A little over a year ago I got a call from the county animal control officer about a dog she had in a trap about six miles from my place. For about ten years he'd belonged to a meth addict who lived in a shack in the forest; he loved the dog, but didn't take very good care of him (shocking, right?) and as a result, the dog was very fearful, as well as being morbidly obese and having some other health problems. When the drug addicted dog-owner overdosed and dropped dead, his dog sat with his corpse for a couple of days before anyone noticed what had happened, and being pretty well freaked out and unwilling to let anyone come anywhere near him, he had to be trapped. The ACO knew that with all of his snarling and lunging, he wouldn't last a day at the humane society before they'd kill him, so she asked if I would take him in, or at least come and take a look at him.
When I arrived at the property, I found just what the officer had described -- a big, fat chow mix who was very unhappy to be in a trap and wanted nothing to do with me or the scary woman who'd caught him. I decided to put the trap into the back of my truck and shut myself in with the dog, having the officer close the latches on the canopy so that the dog couldn't push the window open and escape back into the woods. Of course, that meant I would have a tough time getting out as well, in the event that he decided he needed to kill me. Occupational hazard. I opened up the trap, but the terrified dog wouldn't come out. I climbed into the trap and held out my woven ski cap to see if I could elicit a bite, but he wasn't going for it; I finally stuffed the thing in his mouth, but he still wouldn't bite down. You've heard of the proverbial dog who is all bark and no bite -- this was the one.
I brought him back to the Sanctuary and named him Moose; one of my donors had a dog by the same name and I really liked it, and for some reason he also reminded me of Meatloaf's character in Fight Club, who was described as a "big moosey". Over the next couple of days, Moose let me pet him, and I was able to leash train him. It took about a week before he'd let me approach him when he was out in the yard. Then, he became a noisy, complaining, needy crybaby who wanted constant attention and coddling; it was alternatingly annoying and amusing. Moose was never especially fond of the other dogs, but he tended to stay out of their way and they stayed out of his; one day, however, he decided biting them in their asses would be a good thing to do, and one of the pit bull mixes let him have it. In the scuffle, he got a few lacerations and a broken tooth.
I knew Moose was in need of dental surgery anyway, so I figured that was as good a time as any; what I didn't know is that the state of his mouth was so bad that he would need ten teeth pulled and a number of abscesses opened up in a surgery that would take several hours and cost over $6,000. Holy shit. You've heard the saying, 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'; well, in my experience, there is such a thing as a free lunch, but there's definitely no such thing as a free dog.
After Moose's surgery, I had a husky to rescue in Michigan, and it was one that I'd had to fight over with the local animal control agency and the courts for weeks; when I finally won the right to take the husky (who had been declared dangerous after killing a smaller dog), I was given a very short time in which I could take custody before animal control killed him, and they really wanted him dead. I couldn't wait for Moose to recover from his surgery and there was some specialized aftercare involved, so I opted to take him along for the ride.
Imagine the sound Chewbacca would make as he lay dying, blood gurgling in his throat from some fatal wound, desperately clinging to a life that would be over in moments -- that's the sound Moose made in a hotel room when I was trying to remove his stitches. I thought we were going to be kicked out. It was so disturbing I could scarcely stand to do it, and if I had it to do again, I would just leave them in and let them dissolve. The Fentanyl adhesive pain relief patch would have to come off, though; being a Schedule II narcotic, it wasn't something I could just let fall off on its own and hope some kid didn't eat it.
During the Michigan trip, Moose started having some problems keeping his food down; the trouble became more severe, and it reached a point where he vomited immediately after every meal, no matter how small. He was losing weight rapidly, and my vets were all baffled as to what was going on with him. They did all manner of tests, x-rays, and exploratory surgery, bringing the grand total for his veterinary care close to $10,000, but still, they couldn't find the root of the problem. Moose lived at the vet clinic for weeks, where he received various injections around the clock to help him keep down the six, tiny meals he was fed each day. I drove the 70 miles a few times a week to visit, and on one such trip, one of the doctors told me that she had begun to fall in love with Moose.
"Do you want to keep him?" It was hard for me to ask, but for a dog with such complicated health problems, I couldn't think of a better home for him than with a vet, not to mention that we were fast approaching the upper reaches of our budget, and the county animal control officer, who I was hoping would help with the bills, wouldn't even return my calls. The doctor explained that she had never taken home a dog from a client, even though many had asked her to, but there was something special about Moose... she said yes.
I was at once sad and relieved, because I had fallen for the dog as well, but I knew that with a few dozen others to care for, it would be tough for me to keep on top of Moose's feeding and medication schedule, and we still didn't know what was wrong with him. I went back to the vet's office to visit him from time to time, but he had quickly bonded to the doctor and no longer wanted anything to do with me; on my last visit, he stood at the door and cried to be let out of the exam room and away from me. I admit it hurt a little, but it made me feel a little better about giving him away; it clearly wasn't that traumatic a change for him.
Over the next year, I received updates: Moose had lost so much weight that his eyelids had curled under; he kept getting his ass kicked by the vet's potbellied pig, but wouldn't stop going into the pigpen; at one point, all of his hair fell out; when the doctor brought home another male dog, Moose had to wear a diaper because he wouldn't stop peeing all over her house to mark his territory. When she took Moose out in public, people looked at her with disgust, believing, based on his appearance, that she was the worst dog caregiver ever. She said he was a truly repulsive sight, and his needy, whiny attitude didn't help things. Even the other employees at the vet clinic, true animal lovers who I've come to know and trust, found Moose hard to be around. Some of them asked the doctor why she'd bothered to keep him alive for so long. They couldn't understand why she loved him so much, or why she'd been willing to spend thousands and perform multiple surgeries on a dog that seemed to be falling apart in spite of her efforts. A dog that was noisy, needy, stinky...
But then something changed. Moose started getting better. He stopped losing weight. His hair grew back in. He was able to keep food down, provided it was a hypoallergenic, vegetarian diet, and the only medication he needed was the occasional eye drop. He was feeling better, too, which he expressed by killing a couple of chickens and a rabbit at the vet's house. Shit.
The doctor told me that if Moose had killed all of the small animals in her home, she'd have kept him, but because she still had parrots and other little creatures that Moose could potentially gain access to, she felt her only responsible course of action was to ask me to take him back. I must admit I feel a little guilty taking him back now, after he's weathered such a storm of health problems and gotten better, but the truth is we still have no idea what's wrong with him, and he could become sick and die any time. I am, however, glad to have him back, even if I only have him a few months before his body decides to give up. That sounds a little too grim -- he actually looks pretty good, and he's a much sweeter, more social dog than he was a year ago. Moose is always happy to see me; he barks and complains whenever I leave him alone, but he stops after a minute or two, which he never used to do. He's even getting along with Phoenix, the other old man dog I recently brought back from New York. I've increased his food by about 50%, and he may even be putting on weight; in a few days I'm going to try mixing in a tiny amount of a different brand of vegetarian food and see how his stomach handles it. It's a little hard to explain how much I love this dog: he trots around on stiff-legs, with his tiny ears bouncing up and down; he gets his feelings hurt really easily; he has an extremely low pain tolerance; he's a crybaby; he always seems unsure of what he should be doing; he snores and farts a lot... he's like that socially inept kid in school who had no idea how much he annoyed his classmates, or that he had food in his teeth and smelled like he had a load in his shorts. He's a dopey, awkward, pain in the ass, and with any luck, he'll stick around awhile.
Big Moosey, not quite as big as he once was
Moose eating grass, which caused him to vomit 30 seconds later. I love this dog.
