Becoming a pet...

It has been a while since we posted anything as we have been busy with the holidays.  For Thanksgiving we traveled to Colorado to see some friends that we miss greatly.  I hired a professional pet sitter to take care of our brood and things went very well. Harry managed to let himself out of his kennel and ate an entire bag of dog treats but that was the worst of it...

Before we left for Colorado Maggie had a skin check at the vet.  Dr. Gunn was a little disappointed in her progress and I was a little concerned about the skin on her snout.  So, the ringworm test came back positive :-/ .  The good news is that within a week of being on the ringworm medication her snout was filling in quite nicely.  She has a decent coat of hair now - still spotty in places - and looks and acts more like a pet everyday.  She has lost her fear of the yard and will now run around and chase Harry everywhere.  In fact, those two are inseparable.  This is my first go-around with more than one dog and watching the relationship develop between these two continues to amaze me.  Happy Holidays!! (check out the picture page for some new pics)

More Progress

Maggie has since started playing with Harry. Our 1-year-old chiweenie. She barks, chases him, plays tug-of-war (with human help) and jumps around everywhere. Her giardia, worm treatment, and antibiotic pills are all done, the only thing left to get rid of is the mange. In general, she's very good about letting us give her her medicine, most likely because she gets a treat afterwards. She sleeps a lot during the day in her brand new bed we bought for her. Tiny white hairs have started to grow on her belly and the fur on her legs keeps getting longer. Her second vet visit is tomorrow. They'll tell us how she's progressing from a medical standpoint. Fingers crossed for good news!

Progress, progress, and more progress...

This weekend we brought Maggie (or Mags as Liam likes to call her) into the house for the first time and it went so well she is there to stay :-).  She wasn't sure what to make of Missy our 13yr old black lab but they seem to have come to an agreement and politely disregard each other.  The cats are staying clear but Maggie and Harry are new BFF's.  They chase each other everywhere! It is soooo nice to see her acting like a playful young dog and not a scared abandoned pup.  She has 2 very distinctive barks so far.  The deeper one she uses in response to Harry's warning bark when they are outside and her "squeak-toy" play bark.  We couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from when we heard it for the first time!
Her fur continues to fill in quite nicely.  Her 4 legs are mostly covered in a soft ginger colored fur and she has patches of fur coming in on her body, face, and head.  I think the tail and ears will be the last to fill in.  The skin there is pretty rough but I massage it when I bathe her to get the blood flowing and try to stimulate the follicles.  Today is bath day, again.  We actually went 3 days this time - she is much less stinky :-)

Mange Be Gone!!

We got the word yesterday afternoon that Maggie is heartworm NEGATIVE!! The only negative :-(
She was positive for hookworm, whipworm, and giardia.  Not that any of that comes as a real big surprise but it seemed as though the vet emptied the pharmacy cabinet for us. We gave her the first dose of the mange med and the hw/ww pill today. The mange treatment will continue for a while but she should start to feel better in about a week. The giardia treatment lasts 6 days and we will start that tomorrow. Next vet trip is in 2 weeks.
She is getting more and more comfortable around us. She cries when she wants company but knows her area in the garage and goes willingly.  The fuzz continues to grow each day and she is starting to look less like the dog we found and more like a pet.

News from the Vet

Maggie's appointment went well yesterday. Dr. Gunn confirmed what we already knew - that Maggie is a sweetheart and has a ton of potential! We are waiting for the test results to come back but we know she has Demodectic Mange, a bacterial infection, possibly ringworm and a slight heart murmur. The heart murmur could just be a result of thin blood from her infections.  Hopefully we will be able to start the mange treatment Monday if her heartworm test comes back negitive. She is a whopping 9.2 lbs which isn't surprising because she has been eating regularly for 3 weeks now and we are estimating her age to be about 10-12 months. She will be getting another bath today with her special new shampoo that should help with her scratching boo boos and is also on an antihistamine for the itching. It's all up hill from here!!!

Good News

We found a veterinarian practice nearby that agreed to see Maggie. Due to the fact that she's a rescue, they'll do her initial exam for free. We set up an appointment and are taking her tomorrow at 5:20 for her first doctor visit. Also, yesterday we noticed she had begun to grow some of her hair back on her legs and feet. Today, she had hair on her cheeks and some is even starting to grow in on her back. She's going to be a copper brown color.

We're giving her another bath in a few hours. She's starting to get stinky...again. The first one went over pretty well and helped clear up a lot of the scabs and sores on her back. Hopefully this one does too.

Maggie after her first bath.

The day she appeared...

On Monday Oct. 3 she appeared out of nowhere.  She was scared, stinky, and hungry.  The following day she appeared again.  We couldn't tell where she was coming from but she kept running to the back of the yard.  I ran to the fridge to see what leftovers I could scrounge up and ended up with a Taco Bell burrito.  We put that out at the back of the yard and 20 minutes later watched her devour it! It was a few more days of this routine (we switched to dog food, though!) before we were able to get close enough to get a good look at her.  What we found was a small dog maybe about a year old with what appears to be a horrible case of mange. But as the food kept coming, so did she.  Instead of sleeping under the storage unit she gradually moved closer and made a little den for herself behind some old boxes near the back door.  Worried that she might get cold we gave her an old blanket and lined her little area with thick styrofoam. She has really taken to Hallie and Amy and me in a way.  But since I'm the one who dabs peroxide in her boo boos she holds back a bit with me. This poor angel who has every reason to hate the world just wants to be loved. She has not shown one bit of aggression and only gratitude. She even seemed grateful for the bath. This week will be a visit to the vet to get started on the mange treatment and checking for worms and then she can come home :-)