Dreamer 13-303 [1]

10/29/2013:

I would like to introduce Dreamer to RAGOM. Dreamer is a 5-month-old Golden Retriever/Lab mix who is such a sweetie and a total attention hog. She was one of 8 dogs (7 puppies and a 1-year-old) that came into RAGOM from a hoarding/abuse situation in Cando, North Dakota. Scared, sick, and truly skin and bones from being fed corn, grain, and scraps every 3-4 days, Dreamy girl arrived with her sister Kai very late on a stormy Friday evening after an 800-mile trip to deliver all the dogs to their new foster homes (thank you so much, Mark and Barry and everyone else that helped with that transport – that was a LOT of miles!).

We have only had them in our care for a few days over 2 weeks, but there is already so much to tell.

Initially, our family was going to be fostering Kai and her sister Yuki, and Dreamer was just going to spend the night at our house and then move on to her final foster the next morning, but plans can never be set in stone when it comes to helping rescued animals. Very sadly, Yuki crossed over the Rainbow Bridge the night before the dogs were picked up to start their long ride home. It was assumed that she was just too weak and stressed to go on. More heartache occurred that Friday night for another foster family who had welcomed Ozzie, another littermate of Kai, into their home. He too crossed over the Rainbow Bridge after only a few short hours of love and care. It was Ozzie’s passing that ensured that the rest of the puppies made it into the vet the very next morning. And it was a good thing that no one waited until the following Monday.

Dreamer only weighed in at a whopping 9.8 pounds when she arrived – she should have been nearly 3 times that size. We hoped that fluids, food, and a lot of love would be all this little girl needed, but we were all in for some unpleasant surprises. In the end, of the 5 remaining puppies, 4 of them tested positive for the Parvovirus – Dreamer and Kai were among them. Both girls were so weak they had a hard time walking. Another RAGOM volunteer met me at the vet's office that morning and we were there for close to 2 ½ hours. They both received fluids that day, since they were SEVERELY dehydrated, and they also got other medicine to try and entice them to eat something and a long-lasting antibiotic. There is no treatment for Parvo; you can only provide supportive care. The symptoms are treated and you try to prevent any secondary infections, but in the end, the virus just has to run its course.

This is Kai next to a healthy-sized 4.5-month-old Golden/Collie mix when they first arrived - Dreamer was one pound heavier than Kai.

That Saturday morning at the vet's, the girls just sat in our arms, staring off blankly. They didn’t flinch when there was a big noise, or look around when someone entered the room. They were so lifeless I kept thinking that there is no way they can be 5-month-old puppies. I took Dreamer and Kai back home with me. Dreamer was supposed to move out to a foster in the country, but with the critical condition they were both in, it made much more sense to keep her in the cities where we have quick access to medical care if needed. The next few nights, we set our alarms for every couple of hours to make sure that they girls were still alive. For the next week, we made daily trips to the vet for fluids and anti-nausea drugs. I cannot thank the vets and staff at St. Francis Animal and Bird Hospital enough for making time for these girls again and again. They met us after hours and on a Sunday – ensuring that we were able to give them everything we could. Without their dedicated care and help… I don’t know if these little girls would have made it.

Dreamer started to perk up almost immediately which seemed like a true miracle, but Kai, on the other hand, was still having a hard time. While we had to feed her sister via syringe for days, Dreamer started eating on her own the first Sunday night she was with us. We had tried a wide variety of food, trying to tempt her to eat anything. To this day, Dreamer and Kai are the only dogs I have ever known to not eat a hotdog. I finally found something that appealed to her – scrambled egg. It was the very last thing I was going to try and it worked. We added some boiled hamburger after a day and she has been eating ever since. I don’t remember the last time I went through so many eggs, but we were so happy to watch her gobble them up and sniff around for more. We have been keeping kibble down the whole time as a backup if they ever get hungry, and Dreamer eats a lot of kibble in between mealtimes. We were/are so happy.

A week after they had arrived, we received some more bad news. Skylar, the 1-year-old that had traveled down with the girls, had crossed the Rainbow Bridge and was now playing with Ozzie and Yuki. He had been diagnosed with distemper and was showing advanced neurological symptoms to the point where he could no longer walk. That meant that these tiny things, with almost no immune system and hardly any strength to fight what was already attacking them, had been exposed to another often deadly disease. We kept our paws crossed that Parvo would be the only thing Kai and Dreamer would have to fight, and Dreamer was lucky. Kai started showing symptoms of distemper and sure enough, tested positive for it. Parvo and distemper – these are two incredibly easy things to prevent via proper vaccination. Dreamer has received two boosters now again distemper and the vet believes she is at no risk for contracting the virus.

For the rest of the weekend, it was a job to keep Dreamer from trying to play with Kai, who just didn’t have any energy. It was so hard to be holding one puppy that barley had the strength to hold up her head and watch another puppy dance and play, giving stuffed toys the death shake as she ran around with them, but we were so happy that she was becoming the puppy she was meant to be. I like to think that Dreamer gave Kai some of her strength to help fight this second viral attack. When Dreamy girl was ready to take a nap, she would seek out Kai and curl up next to her. The girls look very sweet when they are all snuggled up. I know that having each other throughout this whole ordeal has provided a great deal of support to both.

These past two weeks have been an emotional roll coaster ride for so many. Kai has been perking up over the last couple of days, and Dreamer is finally starting to get the play companion she has been wanting. They have been playing tug-o-war and even doing some wrestling. Dreamer is a total sweetheart who has turned from a sick baby on death’s doorstep into a happy, healthy, playful girl. She has doubled her weight since first arriving at our house. You can no longer see her ribs or other bones and she feels like a normal dog when you pet her. Dreamer eats with such enthusiasm we have to watch and make sure she doesn’t eat Kai’s meals as well. I imagine that she will be on the smaller side for a Golden/Lab mix as the malnourishment in the first part of her life probably stunted some growth. We are continuing to work on fattening her up and keeping her happy, which isn’t hard to do with this sweet girl.

I know that they are very scary viruses, but she is no risk to a healthy, vaccinated adult dog. The parvovirus will remain in her system (with no symptoms) for about 1 more month, slowly diminishing in quantity over that time, meaning she will be virus-free at 6 months of age. According to the vet, she will never get this disease again as she has a natural immunity built up against them. Dreamy girl needs a home of her own and a backyard to sniff and explore, to run and play in, and let her be the silly puppy that she is. She gets along well with other dogs and is quite curious about cats, but just runs up with her tail going a mile a minute and flips on her back. Granted, at this point, our cats are still bigger than she is. Dreamer is a little attention hog and loves to be petted. She doesn’t crawl in my lap like her sister, but once I scoop her up, I have a hard time getting her off when I need to get up. This sweetheart of a puppy is a fighter – determined to live out that long Golden Life promised to her the second she became a RAGOM girl.