Hi, this is President Pam.

I am not usually the one who writes the fundraising posts, but this one hit me especially hard and I wanted to share the story with our community.

I got a call from a local shelter’s rescue office letting me know that there was a senior dachshund that had come in and needed rescue, he looked a little rough based on their initial and quick exam and could use us.

I said yes and contacted our transport coordinator who got pick up all arranged. Once picked up from the shelter, I headed out to meet him at Dr. Bruce’s Animal Hospital to evaluate him myself and see if he should stay there to be looked at or if he needed to head to LeadER Animal Specialty Hospital. One look and I knew he needed to be seen and treated right away. So I scooped the sweet old boy up and off we went.

I named him Marvel and in we went to see Dr. Rosainz. Little Marvel has one eye that is deformed, one eye that is protruding and is painful, no sight, he has a head tilt that we have no idea what that’s about and he walks in circles.

The wonderful staff of nurses and support staff held him and comforted him while getting blood drawn, eye tested and numbed, pain meds administered, temperature taken, blood pressure recorded, heart rate and respiratory rate taken. Most of these things were in normal to high normal range except his blood pressure that was so high that the staff thought the equipment had malfunctioned. So off they went to get another machine and tried again and it was the same reading. His blood pressure was so high that they didn’t understand why he hadn’t had a stroke.

During this evaluation, I got a call from the same shelter saying that his owners (he was still on stray hold which is the amount of time each county gives owners to reclaim their pets before they become the legal property of either the shelter, an adopter or a rescue) had shown up to reclaim him.

T here were lots of questions asked about how they could allow him to be in this condition, did they know how sick he is, were they going to be required to provide medical care? The shelter told me they would get some answers and get back to me.

The staff at LeadER asked if they should stop treatment, I said no. Marvel needed help and that’s what we do.

About 30 minutes later I got a call back and got no real answers to my questions, I only got that we had to return him to the shelter.

We have a hard enough time getting volunteers to go to a shelter to get a dog out of there (it’s a pretty sad place, especially with how overcrowded they are right now), but can you imagine how hard it is to find a volunteer to RETURN a sick dog to a shelter?

While our transport coordinator was trying to figure out that mess, I got back some test results, Marvel is positive for eherlichia, which is a tick borne disease that can cause all kinds of systemic issues.

Again, I was asked, treat him? Send meds with him? He needs 3 weeks of meds, send all of it? Pain meds?

My answer to all was yes. Marvel deserves to be treated medically and if his owners weren’t going to get him medical care, the least thing we could do for him was send him with meds that may alleviate some of his pain and make him feel better. It is the right thing to do for him. So meds were dispensed and he waited until transport could be arranged.

Luckily we have a superstar transport volunteer who understood the reasons and took Marvel back to the shelter so he could be picked up.
So while a tad angry and very sad, Marvel headed back to the life he had and hopefully he’s getting the medication and is feeling a little better.

So, we are left with a $1550 vet bill and the knowledge that we did the right thing for Marvel while he was part of the DRSF family.