My Florida Dobermanns

As I was getting ready to leave for work this morning, I heard on the Martha Stewart channel 112 on Sirius radio that Tracie Hotchner will be speaking about a travesty in the mortgage crisis.  Did you know that when people are losing their homes, many of them leave their dogs/cats behind in the abandonned structures?  They end up starving or trying to eat the wood paneling and whatever else they can pull from the walls or floors of the houses they are trapped in.  Tracie mentioned in her 15-minute segment on The Morning Show that this is prevalent in Chicago, but is happening all over the country in record numbers.  You can listen to her show tonight at 8 pm for the entire story.

Bouchard was one of those left-behind and forgotten dogs.  His people moved out and left him in the backyard of his home in 2003.  He barked and barked and barked, which is how the Orange county Animal Services got involved and found him.

Bouchard had a baseball-sized bruise on his side, which I assume came from the dark side of human beings who were bothered by him.  His whole body was abused in one form or the other.  His bottom front teeth are nothing but nubs due to his trying to chew out of his containment.  Was it a chain?  Was it chainlink fence?  I don’t know, but his teeth do.

He was horrified to have anyone even think of touching his paws.  He’d hide them by tucking them underneath his body, and when it thundered, he’d curl up in a corner to hide.

My friend and co-rescuer who pulled Bouchard from the shelter and brought him down to meet me halfway from Orange to Broward county asked the shelter if they were sure THIS was the dog because he was so emaciated.  The shelter actually neutered this boy in his condition.

This is what he looked like when I got him from the shelter in Orange county, Florida.  He still had tape fragments from his ear crop sticking ot his ears.  Thank God they got to him when they did.  He wasn’t in any shape to last much longer.

He was so thin, this 18-inch collar fit him like a necklace.

Bouchard couldn’t hold water.  As fast as he drank it, the water came right through.  I kept him in an ex-pen with covers on the floor and everyday I came home from lunch, I’d change his covers.

We got to a point where he could hold it till we ran to the back door, but he couldn’t make it all the way, though he tried, the movement made him let loose.

Sooner or later, there came a day when he did hold it, and did make it out that back door.  Also, finding the right antibiotic to put him on helped.  His body was adjusting, but due to the fact that this happened during his growth stage, his back legs are formed sort of like a duck’s where they stick out to the sides and he waddles around the back yard.  He’s a fast waddler, but it is a noticeably unique gait.  At obedience practice, I always get asked, “What’s wrong with his legs?”

Well, Bouchard is a happy boy now.  I had placed him twice, and he came back twice.  He’s got some piss and vinegar in him, and he’s a little reactive due to his former circumstance, so he’s got issues that only his Dobermom can understand.  How cruel it was to abandon this boy.  Though, through all the neglect, he came out of it with a light in his heart.

I think of all the other dogs out there trapped in abandonned homes, and wonder if they will be so lucky.  So please, keep your eyes and ears opened.  Maybe you will be the one to save a pet trapped in an abandonned home in your neighborhood.

Helen