Saturday

I really don't look forward to Saturday, we are way too busy. Today we had to take the kids to the Home Depot Workshop, go grocery shopping, and buy paint (no party this weekend, YAY!!). We also had to take the dog to get shots and get registered with the city which you have to do at the animal shelter downtown. After waiting two hours in line my dog finally left with shots, tags, registration, and a micro chip. Oscar and I left with sunburns. I think they make you come down there on purpose. There is no reason why you can't register your dog online. They want you to come down to see all the animals in the shelter that have either been rescued from an abusive home or found wondering the streets half starved. They know you can't leave without a new puppy so here is Charlie Pride. His official name is Charlie but the kids thought he needed a nick name, you know something for mom to scream at him when he pees on the carpet, so they named him Little Boy Charlie Pride or Charlie Pride for short.

We are having trouble getting a good picture of him because he is too sick to stand right now.

We chose Charlie because he was so small and scared. We thought we could bring him home and nurse him back to health but we were wrong. As we were leaving the shelter the tech that was bringing him out said she thinks she heard him cough. She told us (after we paid and registered and microchiped the dog) that it was probably a cold, but it may be Kennel Cough, which is like very bad pneumonia for dog and it is very contagious to other dogs. She told us we could choose another dog if we wanted or we had ten days to return Charlie if we take him, we of course took him. Oscar called the vet to let them know we were on our way and we rushed over. The dog was fine when we left the shelter but while we were at the vet he got much worse. They did a lot of blood work and test and we found out not only did he have Kennel Cough he also had intestinal parasites, he had been vaccinated way too early with too high of a dose and it was nearly killing him, he has distemper, he's anemic, and he was very malnourished and they only gave him a ten percent chance of survival. They basically told us not to spend anymore money on the dog (after we had already spent $300 at the vet and clinic) unless it was for euthanasia. They gave him a double dose of antibiotic and sent us home with a lot of meds and told us to pray that he is comfortable. By the time we left the vet Charlie was in respiratory distress so when we got home I gave him all his meds, fed him his dog food that requires a prescription (because he's starving to death) and bathed him twice. He was still very uncomfortable breathing and winced in pain when we touched him so I gave him a breathing treatment and some Tylenol and let him go to sleep. When I went in to check on him at midnight he was still to week to get up but his tail was wagging like crazy and his eyes were huge with excitement. After a little more food and water he was able to stand for a few minutes before collapsing in the water bowl. I can only feed him two or three table spoons at a time because he isn't used to food and he'll get sick and the get dehydrated so when I feed him he licks the bowl completely cleaned and whines for more, it's so pitiful, but he does get to eat every two hours so it's not too bad.

He is so very cute and my husband won't even let me spend the night in the bathroom with him, but that's okay, Sarah's sleeping just outside the bathroom door so he won't be scared anymore. He's the new babe in our house and He's definitely a keeper!

PS: I just want to say I hope this doesn't discourage anyone from ever adopting a pet from a shelter, it is always a good idea, We just happened to have gotten a puppy that was fine at the shelter and got really sick in the next few hours. Most rescue stories are not usually this eventful.