NO DOG LEFT BEHIND - PART 4
ABANDONED AND ALONE
Sometimes, a quick story comes across my feed and immediately catches my eye. Penelope’s predicament was one of those stories. Her sad face and pictures seemed to tell her whole story. She was found abandoned and lonely, curled up next to a building at South Mountain Reservation in South Orange, NJ. She had clearly been on her own for days. She was underweight, lethargic, and had scrapes and bruises on her legs. The county sheriff was called, and Penelope easily went with them to the West Orange Animal Shelter.
Sedona Shepherd has worked with the staff at the shelter to save many shepherds and other large breed dogs. When we met Penelope, it was clear that we would have to squint to find much shepherd in her, but that was ok, because her infectious charm knocked us over. Despite all that she had been through, Penelope was trusting and just wanted attention and pets. A thorough vet visit and physical evaluation later confirmed that she had a growth on her neck that would need to be removed, cracked nails on two of her toes, and other minor abrasions that needed to be treated. Given her estimated age of about 10 to 11 and being a mixed breed, there would be little interest in an adopter coming to her rescue.
OFF TO HER FOSTER HOME
When we told Penelope she was off to live with her new foster family, she was quite excited. Our foster home, which specializes in cases like Penelope's, had recently successfully fostered Nyla and was up for the challenge of caring for Penelope. Luckily, it wasn’t that much of a challenge, as her wiggle butt, kisses, and affection brought love into their home. After a few weeks of healing and gaining weight, her second vet visit found at least one mammary tumor. Normally, we might not go through a spay surgery for a senior dog like Penelope, but that was the only way to determine if there were any additional tumors and to get them removed. Plus, we wanted to remove the growth on her neck.
In all, our vet removed 6 growths. Five of the growths were benign, and the one malignant growth was removed with clean margins and no sign of spreading to any other part of her body. Penelope made friends wherever she went, but we thought finding an adopter for an older girl like Penelope would be difficult.
EVERYBODY LOVES PENELOPE
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
That is, until we received an application that said they wanted to rescue a senior dog that was hard to adopt. Just like that, Penelope, now Shashuka or Shuka for short, found her forever home. Shuka’s journey took her from being abandoned and potentially starving alone to her new, warm and loving home. We knew that there was no way we could let Shuka be left behind and we knew there was a happy ending waiting for her.
