I know the story is getting old – another dog that is heartworm positive!  It is really sad because if my previous owners had spent just a little more money to buy preventative, it wouldn’t cost so much money now to get rid of the adult worms in my heart.  Of course I am not really sad because I know I going to get taken care of and that when I am all better, I will find a new home where they will make sure I get my monthly pills!

Hopefully I will be ready for adoption in September so if you are interested in me, check back then to see if I have any updates and meanwhile, THANK YOU if you send me money!!!

Gretta is a TINY beagle, weighing in at only 16lbs!  Even though she is small in stature, this little girl thing has a heart the size of TEXAS! Little Gretta was pulled (along with her companion, Gunther) from a high kill animal control facility in Michigan.  Unfortunately, Gretta was diagnosed with a very advanced case of heartworm, along with a large mammary tumor. Then, unexpectedly, Gretta developed severe abdominal pain and a fever and needed emergency surgery.  What was thought to be a mammary tumor turned out to be a herniated uterus, and we learned that Gretta had been pregnant but due to her uterine abnormality, she was not able to carry the puppies.

While Gretta was already under anesthesia, the hernia was fixed, she was spayed, and her cherry eye was repaired.  Poor little Gretta was on IV antibiotics and pain meds for three days to make sure she had the best chance to pull through and that she was as comfortable as we could possibly make her.  Now....her little body still has to make it through the difficult heartworm treatment. All of these procedures were and are VERY expensive.  Gretta is thankful to finally be in caring hands and shows her appreciation daily.  She is a very happy, loving little girl who can't get enough attention.

Will you please consider helping Gretta by donating any amount you can?  After her heartworm treatment, she will be available for adoption, so visit again soon for updates! Gretta thanks you in advance!

Hiya! I'm Scarlett....I'm a happy, bouncy, aussie girl. The APB people say I "won" the genetic lottery...but the way they say it, I don't think it's a good thing...

When I went to the puppy doctor, they said my heart mumbles. (Murmurs, Scarlett...) So, we went to the BIG puppy doctor at MSU. The MSU doctor said I have not one, not two, but THREE genetic heart defects. I have:

• moderate to severe aortic stenosis
• patent duct arteriosus (PDA)
• mitral valve regurgitation

They wanted to see me again at 18 months to 2 years old. So, I hung out with my foster family til it was time to go see the BIG puppy doctor again.

This time, the MSU doctor says that the mitral valve thingy is better. But the PDA is making the stenosis worse. They would like to fix the PDA thing, and hopefully I can live longer than if they don't fix it.

But, the BIG puppy doctors cost big bucks....they said it would be about $1200 to fix the PDA. Even if I give them ALL my biscuit dollars, that's not gonna be enough!!

Do you have some biscuit dollars that you could send, so I can go to MSU and get the PDA thingy fixed? I'd really like to be a happy girl for a REALLY long time!!!

I got picked up and brought to a shelter because I was just running around without any ID tags on me.  In fact, I didn’t even have a collar on.  By the next day I wasn’t feeling too good and I just kept getting worse.  I came to a foster home so that I could get some extra care where they would give me Tamiflu to try and keep me from dying -- like many puppies with parvo end up doing.  It took a few days for me to start feeling really good but I got all better! 

Even though I was feeling good, I was limping so I had to go to the vet so they could take a picture of my leg.  Sure enough, a while back I had broken a bone and now I needed heavy-duty surgery to fix it.  (For those of you who like the medical jargon, I had a Type 2 Salter-Harris fracture.)  Now I have a pin in my leg and I have to wait until August to find out when I will be ready for adoption.

I found out that Tamiflu costs a lot of money.  And then the surgery on my leg was even more.  If you would like to help out with paying some of my bills, I would be very grateful!

Thanks!

UPDATE:  My bones are healing but they have not healed good enough for the pin to be removed.  My next recheck is the end of August so if you are looking for dog around that time, check back to see if I am ready for adoption!  Thanks

Hiya! I'm the Smokey-dude. My foster mom says I'm awesome with a capital A. The humans left me at a shelter...so APB is gonna find me a great new home.

I'm housebroken - I had a couple of accidents the first couple of days, but I ask to go out, and once those silly ole humans learned how to pay attention, it's all good! And I'm quiet and well behaved - I found the couch this week, and that's my kind of spot to hang out!

There's just one 'lil thing tho. I'm blind. Yep. Can't see a darn thing. But I'm SUCH a smart boy that I learned my way all 'round my foster home really quick!! One of the humans thought I was faking, I get around so good! And I looooooove to go roam all around the yard!

So, we're gonna go see the doggie eye doctor, and see if he can tell us why I can't see stuff. Watch for an update on me after we see the doc!

Update:

So the eye doctor says - yep, he can't see! I have something called PRA - progressive retinal atrophy...my retinas don't work anymore. I also have a rare form of dry eye - my eyes make enough tears, so I passed that part of the test. But, the mucus layer of the tears isn't good enough...so the tears are there, but they don't stick to my eyes.

I'm on a medication called tacrolimus....my eyes are feeling much better now! But I need to be on this medicine forever and ever, please check with your vet before you apply to adopt me!

Terracotta, like some pottery, must have fallen or been bumped by something and she “broke”.  She has a broken leg near her foot.  Once her bones are healed, Terracotta is going to be treated for heartworm.  It is very difficult to imagine that anyone would not be looking for her in the first place because she is such a sweet little dog but then to realize that they never gave her heartworm preventative to keep her safe from heartworm disease is even more baffling.

