Ginger 08-249

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Sponsored by: Susannah Charleson

 

 

Ginger was picked up on Saturday May 10, 2008 at 8 am and arrived in Apple Valley, MN around 11:00. Ginger had a 1:00 vet appt that we will talk about in a little bit, but first we wanted to get the first layer of stink, and I mean stink, off of her so we headed to the garage and started hosing her down with warm water and great shampoo. This lasted a good 30 minutes; I just wish the stink was gone.

Here is Ginger’s story:

Ginger is coming into RAGOM blind, we believe. It has not been confirmed but it will be soon enough. When she was a small pup, the kids at her house thought she needed company in the hog shed so they brought her a farm cat. The cat ended up scratching her eye so badly, she lost sight in it. A couple years later, she got a bad infection in the good eye and she went blind in this eye also.

I have included the first picture that I saw of her and fell in love, I am also including her before her bath picture and of course a few afterward shots. She is getting clean, but it is going to take time.

Ginger saw the vet and this vet appointment stressed her out so much that we decided to get her on a good dose of pain pills because she is experiencing pain from the diseased eye, her teeth are in horrible shape and some desperately need to be pulled, her nails curl every which way, and to top off everything she has two very painful ear hematomas.

Ginger spent a week at Stone Mountain Pet Resort, where they were able to start her pain medication right away and by the end of the week she had her first professional bath and brushing and her nails trimmed! I then went and picked her up at 9:00 this morning. I could not wait to get her back to the house and try all over again.

We arrived this morning at 10:15 and everything went great, she has now met everyone and no growling at all! It has been a wonderful meeting and we are working on getting her to know the house so she won’t bump into so many walls. She has already figured out the back yard and knows where the door is to go down the dog ramp!

Monday she is going to meet with the vet so we can talk about her teeth and get an estimate on getting those pulled and repaired. We plan to take everything very slow. Her first eye consultation is on June 9th. At that time we will decide if she is going to have the one eye removed and then sewn shut or what they will do. I am hoping for the other eye they would be able to take some of the scarring tissue out and maybe she will be able to see a little more. I do think she can see different shades of colors. So keep us in your thoughts.

Finally, I would like to thank Susannah Charleson for sponsoring Ginger, she has a long ways to go, but is ready for the challenge and has a lot of dogs and people rooting for her.

Thank you for checking her out and if you would like to meet her, she is available. She may have a while to stay in foster care, but she is looking for her forever home just like all of our other great dogs. Please contact placementatragom [dot] org if you would like to meet her.

At a Glance #08-249

Golden Retriever Born: February 2001
Female 75 lbs

Status: Deceased

Profile

Sponsored by: Susannah Charleson

 

 

Ginger was picked up on Saturday May 10, 2008 at 8 am and arrived in Apple Valley, MN around 11:00. Ginger had a 1:00 vet appt that we will talk about in a little bit, but first we wanted to get the first layer of stink, and I mean stink, off of her so we headed to the garage and started hosing her down with warm water and great shampoo. This lasted a good 30 minutes; I just wish the stink was gone.

Here is Ginger’s story:

Ginger is coming into RAGOM blind, we believe. It has not been confirmed but it will be soon enough. When she was a small pup, the kids at her house thought she needed company in the hog shed so they brought her a farm cat. The cat ended up scratching her eye so badly, she lost sight in it. A couple years later, she got a bad infection in the good eye and she went blind in this eye also.

I have included the first picture that I saw of her and fell in love, I am also including her before her bath picture and of course a few afterward shots. She is getting clean, but it is going to take time.

Ginger saw the vet and this vet appointment stressed her out so much that we decided to get her on a good dose of pain pills because she is experiencing pain from the diseased eye, her teeth are in horrible shape and some desperately need to be pulled, her nails curl every which way, and to top off everything she has two very painful ear hematomas.

Ginger spent a week at Stone Mountain Pet Resort, where they were able to start her pain medication right away and by the end of the week she had her first professional bath and brushing and her nails trimmed! I then went and picked her up at 9:00 this morning. I could not wait to get her back to the house and try all over again.

We arrived this morning at 10:15 and everything went great, she has now met everyone and no growling at all! It has been a wonderful meeting and we are working on getting her to know the house so she won’t bump into so many walls. She has already figured out the back yard and knows where the door is to go down the dog ramp!

Monday she is going to meet with the vet so we can talk about her teeth and get an estimate on getting those pulled and repaired. We plan to take everything very slow. Her first eye consultation is on June 9th. At that time we will decide if she is going to have the one eye removed and then sewn shut or what they will do. I am hoping for the other eye they would be able to take some of the scarring tissue out and maybe she will be able to see a little more. I do think she can see different shades of colors. So keep us in your thoughts.

Finally, I would like to thank Susannah Charleson for sponsoring Ginger, she has a long ways to go, but is ready for the challenge and has a lot of dogs and people rooting for her.

Thank you for checking her out and if you would like to meet her, she is available. She may have a while to stay in foster care, but she is looking for her forever home just like all of our other great dogs. Please contact placementatragom [dot] org if you would like to meet her.

Updates

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Ginger has come out of her shell so much and she is such a joy, I had to share these pictures that were taken of her today.  She finally figured out today that you chew on Marrow Bones.  We had to give her an old Marrow bone because the new frozen ones would just be to rich for her tummy.  She did great, she loved chewing on it and flipping it around in her mouth.  Of course she would lose it and have to find it with her paws but she always did.
 
