speed phreak: Chew this, b**ch!

So, it was extremely foggy here on Tuesday of last week. I felt really bad, because I saw a male yellow Lab trotting down the street in front of my office. No collar, but he seemed sort of interested when I called him - like he was just nervous. A semi-truck on the highway used his jake brake, and the startled dog took off. I called the local police, and they had someone come out and pick him up.

Baby Love and I talked it over, and I spent the next two days on the phone, trying to get someone in Animal Control who could tell me if (A) they had a male yellow lab (B) if he was injured or sick and (C) if I could pick him up on behalf of a local rescue group. Turns out the pound for this small town is actually no-kill. Yeah! Thursday, I get home from work, and I'm telling Baby Love about the all-day search for an Animal Control officer with answers, and she says "Well, I saw a dog with bigger problems." She tells me about a male yellow Lab she saw in the neighborhood on the way home from work. He was skinny and skittish and eating out of a garbage can. I sighed and said "Let's go get him."

We found him a couple of blocks away, head in a neighbor's trashcan. He was so skinny his hip bones protruded, and covered in fleas big enough to see with out moving his fur. Loose skin hung from his belly and tail, and the fur on his rear haunches and tail was thin, and bloody.

We took him home, and put him in our neighbor's yard. He got two baths and a huge bowl of food. Our Labs (George and Sadie) were interested, but they are sort of a self-contained unit. As the temperature started dropping, we moved our Labs inside, closed off the kitchen, and brought him in. Friday morning, we took him to the vet.

Buddy is a six-year old male yellow Lab. He's been neutered and is housebroken. He's good with other dogs, large and small, and cats. He WILL NOT enter a crate. He currently weighs 67 lbs., and our vet estimated he is 20-30 lbs underweight. He has an infection in both ears and in the skin on his haunches and around his tail. He is on oral antibiotics for 2 weeks, and ear medicine for 10 days. He does not have any communicable diseases; however we did not yet have him vaccinated for anything other than rabies. We based the decision on his stress level. The vet flushed his ears, trimmed his nails, gave him a steroid shot and a rabies vac. He got his Advantix treatment and a de-wormer. He has bald spots on his bottom, elbows and knees, where hair will probably not ever grow again. His front teeth, including one canine tooth are worn down to almost nothing. After a thorough exam, the vet surmised he was a puppy when he went into a kennel or crate. The people never bought a bigger one, despite how he continued to grow. Because he was forced to stay in one position for so long, the hair in spots was worn off so often and for so long it will not regrow. He also had YEARS to chew his way out of the kennel. His teeth are damaged from chewing wear. The vet has seen it before.