While we wait for her to be ready for adoption – hopefully no later than mid-July – she would welcome any donations to help with the big vet bills she is going to have!  They could be as high as $2000 or more after getting all that she needs.

Once she is ready for adoption, we will post an update and then we will accept applications.

Meanwhile, please do not ask to adopt Terracotta Sue until an update is posted that she is ready for adoption as she has a few rough months ahead of her for medical treatments.  It is too soon to be sure what type of home would work for her.  If you are not able to donate towards her expenses but are interested in adopting her, I recommend you continue your search for a different dog or else check back in July when we have an update on her. 

Update August 15:  The bones in Terracotta's leg were healed enough for the pin and plate to be removed.  After she recovered from this surgery, she started the main heartworm treatment.  We have to restrict her activity for a few more weeks to help prevent complications.  Hopefully all will go well and she will be ready for adoption in early September.

I had a really bad mess in my leg of bones going in a bunch of wrong directions.  The shelter couldn’t adopt me out this way so now I am in a foster home.  I have this metal thing in my leg to help those bones heal right.  Since I can’t really talk, I can’t tell everyone how this happened, but it never slowed me down – even before they put that pin in there – ‘cause I can run really fast with the other 3 legs! 

I have to go back to the vet to have the pin taken out so I won’t be ready for adoption until the end of October, but meanwhile, I would be really grateful if you want to send me some money to help pay for my big vet bill!

I am a pretty active “puppy” and I like to check things out by chewing on them.  I love doggie toys and I love doggie treats.  I play with the other dogs and sometimes I get disciplined because I get caught teasing some of the senior dogs here.  Oops.  I figured they might want to play so I was just checking to see if I could talk them into it!

Sometimes I get lazy and I don’t feel like going outside to potty.  But if foster mom catches me thinking about doing it in the house, she yells my name so then I go dashing outside!

I really like to lay in a human lap when I am done playing and I kind of like going into a crate to sleep at night and when the humans go to work so I can be fun and I can be cuddly – pretty good combination for a nice pet dog, don’t you think?

You would think those mosquitoes wouldn’t bother a spunky little girl like me!  I can run really fast when I want to and I thought they couldn’t catch me.  But they must have snuck up on me because I have heartworms now because of them.  Well, it is also because someone wasn’t giving their poor dog heartworm preventative and my former owners weren’t giving it to me.  Either way, I need to get the expensive medicine to fix me up and get me all ready to be adopted. 

When I am all better sometime in September, you will probably want to apply to adopt me because I am sweet and I get along great with other dogs.  Meanwhile, until I am ready, I will be very grateful if you want to send some money to help me pay the veterinarian.

THANKS!

Lucky for me, my former owner went out of business.  Usually that is not a good thing but the business was breeding dogs so instead of having to work for living, I now can live just to enjoy life and be spoiled like a shih tz thinks they are suppose to be!  Besides, my teeth were pretty yucky and I needed some of them pulled and the rest of them cleaned up.  Plus, I had this funny thing on my good eye so I couldn’t see real well.  My left eye is a micro opthalmia eye and the vet thinks that it doesn’t work at seeing anything so it is pretty important for me to have a healthy right eye so that I don’t go blind.

Hopefully the biopsy on that thing that was growing where it shouldn’t have been will be benign but while we are waiting to hear the results, I have to save up my money to pay my surgery bill and I am hoping to get some help because I don’t have a job anymore!  If you want to help me, please send me some donations!  

Update:

GREAT NEWS!!!!  The growth was due to chronic corneal irritation with no infectious or neoplastic evidence.  It became a corneal inclusion cyst.  In other words, something was on my eye that was sort of stuck in my cornea and so my eye tissue just grew around it to protect the rest of my eye.  It was benign and it won't come back -- unless I get something in my eye again -- and my eye has healed very well.  I can see much better now without that funny thing in the way!

Now that I am ready for adoption, I can tell you more about myself.

I come from one of those breeding places where the dogs don't get much human attention and while I am a very nice boy, I am still very nervous around people, especially strangers.  I haven’t had any training on a leash either so if you don’t have a fenced yard, it is going to be a lot of work for you to get me use to doing my business with a leash or a tie-out attached to me.  There is no way I can promise that I wouldn’t run and run if something scared me so I really do need a fenced yard.

I was very scared of going down steps at first.  There were three of them to get outside and I had to be carried for a while.  It wasn’t scary to go back up them to get in to the house but going down is another story.  I did learn that it was really neat to be outside and to run around in the yard so when I got impatient one day to get out there, I tried it by myself.  After a few days, I mastered them!  I easily go outside now but I may never be brave enough to go down more than three steps.

When my foster mom brushes me, it feels so good!  And then she pets me and when I ride in the car with her, she lets me sit in the seat next to her – she isn’t so scary at those times.

If you have another dog, I think that would be GREAT because I really like other dogs.  I don’t play with them much but I love to sleep next to another dog.  I am learning about these doggie toys and they can be fun to chew on or to carry around.  I am learning a lot from watching these other dogs that run up to humans and play with these toys.

My foster mom also wants to let you know that while I was supposedly all shih tzu, she thinks I am probably mixed with pekingese because I do shed.  Since I shed, I am definitely mixed with something.  That’s about it for now.  Don’t you think I would be a lot of fun to work with and teach me how cool humans are?  Hurry up and apply for me!