Yes, another blind Beagle from Georgia! That's who was in the van with blind Louie on Friday. This is Avery — his name had been "Chopper," which no one here liked. Widget had always wanted to have a resident Beagle named Avery, so she got her choice and Chopper got a new name. This little guy has multiple medical issues, including painful eyes, a skin condition, constant scratching, bald spots, and he's heartworm positive — not to mention he's not neutered.
He's had a very rough life, and had clearly been beaten a lot. When he hears us come through a door or a gate into the dog yard, he instinctively cowers, turns his head away, and lowers his body to the ground. It's heartbreaking. Once he realizes he's not going to get hit, though, he quicky warms up and becomes very affectionate. He's so sweet that he stole our hearts immediately. He reminds us a lot of blind Briggs, who we lost earlier this year — both in his personality and in the variety of medical problems he has.
I took him to our clinic this morning for a medical exam and blood work … here's Dr. Chris Plumley drawing blood from Avery while his vet tech Callie holds him:
Judging from how his eyes look, at least one and perhaps both have glaucoma and the left eye in particular seems very painful. He often looks like this:
We started him on pain meds this weekend. I could not check his intraocular eye pressure (IOP) to determine for sure whether he has glaucoma because we ran out of the eye drops we need to administer prior to using the Tono-Pen. Dr. Plumley's clinic does not have a Tono-Pen and thus does not have the specific eye drops (Proparacaine) required for this purpose. As a result, we're going to loan our Tono-Pen to the clinic so they can have it on hand for glaucoma testing of all their patients, and therefore they'll keep Proparacaine in stock. (We had a similar arrangement with our equine clinic in Missoula, because they didn't have a Tono-Pen either.)
A complicating factor on whether to do any surgery is the fact that Avery is heartworm positive. After consulting with Dr. Plumley this morning, I was able to schedule two back-to-back specialist appointments tomorrow for Avery — with our internist, Dr. Bryan Harnett in the morning for an echocardiogram to assess heart function, and then with an ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, for the afternoon. Both are in Burlington, Vermont, about two hours from here.
In the meantime, we'd like to take a moment to thank all of you who make donations to the sanctuary, because that's the only reason we can take in dogs like Avery and give them the kind of medical care they need. Your gifts pay for everything that happens here. We are always so grateful we can do this for them.
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Remember the Kuranda dog bed contest for April? Well, we came in first and won five extra-large Kuranda cots! Thanks to Cathy S. for entering us in the contest. However, on a very sad note, Cathy's beloved dog Casey — whose photo you saw in the contest — died just 10 days ago. Cathy only had Casey for two years, and he passed away from complications due to kidney disease. Our hearts go out to her.
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The current Shelter Challenge started on Monday, April 4th, and ends at midnight on Sunday, June 19th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories … please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Please note: Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.
Because of your votes, we just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in this current Shelter Challenge. Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!
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