The story:
My husband and I always try not to have fur-friends living with us considering
our situation. We move a lot. But somehow, we generally end up taking care of one,
two or more cats. After our last cat's disappearance, we strictly told each other not to take in animals anymore because we don't have a permanent home and
it would be devastating for the animals to be carried around wherever we go.
Just think about their stress of learning new neighborhoods and
all the details that are attached to it.
We don't want those for them.
In November 2015, however, in a new place called Khirsu, a puppy (I can't figure out how old the puppy was) was dropped at the hospital campus
(Well, it's not actually a usual hospital with 24 hours service and admission.
It's just an OPD entertaining patients beyond office hours as emergency cases.
But it's quite a big campus since it has an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) center where students stay in their hostel, which is also located at the campus).
~Perci on her second day with us, sniffing around~
Anyway, who dropped the puppy was unknown.
Now, at the hospital campus were two mother dogs who just recently given 9 pups together.
These mums were actually living in someone's house. So when these pups were born,
the problem of taking care of them came up. When they became older, the 4 male pups were taken by various people. People around here prefer male dogs, even male child.
So, five female "unwanted" pups remained.
The owner, who didn't really care about dogs, sent her grandchildren to transfer the pups to the hospital campus. What prompt her to do this must be the fact that
the hospital has a kitchen for ANUM students and so kitchen equals food.
Her food problem would be solved if they'd stay here.
Then, she must have noticed our fondness for dogs (well, not just dogs, but she surely didn't know that). That could have added to the factor of leaving the puppies at the campus.
So, two mums and 5 female pups were already at the campus
when the abandoned puppy was dropped. Knowing lactating dogs,
they don't want any intruder to compete with food with them.
They have to ensure that their pups survive!
What happened then when the mums saw this abandoned puppy?
According to those who have witnessed the incident,
one mum was at the tail while the other was at the neck. They were as if trying
to pull the puppy apart. Loud shrill shrouded the entire campus. Even I who was at home at that time heard that cry. Help came but the puppy was already bitten under the neck.
My husband, who was doing OPD, came out to check out what just had happened.
And so the story was told. Talking about the incident were a few hospital and ANM center staffs.
Upon inquiry, nobody wanted to take the puppy in.
One of the center's cook even had a plan of leaving the bitten puppy at the Khirsu market.
Realizing not one would want to care for this pup, my husband carried her home asking my opinion of what to do with the puppy. Knowing myself, I couldn't say no!
So we took her in. We cleaned her wounds. Her left ear was torn a little.
Our plan was to keep her well, let her grow a little older and we will find her another home (a farm, if possible) since we only planned to stay at this place for a year and move someplace else again.
We named her Perci. It's short for Persimmons because the day we took her in, 20 kilos of persimmons was delivered at home (as ordered) from Pauri.
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| ~Abscess-forming cheek of Perci~ |
Her bite at the neck developed into an abscess after three days.
When it was ready to burst, my husband did an incision.
There was too much pus!
Geez, I have never seen so much pus in my entire life!
Anyway, she seemed better after that surgery. But the incised area expanded. Instead of a small cut, it became big...big enough to fit my two fingers inside. We thought of getting it stitched!
Then I remembered, Droolee, our cat who had an abscess we didn't even know.
Her cut was bigger than this and we did nothing. We just let it healed on its own.
After a few days, no one would even suspect that she had a cut in that area.
So we decided to let nature take its course.
True enough, a few days later (I think more than a week because she kept scratching it),
the cut was healed on its own.
Weeks later she suffered from an infection, which one, we didn't know.
She didn't eat anything for 3 days. She only kept drinking water and slept....most of the time!
We force-fed her with a gruel made of ripe papaya, dates, flax seeds, banana, apple, and cashew nuts. She liked it.
The fourth day she was perfectly all right! The infection passed without any "help" from antibiotics or any other medications. We trusted nature (as we often do) more than these things, except of course if the situation is fatal and only modern medicine can help.
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| ~Perci's Carpal flexural deformity~ |
Then she began limping. At least she looked like she was limping.
At first, we thought her limp was a footpad infection, which is quite common among puppies,
though we couldn't find any wrong in her foot or paws.
So we thought the limp will heal on its own. But a week passed and she still limped.
We didn't know what to do. Days passed without knowing what to do with her limp until the wrist got deformed. She walked as if she was scooping something. And then the right leg got expanded as if to level with the left leg. Instead of walking on paws, the wrist was also touching the ground.
Nobody around knows anything about her situation, too.
And as first-time carers of dogs, we didn't know much also.
So we turned to Google. Perci was actually suffering from carpal flexural deformity -a deformity, which is common among giant breeds, caused by too much protein in the diet and too much spending walking on smooth surfaces. Before we noticed her limp, we were giving her an egg a week since she's too young to be separated from her mum. She certainly needed her mum's milk. This and our floor surface must have contributed to her deformity.
So we splinted her left leg -a homemade light wood, shaped like a splint. I wrapped it with cotton, taped it with surgical tape, and placed it on the back of her left leg and finally tied with a gauze. She tried to remove it many times. I also kept putting it back again. Then, the idea of taking her around the campus right after she's splinted worked. She forgot about it. At least for a while. So while at home, I kept an eye on her.
The splint was on her for just a day and a night. After that, her deformity got resolved....so quickly. It was amazing. We also stopped giving her egg.
With all the things happened we even forgot the idea of giving her away. My husband and I talked about it, though. And I ended up crying. The thought of giving her away was unbearable. "She will never get papaya, apple, grapes, dates, tomatoes, cashew milk, etc. anymore." I murmured.
So one day we decided to keep her. When she misbehaved (from our own perspective, of course), we thought of finding someone to take her in. Then again, we changed our mind.
When she kept waking us up at night because she wanted to go out to do number one or two
(We made a blunder by not training her to do them in the bathroom -water problem is heavy here, not an excuse though), I get pissed off and I complained.
Then again, we thought of giving her away.
Every time we asked ourselves what to do when we leave this place always gave us the go signal to give her away. But then again, we changed our mind and we kept telling ourselves "we'll see".
To be continued.......
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