Hello, My name is Linda and I am a new member. Last week I rescued a GSP puppy from a petstore who purchases dogs from puppy mills. This dog is 4 months old and has been diagnosed with deep pyoderma and generalized demodicosis. The little guy has no hair on his head or face and basically no hair or small patches of very thin hair on is body. His entire body is coverd in pimple like bumps and he had many open wounds from constantly scratching. Along with that he has a yeast infection in both years and was undernourished. He must have been in a very small crate because when he sleeps he tucks his legs under him in a very strange position, which leads me and my vet to believe that he learned to do that from being kept in to tight quarters. He was in a horrible sad state when I rescued him, not able to even look at me and beside the skin problems he was filthy dirty. I am happy to say that a week later his dispositon has changed, he has become a very normal 4 month old puppy, he is very happy and constantly wags his tail. He is extemely good, is housebreaking easily and very attentive to me and my husband - he follows us around every where we go in the house. I don't know if this is a result of him just being so happy to have people love him or it is is natural personality. He loves being held and hugged and will stay in your arms for hours. My husband and I decided to make our home his forever home and will give him all the love, medical help and training that he needs to be a great adult dog. He joined our family of 3 GSP's and 2 Toy Manchester Terriers (two of the 5 were also rescues). As my dogs are truely memebers of my house and never seperated from each other - they have accepted him as a new brother and have been extremely nice to him - I assume they sense he is a puppy and of ill health. BTW I named him Murphy in honor of my first rescue dog that past 2 years ago, (Murphy was the name the shelter gave him, I renamed him Prince).
Our decision to keep Murphy was based on the fact that we already fell in love with him and we feel that with our love and the care of our vet, who has been wonderful to Murphy he will thrive. I am a member of a (un-named )GSP group, I believe that our decision to keep Murphy as our own may not of been what was expected of us, but we made arrangements to pay any money the group put out for Murphy. Sadly as a result of this decision I do not believe that Murphy will get any help from the group in way of information for needed supplies as well as advice on how to help him. My friend rescued a GSP 2 years ago with almost the same problem as Murphy and she suggested I join - as she said the members here offered great advice and information on issues that came up and were a wealth of information on where I could get supplies that he needs at a reasonable price.
Eventually when I figure out how to upload pictures of him I will be happy to do so if anyone wants to see him. But I can tell you that his first week here as been terrific and I see improvement in his skin and he as even started to get some peach fuzz back on his muzzle. It will be a long road for Murphy, but I know he will recover.
I don't want to be too long winded and I know this post is already too long to begin with, I Just signed up this morning and haven't had a chance yet to look around this site or to check out any past postings that could be helpful to Murphy I figured I could check things out later when I have time, I just wanted to introduce myself and Murphy before I head out to work. Thanks for reading this, if you have any questions or have had similar issues with a GSP or any breed dog, I would be happy to hear from you.
Linda (Murph's Mom) |