December 2006:
Shadow’s journey.
How do we know that God exists? One way to tell is if you have ever seen a small child wandering in a department store or on a busy city street without an adult right next to them holding their hand. If you look around you will see virtually every eye of every adult in the area will be fixed on the child and many of them starting to move forward to help…until of course the child’s adult companion shows up and everyone relaxes…I think that is one way that God acts in this world… through the eyes, hands, and hearts of good people here on earth who step forward and do what is good and right for those that can’t help themselves. And that is precisely what has happened to Shadow. It started with Westie Rescue of Missouri when Angie Jamison heard there was a Westie at a shelter in Northern Illinois. She then called Debbie Kolze who lived nearby to see if she could help.
Here is Debbie’s story of the rescue and her and her husband’s excellent and heroic foster care:
“Angie at Westie Rescue told me that there was a shelter in Seneca, IL that had a Westie. He was turned in to them by another rescue transport. When they got him he was full of fleas, ticks, was filthy, and literally nothing but skin and bones and missing large patches of fur. The shelter was very full, and Shadow did not do well there. So after a few days, they shipped him off to a woman named “Lee” who will take in the overflow animals at the shelter since she apparently has a farm or lots of land or something and is willing to help if the shelter needs assistance. Anyway, Lee gave him flea baths and wormed him. She said he wasn’t housebroken when she got him, but she trained him. She said he ate okay but everything he ate was just running out of him.
“On May 16th, 2006 I went to pick him up. I met Lee outside of Seneca, IL off I-88 at a convenience store parking lot. She handed “Duffy” to me as she had nicknamed him, and gave me a bag with some gravy pouches and some dry dog food. She said I could keep the collar and leash, then she signed the makeshift release form I gave her and drove away.
“Duffy” stood most of the way home in the front seat of my car. I thought he might be a Westie mix, maybe part Collie or Sheltie because he wasn’t very white and his face looked more like a Collie than a Westie. After a while, he laid down but just for a few minutes only to stand up again. I sensed that his back hurt. When I touched his back it was arched up high and I could feel every vertebra from his neck down to his tail. I didn’t like touching him at all, he was just a skeleton, and he smelled. But when he looked at me with the one lone round star in his right eye (he has cataracts that have blinded him), I said to him, “I think you are going to break my heart.” Because I didn’t think he would live another week since he was such a mess.
“I had called my vet before picking him up and had an appointment for later that afternoon. He weighed in at under 13 pounds. The vet said he was full of infections, his teeth, his ears, and suspected internally too. He was given an antibiotic shot and put on a couple of prescriptions for the infections and the obvious pain in his back or hind legs. I was told to bring him back in a week. He went back before that for severe diarrhea.
“After having him one week we took him to the groomer and he surprisingly did look like a Westie, a very very skinny Westie. I hate to say how much I disliked touching him other than his face those early days. When he started to gain weight, I’d touch his face and neck, and as he filled out I could touch his shoulders. He was just so skinny he felt awful. When he finally got to his optimum weight only the very end of the spine could be felt, and a little of his hips.
“I put him on a diet of dry food, that I’d moisten and microwave soft so that he could eat it with his badly infected teeth. I introduced different foods slowly and one at a time to see how he handled them. I knew I had to put weight on him, but slowly, I wanted him to build muscle. I fed him 4 times a day. The dry dog food mix soon was mixed with canned food in the morning and evening, and a snack of something like cottage cheese or a hard-boiled egg at lunch and again at bedtime, usually mixed with more dog food. The canned dog food was a turkey-based Adult Science Diet rather than beef or something else. Once he had his dental in June I no longer softened his dry food, and once he got up to eighteen pounds he only ate twice a day. It took him about three months to gain the six pounds. Then it was easy to pet him, pick him up and hold him and love him and not feel like I was hurting him.
“Around the same time he had the dental done, he got a one-year Rabies shot and started his heartworm meds. That was also when he seemed to developed allergies. He was scratching and itching and biting, so he got put on Advantage for fleas, just in case. He has bitten himself till he has bled, “hot spots” they call them, so he went on Benadryl. At one time he was getting three to four different pills a day. He was on Baytril for eight weeks, he was on Rimadyl for pain for at least that long, as well as the Benadryl, and other things along the way. Like things for his ears, he had a couple of ear infections while with us, it seemed to clear up and then come back. Just a note, the Rimadyl made it easier for him to go for long walks and he appeared to be more comfortable while on it. It’s a drug that is not good for long-term use I am told.
“Since he liked to follow us around wherever we went we decided to name him “Shadow” as in me and my shadow.
“That’s Shadow’s story until he was adopted by you on November 6, 2006.” Debbie
Debbie did such great work with Shadow that all my vet could find wrong with him was a couple of remaining skin hot spots and his severe difficulty with cataracts which have essentially made him blind. Shadow has that classic walk of a blind dog in that he walks with his head down and in a very halting, hesitant, and stiff-legged fashion…tail between his legs. Well, we have gone to two of the leading veterinary ophthalmologists in the Chicago area for their opinions and they both have identified a hyper-mature cataract in the right eye blocking 100% of his vision and a mature cataract that blocks perhaps 90-95% vision in his left eye.
Since Shadow has not been neutered, the vets have theorized that Shadow was used as a puppy mill stud and when he could not perform any more he was “thrown away”. From the age of cataracts and their configuration, one of the eye doctors said that the right eye could have formed its cataract from a blow or trauma to that eye as the one on the left seems to be a naturally formed one due to age. So it is easy to see that Shadow was not a pet and was just caged and used for years by his unscrupulous keepers.
I see some further evidence of his background in his behavior around the house now. He doesn’t know how to play, nor is he at all socialized to how humans pet or hold dogs. His world at the puppy mill was one of being used until he was no longer useful with no love or care for any of his needs.
Well, Angie, Lee, Debbie, and I have each in our way tried to shower him with enough care to try to make up for his years of imprisonment. He is much better now, his skin has cleared up, his ears are clean and healthy and he even gets excited and gives lots of tail wags when I come home from work. He’s even striding more bravely on walks and is showing more confidence and poise around the house. He’s a gentle little guy who never barks and never puts up a fuss when he gets his eye drops or is examined at the vets…it’s all new to him.
Now, thanks to WestieMed’s grant, he will be able to have a chance at opening up his world and having his sight restored with cataract surgery. For however much time he has left it is wonderful to think that it won’t be spent alone in the dark, anymore. Now he has friends reaching out to help him and care for him…finally. On behalf of Shadow and all of us who have helped him along the way, thank you very, very much.
Sincerely, George Kase, Shadow’s new dad.
Update January 2008:
t is with an enormous amount of sadness that I must tell you of the passing of my boy Shadow on this past Monday morning, January 28th at the Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Buffalo Grove. From internal bleeding caused by complications of his Kidney disease.
Shadow was truly a lionhearted being. Courageous in everything he did, he never let his blindness nor his weakened muscles stop him in any way. He enjoyed his walks and sniffing as well as just exploring for the fun of it. He liked to lay on his blankie and particularly after a good meal, he really liked to roll around on it with abandon. One hobby he developed in recent months was a particular affection for finding one of the other dog’s bowls during mealtimes for a quick snack before being caught. I can’t say enough about him and how much richer he made my life for the brief time he lived here.
He’ll be missed very, very much.
George