Thank you, Sponsors!

Thanks to a gift in memory of Mickey, Tess and all of the puppies have been fully sponsored. The sponsorships raised $1,002 to go toward the medical bills of this family. The $2 is from a little boy who gave his mother two one dollar bills to enclose with her check. Isn’t that great? We appreciate the show of support. The sponsorships really make a difference and today we have a very good example.

This morning the pups went to the shelter to see Dr. Stone for their fortnightly checkup. Overall the puppies are improving. They are all gaining weight. Donald and Daisy’s carpal joints are straightening. Their skin looks better and they’re getting hair. However, the skin scraping showed that there are still live demodectic mites. The conventional treatment for demodectic mange is to use a drug called Ivermectin over a long period of time to kill the mites and a series of baths, one every three days, for the duration of the treatment. This is a time-tested treatment plan for cases like these. Ivermectin is a relatively inexpensive drug and the pups have been on this therapy for a month. It works, but it’s slow and labor intensive.

There’s a drug called ProMeris^® that has been approved for the treatment of demodectic mange and would probably work faster than Ivermectin. The problem is that ProMeris is expensive—too expensive for the Shelter to buy it on a regular basis. But because of the sponsorships we were able to buy the doses we need to treat all four pups as well as their mother. Thanks to Caring Hands Animal Hospital in Urbana, CCHS was able to buy the doses they needed at the lowest price.

Sponsors, you can be proud that your generosity has made a difference to these animals. They’d give you all a lick on the nose if they could! Thank you.

Sponsor One Of The Family

The medical expenses for the Redbone Hound family is really starting to add up. Every day each of the five puppies and their mom is getting Ivermectin, an antiparasitic, to kill the mange mites; two doses of Cefalexin, an antibiotic, to treat their skin infection; a vitamin tablet and food supplements to improve their nutrition. They also get bathed three times a week using three different types of medicated shampoos. The pups will receive this treatment for at least a month. It costs CCHS $75 per month per puppy to buy these drugs and supplies. In addition, the three pups with hyperextended carpals are getting their legs wrapped at a cost of $4.10 per leg. Since they have to be rewrapped three times a week for at least three weeks, it’s going to cost $73.80 per pup just for the wrapping materials. Tess, their mom, has heartworms and will be treated at CCHS before going up for adoption. Those drugs will cost $225 in addition to the $75 for the drugs she gets to treat her mange.

CCHS has made a commitment to these animals and will see the treatments through to the end. Several people have asked me how they could help these pups. By sponsoring one of the pups or their mom for all or part of a month you can help defray these extraordinary costs. It’s easy, just choose an animal and click the Donate! button next to the picture. CCHS is an open admissions animal shelter that accepts all owner-surrendered animals regardless of their health or condition.

Daisy Demodectic Mange Skin Infection Enlarged Lymph Nodes Hyperextended Carpals
Donald Demodectic Mange Skin Infection Enlarged Lymph Nodes Hyperextended Carpals
Mickey Demodectic Mange Skin Infection Enlarged Lymph Nodes Hyperextended Carpals
Minnie Demodectic Mange Skin Infection Enlarged Lymph Nodes
Pluto Demodectic Mange Skin Infection Enlarged Lymph Nodes
Tess Demodectic Mange Heartworm Disease

Lucille’s Pups – Final Week

Lucille’s pups are seven weeks old and we’re starting to get them ready to return to the Shelter for adoption. We’ll be getting spay/neuter surgery dates for them soon and that will determine when they go back. If you have been following the litter here or PuppyCam and are interested in adopting one of these puppies, call the Champaign County Humane Society (CCHS) and they can fill you in on the details. It’s possible to arrange to meet the pups here, before they go back to the Shelter.

Last night the pups had their second set of vaccinations. Each puppy got vaccinated for Bordatella (“kennel cough”) and they each got a combination vaccine called DHLPPC (Distemper, Leptospirosis, Hepatitis, Parainfluenza, Parvo virus, & Corona virus). We already did one set of vaccinations a couple of weeks ago, so this was their second set.

It’s important for the puppies to be vaccinated before they go back to the Shelter. It keeps each one of them healthy and also insures that they do not carry something back with them to infect other animals in the building. When we started fostering twenty years ago it was not uncommon for puppies to get seriously ill while they waited to be adopted. The current medical program has all but eliminated that risk, and now the worst we usually see is minor sniffles or stomach upsets.

CCHS takes the health of their animals very seriously. They’ve made a commitment to a high level of care by having a full-time veterinarian on staff as well as a dedicated group of veterinary technicians.