Than after her very small meal, she was playing with a rope, I know it is not a great picture, but she is playing with it!  We never thought we would see that happen.  Last night Ginger actually ate about a cup of food, but by 2 this morning she was pretty sick and miserable and vomiting.  It just breaks my heart.  She so desperately wants to eat and than when we put it down the excitement leaves and she barely touches it or if she does she gets sick a few hours later.  Again this morning so ate and a few hours later, it came up, so we thought maybe a cup is too much food.  So tonight we tried a ¼ cup of kibble and a heaping 1/4 cup of chicken.  Is it enough for Ginger no, but at this point we are just trying to get her enough food to sustain her. 
 
I would be lying if I said I was not worried, because I am.  She just needs to eat and keep things down and we can keep her going and loving life a little longer. 
 
I got some really incredible news today that a very special Girl Scout troop from the Blaine/Circle Pines area has requested that they also be Gingers sponsors.  Can you imagine how special Ginger is to have two very special sponsors?  We are hoping that maybe Ginger will be feeling well enough so we can go and visit them in the future – how fun would that be?  You just never know!
 
So thank you so much to the Girl Scout troop – names will be coming soon – and her current sponsor Susannah Charleson, this means so much to Rick, Ginger and I!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Well the past few days Ginger has been throwing up, I kept thinking it was because she was not eating and so her tummy was full of acid.  But we decided to venture to a new vet and see what we could find out.
 
Dr. Larry did an awesome job, he made Ginger feel completely at ease and we were able to look into her ears, check her toes and look into her eyes before we heard any growls or snaps.  It was the most wonderful experience we have had with her.  I was just so impressed with Dr. Larry and how caring he was, I can not say enough!
 
Okay now for the bad news, we were hoping to have her eyes looked at on the 9th of June but it looks like that may not be an option.  See last week when we were able to do a blood test we found out that she had mild enzymes in her kidneys.  Well we checked again today and they are not any better even on all the meds she has been taking.  We also found out she has a lot of protein in her urine.  We also could not rule out Kidney Cancer, we could do an ultra sound to see, but that is not going to get us any more time.  Add to that, Ginger does not take medications easily or at all and you are in a lot of trouble.  We have a tough time getting her to eat so I know we can not keep forcing 8 to 10 pills down her twice to three times a day.
 
So what is the plan, we are going to just hang out with her until she decides it's time for her to cross the bridge.  So keep watching her, keep her in your prayers and give all your dogs a big hug for me!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Ginger wanted to send in one more update to show Susannah, Gingers very special sponsor, that she is doing okay and making the best of her other skills.   Ginger has now found that a dog bed is a nice place to sleep and its even better if there is a bone on the bed because than she actually plays with it!  This is really cute because she can not see the bone; she can only feel it so when she bats at it, half the time she misses!

Ginger still will not eat dog food and I am getting worried that she is losing a lot of weight fast, but we will just keep going and trying all kinds of combinations of food.  So please keep her in your prayers and know that we will continue to work with Ginger and make sure she knows she is loved and will never be hurt again.

Watch Ginger's YouTube video here!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dKjyFwFkOI

 

  

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Well Ginger is doing the best she can be at this point in her life.  The good news is she did go to the vet and had her teeth cleaned and they extracted two that were in very poor shape.  Than they flushed those very nasty ears.  As you can imagine she was not happy when she came out of anesthesia and scared everyone there.  However, once she was out of the doctors office she calmed back down and has been her angel self again. 
 
Ginger currently has issues with the Vet, I am not sure if it is this particular vet or what.  So we will be trying a new vet in a few weeks when we have to get some blood drawn for her recheck of her Kidney test.  Her blood work showed a mildly elevated enzyme level in her kidneys.  We are not sure if this has been a chronic problem or if it is something new so in a few weeks we will get that retested before she heads to the Eye Doctor.  I dread bringing her to any vet because she gets so stressed out and scared.  I just need Ginger to learn to trust and maybe she will be a happier girl. 
 
We know she is starting to feel comfortable around the house, she no longer falls down the one small step to the living room.  She actually gets on her elbows and feels for that step, it is really cute and I hope to get a picture of it.  She now has the lay of the land outside and knows exactly where she needs to turn to get into the side door.  She does not like it when the door has not been opened in time so she just goes in, she tends to get trapped if we are not fast enough, but she is getting the hang of that also.  This morning we were not quick enough so she started pawing at the door for someone to open it.  I know say it now, Ahhhhhh, how cute.
 
Ginger is currently on 8 pills and she hates everything we tried to hide them in.  So we had to go to the experts - that would be RAGOM fosters for idea's.  She now has 6 crushed meds in raw hamburger and 2 pills in pill pockets.  She is starting to figure out the pill pocket so we may need more raw hamburger, but at least she takes them this way.  She takes these pills twice a day for the next 10 to 20 days. 
 
We are currently treating her ear infections from the inside out since Ginger will not allow us to clean her ears.  I am not sure if it is a trust thing or they hurt.  Today was the first time she actually let me rub some Otomax on the outside of her ear.  She made no noise telling me to back off.  I was so excited; this is a huge step considering her ears have always been OFF LIMITs.  Oh I pray this is a step in the right direction.  We will try again tonight.
 
Ginger's toe nails did not get cut, which bums me out since she was under, but we will just do the best we can and start trying to cut them ourselves in another week or so.  Ginger is going to get another bath this weekend because she is still smelly and we need to get rid of that hog barn smell.  Don't get me wrong, she smells great compared to when we got her, but their is still an smell we need to deal with.
 
So our next step is to get the blood work on the kidneys done and than her medical eye appointment is on June 9th to decide if we are going to take the one eye out and if we can do cataract surgery for the other to give her a little more sight.
 
So keep watching for her, if you are interested in meeting her, I would love to talk to you, however keep in mind Ginger is going to need a very patient household, no small children and someone willing to go at Gingers pace for everything.  Ginger is a very loving dog, but when she feel threatened she will let you know she is scared.  But with respect, she is a great dog.