texas tripawd adapting to the oregon coast

Dudley came to me via transport the beginning of September.  He was a dog that I didn’t know I needed or wanted.  July 5th I lost my 12 year old GSD due to massive spinal fusion and a mass in his abdomen.  It was quick when Kota lost his back legs and I knew that he wouldn’t be able to continue life in a way that would be comfortable for him.  I was prepared for it all, I bought a wheel chair and various mobility assisted devices for him when I had the money to do it.  My neighbor built us a little ramp for Kota up to the entrance of my trailer.  I had multiple rugs for helping out with footing and a fancy 10 lb wool stuffed futon style dog bed for his arthritic hips.  We were doing acupuncture treatments on a 3 week basis for the past 2 years.  He was on rimadyl and a Chinese herbal blend for his arthritis pains, etc.

When I lost Kota, I started poking around searching for another dog on Petfinder and other sites.  I wanted to adopt locally and had found an older female dog who was good with cats and kids (I have 2 nephews who are 6 and 10 and an 18 year old cat who is streetwise but has vision loss).  The female dog I was interested in adopting found a better suited home for her…and I continued to search, not expecting to find the perfect fit.

Lo and behold, this dog popped up in my search and I didn’t want to consider him.  He was all the way in Texas but his adoption fee had been covered and the only fee that needed to be paid was his transport fee.  I resisted…but he drew me in with his story.  He was good with cats, kids and other dogs (all true)  and had the quirky happy go lucky personality I wanted.  And he was a tripawd!!!  People were like “why would you willingly adopt a dog with 3 legs????”  For me, this was a bonus.  He is 4 years old, smaller than my 110 lb GSD was, and could walk with my parents who are in their mid 70’s without dragging them down the road.

We did it…adopted him with a ton of communication between his foster mom and the rescue facility.  He stress panted for 2 days straight in the transport van with a bunch of barking puppies.  When the van showed up for the drop off in Portland, I patiently waited for the 5 other people to get their cute little puppies and then stepped forward.  “So I’m here for Dudley”, I said.  He was the one dog who looked completely pathetic in his crate behind the driver’s seat.  Fortunately the driver of the transport van was the husband of the president of the rescue we got him from and he took the time to hoist Dudley up into the back of the car as well as give us all of the info on Dudley.  He had known Dudley since Dudley has been rescued and let us know how sensitive he was.  Dudley hadn’t pooped in the two days he had been in transit and had stress panted all the way from Texas.  We had to do another 3 hour drive home to the Oregon Coast from Portland and he was not cool with it.  Fast forward to that afternoon and he finally pooped outside etc.  I left the night lights on for him and hoped for a less traumatic morning the next day

My parents had friends who were visiting for the day who stopped by.  I brought Dudley over to see if he would be ok meeting people and that dog completely transformed from a withdrawn rescue dog to the happiest thing ever.  He came over to meet them and immediately went up to my dad, who had salami in hand.  Tail wagging and full on “hello, I’m Dudley.  Nice to meet you”  He started farting as he ran up to my dad to get some salami and we quickly ushered him outside, just in case.

We live just across the road from the most wonderful single lane road that disappears back into the woods.  It sits right next to a slough off the Yaquina River and has so many smells to be smelled.  Dudley is a “Houston Brown Dog” which is a mix of many different breeds, super mutt, if you will.  He definitely has Boxer, Basset Hound, Pitbull and Lab as well as several other breeds.  He is a scent hound breed and was ecstatic with all of the smells that were so new.  Fortunately for us, there is only one set of neighbors right now who live back there and they are amazing and dog people.  This means that we can let dogs off leash past a certain point and not have to worry about cars.  I keep a close eye on traffic down that road and communicate with the current neighbors about what cars belong to them  They tend to host people for overnights at their house but they know I walk down that area and make sure their guests know to watch for dogs.