I mentioned the costs involved in raising healthy pups a few months ago just before Daisy’s litter left, but I think it’s interesting to look at the costs again. The costs in the chart below are taken from our own vet bills for the last year. They represent what it would cost to provide the medical care these puppies will have before they go up for adoption.

	Retail Value	Times	Total
Bordatella Vaccine	$15.00	2	$30.00
DHLPPC Vaccine	$17.50	2	$35.00
Fecal Flotation Test	$15.00	2	$30.00
Worming Medication	$15.00	2	$30.00
Spay Surgery	$175.00	1	$175.00
Microchip ID	$65.00	1	$65.00

That comes to $365 per puppy. Add in food costs and you wind up with a bit over $380 per pup or $2,660 for the litter. If a puppy gets sick or needs treatment for fleas or something the cost goes even higher.

We'd like to raise the money to pay for the last set of vaccinations. That's Bordatella and DHLPPC for each pup at a cost of $32.50 each. Our goal is to raise $228 to cover the cost of the vaccinations we gave last night. You can help by clicking the Donate button to make a donation to cover part of the expense. If we go over this goal the money will be applied toward the first set of vaccinations and the wormings we have already done. 

Thank you!

Good News and Bad News

First the good news. Daisy, our last foster mom, will be going home today. Her new family is excited to be getting her and we’re very confident this is a great match. Her adopter has been out to visit several times and Daisy went on a field trip to her new home yesterday. Later today Daisy will have her “go home” physical and go to her new family this afternoon.

The bad news is that a routine screening has shown that Daisy has heartworms. As their name implies, heartworms live inside the dog’s heart. Needless to say, this is a serious condition that will have to be treated.

Every dog adopted from CCHS is screened for heartworms. Blood is drawn and examined under a microscope. The microfilaria could be seen swimming in Daisy’s blood indicating she was infected. The worms are transferred from one dog to another via mosquito bites. Left unchecked, the worms take up residence in the heart and will eventually cause severe complications. The disappointing thing is that heartworm disease can be easily prevented by giving the dog a pill once a month. Once infected, however, treatment is not so easy.

Sometime next week Daisy will be given injections with a drug to kill the adult heartworms already in her heart. As the worms die they will break down into pieces and eventually get eliminated from her body. The problem is that if the breakdown is too fast the pieces are too large and can cause blockages in her circulatory system. So for five weeks or so after the treatment Daisy will have to be kept as quiet as possible. After that period she will be treated again, this time to kill the baby heartworms circulating in her blood.

Our house is anything but a quiet place and Daisy’s adopters have agreed to take her now and care for her during these treatments. The plans for enrolling her in dog training class have had to be put on hold as has scheduling her for spay surgery.

Three weeks ago I wrote A Healthy Investment detailing the type of medical care CCHS provides for the dogs they take in. They wind up dealing with heartworm positive dogs several times each year. At a private clinic the cost of the treatment would be close to $1,000. The fact that they are willing to do these treatments shows how seriously they take the health of the homeless animals they take into the Shelter.

If you have a dog, please be sure to have it tested for heartworms and be sure to keep up with the preventative medication. This is a disease that does not have to happen.

A Healthy Investment

Last night we were giving the pups their second dose of DHLPPC vaccines (“puppy shots”) and it got me thinking about how much the Shelter invests in the animals they take in.

The Champaign County Humane Society (CCHS) has an excellent medical program. They have a full time veterinarian on staff who is a specialist in Shelter Medicine and is an excellent surgeon. CCHS has its own medical lab and surgical suite.

We assume the mothers and puppies we take into foster care have had no medical attention before their original owners turned them into the Shelter. It's rare that the mothers had any prenatal care, and most of them have never been vaccinated, dewormed, or treated for other parasites such as fleas. It falls to the Shelter to provide the care necessary to be sure they have healthy animals available for adoption.

Here’s a summary of the health care CCHS provides for every puppy they take in. I looked up the retail costs from the vet bills for our own animals over the last year.

	Retail Value	Times	Total
Bordatella Vaccine	$15.00	2	$30.00
DHLPPC Vaccine	$17.50	2	$35.00
Fecal Flotation Test	$15.00	2	$30.00
Worming Medication	$15.00	2	$30.00
Spay Surgery	$175.00	1	$175.00
Microchip ID	$65.00	1	$65.00

That comes to $365 per puppy. Add in food costs and you wind up with a bit over $380 per pup. If a puppy gets sick or needs treatment for fleas or something the cost goes even higher.

If you picked up a “free” puppy from someone giving them away in a parking lot or through the newspaper that’s what you would have to pay to get the same care CCHS provides. I didn’t account for “Office Call” charges, either.

The adoption fee for puppies five months old or younger is $100. You get a healthy, neutered companion and you have money left over to buy a crate and your first training classes.