Sponsored by:

Seth, Sara, Sam, and Lucy

 Happy Valentines, Byron and Larry

Please welcome Oscar to his new life as a RAGOM dog.  We’ve had Oscar in our house for just a few days but he has proved to be an absolute delight.  Here is what we know about his past:

Oscar is a golden doodle, about 2 years old, and weighs about 50 lbs. (he needs a little fattening up).  He has lived with several families.  His last family surrendered him to a Humane Society in Missouri because they felt that he was just too big for their residence.

We don’t know (and Oscar isn’t telling) what happened in his past life but our guess is that at one point he was hit by a car and sustained several injuries that were never treated.  His left front shoulder and elbow don’t work right and he walks on three legs – holding his left front leg in front of him (see picture).  His upper and lower jaw is also slightly out of alignment (probably from the same accident)   He carries his left leg in front of him like he is getting ready to give a salute.  He has some range of motion and control of the front leg and will sometimes use it for balance when he is trying to get from 0 to 60 mph on our wood floors. 

We took Oscar to see Dr. Jean yesterday for a complete physical.  After taking x-rays of his shoulder and elbow and elbow she will be consulting with RAGOM’s Orthopedic Surgeon to see what, if anything, can be done about these old injuries.  There will be more to come on this in the days ahead.  The good news is that Oscar passed the rest of the exam with flying colors – no parasites, clean ears, and clean teeth.  It looks like he picked up a case of kennel cough either in the shelter or on the transport to Minnesota and he is on a 10 day regimen of antibiotics to take care of that.

In the course of a few days he has totally won us over.  We’ve never had a dog settle in with us so quickly.  He met our resident dog (a 12 year old senior) with no problems.  They already share dog beds and attention.  We haven’t yet brought the toys out so that is yet to be tested.  We have two 11 year old cats who actually run the household and he has done just fine with them.  He is curious but backs off when they hiss or give him “the look”.  They will now lie down within a foot of Oscar when he is sleeping.  We were told that he is good with kids but we’ll need to test that out in the next weeks.

Oscar is a cuddle-bug.  It’s clear that he has been well treated in his young life and has no fear of humans.  He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body and he is amazingly gentle.  Even in the recent frigid weather he jumps for joy when we are getting ready to go outside.  We suspect that he can move pretty fast on his three legs outside but it has been too icy to test that out yet.  He appears to be completely housebroken and sleeps through the night on a dog bed next to our bed.

We’ll do another update shortly as we learn more about this sweet boy.