever home. She also had badly ingrown dewclaws; the claws grew so long that they wrapped around and pierced her toe pads. The shelter vet clipped them to an appropriate length while Jinny wasunder anesthesia for her spay procedure. They'll be swollen and sore for a while, but will heal with time and a little antibiotic assistance. Drew spent a good bit of time gently cutting mats out of her coat and washing away the dirt with a damp cloth, as she can't have a full bath until her spay incision fully heals. After that, she got a good thorough brushing. Her coat looks worlds better now and she's feeling much more comfortable without all those awful mats pulling her skin.

Bunkies & Jinny

Jinny appears to be completely housebroken. She also sleeps quietly in her crate at night and will retreat to it for afternoon naps when she needs a moment to herself. She doesn't mind the other dogs at all. Bunkin seems to think we brought Jinny home just for him. They are in collie mix heaven together (see photos). We are so happy to have Jinny in our home. It is an honor to help her on her journey toward forever.

Perfect Pets Rescue (PPR) is a wonderful group that pulls countless dogs from DeKalb County Animal Services and other area shelters. They make sure their foster dogs have everything they need. PPR really rocked the house this weekend when they pulled a small breed dog with NINE puppies, a staff & fan favorite Australian Kelpie named Sushi, and getting the ball rolling on an adorable young pup ALL in addition to placing Jinny with us. Paws big time UP for PPR! If you'd like to donate to PPR so they can continue their awesome work, please visit this page: http://www.perfectpetsrescue.org/donations-and-how-you-can-help.html