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Tank was rescued by the German Shorthaired Pointer Rescue Northeast Pennsylvania. Pet Stores normally get their dogs through pet brokers who get them from puppy mills. The goal of puppy mills is quantity, not quality and the many of the results are illustrated by Tank's ills. What if you had bought Tank prior to his illness? How about people who bought one of Tank's littermates? Did they also suffer from the same ills? This story also illustrtes the dedication of many rescue people who not only save surrendered dogs and dogs from shelters, but also from pet stores
I rescued Tank on exactly his 4 month birthday after about a month of trying to have him surrendered to us. He was a puppy mill dog being sold out of a pet store.
Late September a friend’s daughter called me about him after seeing him with what she knew was a bad case of demodex mange. Her mother had rescued a dog with the same condition 2 years earlier, so she knows what it looked like. I contacted the store and they refused to give the dog up.
At the end of October the store manager called me to say the store owner sent the puppy back to the "puppy broker" because is condition had worsened so bad that he could not be sold, and he was scheduled to be put to sleep on 11/5/07. The manager, I guess, felt guilty about the situation and asked if we could still take him if she was able to get a hold of the broker before he was put to sleep.
After spending the weekend before 11/5 desperately making phone calls back and forth and having 11/5 gone by, I thought all hope was lost. Late in the day of 11/6 they called me to say he was still alive and I could get him. I drove an hour away and met them at 9:00pm and picked up this little guy with over 80% hair loss, severe demodex manage, ear infections, round worm, undernourished, filthy dirty and he could not make any eye contact. After 4 months he never even had a name.
He spent 3 days in the animal hospital, with my vet who was so upset at his condition that she only charged me $10.00 for the three days stay and for the meds we took home. After a month living with us he has gained 12lbs, his ear infections are cleared up along with the round worm. He now makes great eye contact and is a normal happy little puppy enjoying his life.
Although we had intended just to foster Tank until he was healthy enough to go to his forever home. My husband and I decided that this needed to be his forever home. He still has many months of meds and bathing treatments ahead, but we had fallen in love with him and with us being the only people who ever showed him love he loves us too. So he has joined our family of 3 GSPs and 2 Toy Manchester Terriers (2 of the GSPs and 1 Manchester we have had since pups and the other GSP and Manchester are also rescues…we lost our 4th rescue GSP to cancer 2 years ago).
Because of his condition he requires a lot of special time and attention and his meds are expensive, but he is worth all of it just to see him running around playing with the other dogs makes us happy. We did find out that he was taken from his mother at 5 weeks old and lived at the pet store in a very small enclosure, until he looked so bad that they put him into a crate in an upstairs room 'till he went back with the broker. We also found out that at the time he went to the pet store he developed an upper respiratory infection that was never treated so his already weak immune system went completely south and then the demodex took over. The saddest part is that he was seen by a vet in order for the store owner to get his money back and the vet who saw him never gave him treatment, but just signed that he was too sick to be sold.
As there are many wonderful stories in rescue work, there are also horrible ones like Tank’s and although Tank has a happy ending, there are many that do not end well and it is those cases that keep us in rescue work and keep us fighting for these dogs that can’t fight for themselves. Every night before I go to bed I give all my dogs a kiss goodnight and when I pick up Tank to give him a kiss I remember that there are thousands of dogs just like him waiting to be saved and I give him another kiss for all of them too.
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Tank at 4 months |
Tank at 4 months |
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Tank in November |
Tank at Christmas |
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