Kelly sure enjoyed Christmas!

One of the nicest Christmas presents I received this year was watching how much Kelly enjoyed the presents and Christmas morning... She was RIGHT there, excited about the presents and watching them being opened, interacting with the other dogs, etc... For someone with her background, she acted like any other normal dog and had such a GRAND time!

Kelly is one of the lucky ones... She did not spend her entire life as a bait dog - unlike Pokey who is still undergoing rehabilitation and is fostered in Florida...  I'm not even sure if Kelly was traumatized to the extent Pokey is... It was a work of karma that we found Kelly when we did... Or that she managed to escape from her life and be found by animal control...

Update on Kelly....

We weighed Kelly with our new digital scale (thank you someone special for the gift!) and she weighs 12 pounds, 14 ounces... Kelly routinely works out on the treadmill and has developed into the sweetest ever dog after months of rehabilitation...

Her coat has come in 110% now as you can see when you compare her blog photo and the one below... Kelly is learning basic dog obedience commands... She's potty- and doggie door trained, along with Xpen- and crate-trained...

We have never known her to have an accident in the house and we have even broken the bad barking habit she had... She routinely sees BIG dogs at adoptions and no longer reacts to them... She would do well with children and despite her rough beginnings, she has grown into a great dog.

Sweater time - Kelly

Kelly might be 'rushing the season' with her red sweater and green collar, but she's nice and warm for sure!

 

Are dogs like humans? (Kelly)

Anthropomorphism ~~~ or the tendency to impose human traits upon non-human things... Dog owners are often told not to anthropomorphize their pets... As 65+% of dog owners view themselves as a dad or mom to their dogs, this is a hard thing to do...

I believe dogs are greatly affected by things around them... And despite what the 'experts' say, I do believe dogs have a great depth of feelings - maybe not to the same length as humans do, but I do believe dogs can 'feel' feelings... I do know that after a bath, our dogs seem a bit edgy until they're dried off and their collars are put back on... To me, that is feeling something, even if it is a bit edgy...

And because dogs have a forty times greater sense of smell than we humans do, I always try and replace any collar a shelter dog has worn... I might be wrong on this position, but I feel that bad experiences can be tied to smells for dogs... So if they had a bad past, I get the sense a new collar without the smells connected to their past goes a very long way in bringing an abused or neglected dog back into balance... Enough of what I think about things and onto another photo!!! :)

I replaced Kelly's collar over the weekend and although she is a already a unique color (Chocolate Chi with amber eyes -- not a usual Chi coloring), I decided to do something truly unique and special for her... I hand-beaded her name onto the new collar...

Call me crazy but once we put this new collar on her, we had a difficult time toning down her excitement just to take these photos! A new pair of shoes or purse for a woman can cause the same kind of excitement, so why not a dog???

I'm SO proud of Kelly, I just had to share!

I try to train all fosters to use the crate for a wide variety of reasons (wildfire evacuations, going to the vets and having to stay, etc.)... But in less than 3 nights, Kelly has learned to jump into the crate simply by opening up the door and saying "Kennel" (although technically it is a extra large crate... This is where she sleeps at night and without those canines, she has no means to protect herself, so it is for her safety as well as having an extra skill/training...

I am just SO proud of her! This is one VERY smart and quick learning dog... She's doing sit on command for me along with other things... And has even learned to like the daily baths... She now eats peacefully with the other dogs and has learned to share (a biggie in a multi-dog household)...

Throughout the day, she roams freely around like everyone else and has not had one accident in the house yet... What a dog!
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Kelly's vet visit and some sad news...

Kelly went to the vet's office yesterday... And we had scrapings done - she comes through clean on all accounts (no mites, dead or alive) and we're on track to resolving her skin condition with everything we are doing...

As I suspected, Kelly's four canine teeth had been surgically removed... Frankly, I'm not sure how we can explain this for the only dogs that routinely have this done are "bait dogs" used in dog fighting circles... As I was told "no reputable vet would do this surgery" and it's not cheap ($500 and up), but it clearly was a deliberate act by someone...

This would also explain why Kelly reacts in a negative fashion to much bigger dogs than her in size (regardless of their gentleness or submissive nature)... Kelly has lost the means to defend herself without the canine teeth, and probably has past bad personal experiences with bigger dogs... sigh...

In TLC we consistently see some very inhumane acts done to these dogs and have never walked away from taking dogs in deplorable conditions and restoring them as best we can (i.e. Kimberly's poor ears deliberately hole-punched, Jayda's broken leg never attended to, etc.)... Kelly's furever home will be one that understands she was probably a bait dog and needs to be with other dogs her size or smaller... She is a sweet dog and loves to be loved... We'll get her skin and coat back in order and Kelly will find her way into someone's heart... We'll do our part and she will do hers!

Update on the Kellygirl...

Every morning when I get up, I pull the two brown pillows off the futon and throw them on the floor - one for Kelly and one for Scoobydoo - for they come and sleep close to where my computer sits... And Kelly likes to sleep close to the puppies' Xpen for some reason... Kelly is ALMOST the same color as the suede fabric on the pillows and when she curls in to sleep, it's hard to immediately see she's there in dim light~!



I disturbed her when I snapped the camera, so I quickly took another picture:



I can already see the difference the meds and baths are creating in her coat.

I also was able to take a nice picture of those gorgeous yellow eyes:



Once we get this skin/hair issue under control and all of her hair grows back in, this is going to be one VERY striking dog, along with her sweetness already!

Kelly... Chocolate Chihuahua with yellow eyes...

Kelly is a 4-year old female Chocolate Chihuahua who weighs between 8 and 9 pounds... She's obviously had puppies somewhere along the way in her lifetime, but ended up in the shelter and sat there for almost 5 weeks - most of it in isolation because she has alopecia...

For more on alopecia, this is a great website to visit here, but basically in layman's terms, alopecia is an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss... It is not contagious... But the condition is aggravated by conditions such as fleas, etc. so while she sat in the shelter, we can only assume that it got worst...

Once she arrived here, she got two medicated baths in one day, so I'm sure as much as she doesn't care for baths, by the time we get this cleared up with daily baths, she'll learn to love them! She's on meds too and a good diet of nutrition now, so in time, her hair will grow back in... The predominant areas of hair loss is behind her ears as you can see in this photo below:



Sadly, skin conditions like this are like a kiss of death in the shelter system... With staff levels and tight budgets, they simply don't have time to give a dog daily baths with medicated shampoo, add in vitamin E to their diet or put the needed lotions onto the affected areas... The general public does shy away from dogs like this, so Kelly ended up on the kill list right before we made the decision to rescue her...

Kelly is VERY sweet and friendly... She took a particular interest in the puppies when they were out romping in the Xpen during the afternoon... Her tail was wagging non-stop as she watched them play, so maybe she recently had puppers of her own...



Kelly is getting along with the other dogs her size, but she doesn't really care for dogs much bigger than her... She's learning to eat politely and share, but in isolation, many Chihuahuas practically wig out so I'm not surprised she's having to relearn what it is like to live in the canine community again... Five weeks in isolation would cause effects even on the most balanced of dogs...