Danny

Danny Boy Arrives in Seneca Falls, NY 8-20-05

Yesterday Danny Boy arrived in the evening and was met by Deb and Cindy in Harrisburg,Pa. They took the little man home and bathed him and fed him and settled him for the night. Then they transported him to near Scarnton ,Pa where I met them. Danny had already bonded some with them and wanted to follow them around. He is a smart little man and knows a good thing when he has it!!! They also had bonded with him..I saw the tears as we drove away. :((

He is a gentle, sweet 6 yr old black miniature poodle. He is greying around his muzzle, and his years in the mill have taken there toll on his little body. He has had some kind of significant abuse that has left him with some spinal damage and also incontinence . He has no control of either his stool or his urine. He will need a very special forever home due to this . But I can promise you that once you have been held in the magic of his gaze, you would climb a mountain of thorns barefoot for him. He is so innocent and undeserving of this sentence. The good thing is he is not aware he is incontinent. His little male personality still marks ever blade of grass and assumes the position to poop. I have sworn the other pups to secrecy, they are not to tell him that nothing comes out..as it has already fallen from his broken little body .

We are ready to make him at home here. I have crib mattress covers under the blankets on my loveseats and a special pad on my bed. He will wear belly bands here and diapers for bedtime or visits away from home. When I got home I did take a little nap and he asked to join us on the bed. So I showed him about the ramp, he slept with his new foster family for half an hour till I got up.

These are pictures Sharla sent prior to him coming here. But they do show his sweet face..and eyes!!!

He is a gem and a keeper!!! If you are that special person that can accept him like he is, please push that adopt button. But also know that it is very unlikely he will improve. I am taking him to the vets this week, but he has had a good work up prior to coming to PMR and it is considered a permanent injury.

If you would like more information about little Danny Boy, please e-mail me at cascade@lynnet.org

Eileen and the Full House in Seneca Falls,NY

Danny’s Story –

Danny is a 6 year old black male miniature poodle with a neurological problem. He is the sweetest dog you could ever ask to meet. With all he has been through, he is a little shy, but it is so obvious that all he wants is to give love and be loved.

Danny belonged to a backyard breeder in the Mobile Alabama area. He was not very well taken care of and a local all breed rescue talked the woman into surrendering four poodles to her – Danny was one of them. He was covered in fleas and had about four inches of matted hair all over him. He smelled awful. He looked awful. The rescue shaved all his hair off and treated him for the fleas. At least he felt better now. They got him neutered and got the vet to do blood work on him because he "dripped" urine all the time. The vet diagnosed it as a urinary tract infection and sent him home with some antibiotics.

The rescue group called me because I was poodle rescue to see if I could find a home for a couple of the poodles. I said OK, a transport was arranged, and they sent Danny and his meds and another poodle to Louisiana for me to help find homes.

Danny smelled awful and still needed to have his feet and face shaved when I got him. I could see how long the hair was and how matted he had been. He was submissive and easy to shave and bathe. He seemed scared because his tail was down and his rear kind of hunched over. He did continue "drip" urine, so I kept him on his meds for a few more days.

After about three or four days with me, he had been on the medication for a week and should have shown improvement. I called my vet who said to take him in and he would check him out. My vet did an ultrasound to look for bladder stones and a urinalysis and found no stones and no infection. He diagnosed Danny with an incontinence problem and gave me a medicine to give to him. He said it would take a week to ten days to work and if this medicine didn’t work, that there were two other medicines we could try.

I started him on the medicine right away and gave it to Danny religiously for ten days and found no improvement. I also noticed that Danny was no longer scared of us, but that he never seemed to wag his tail. I also found that he would poop in his ex-pen every day even though he would assume "the position" when I took him outside. I started paying more attention and found that many times, nothing would come out when he acted like he wanted to poop. It also felt like his tail had been broken because it didn’t want to go up and his rear end really slopped down more than normal dogs. Yet he is mobile enough in the back legs to jump or climb over a three foot "kid gate".

I took Danny back to the vet to get him to look at his rear more closely this time. The vet determined that his pelvis would move, actually separate when he pushed on it. He said that this is not normal and should be painful to Danny, but it is not. He could pinch his tail and his rectum with hemostats and Danny did not feel that either. The vet thinks that it is an old injury to the spine that has made Danny have no feeling or control in the rear. He thinks he was probably kicked or dropped and now has this neurological problem. He thinks that since the injury is so old, there is nothing that can be done to bring back the feeling or control to the nerves. Danny will have to wear diapers or live outside or somewhere like a screened porch where it doesn’t matter if he "drips".

I find this very discouraging to my small rescue which has such limited space. I am at work at least ten hours a day which means that I can’t leave Danny in a diaper that long because his skin would get irritated. It is so hot outside in Louisiana in the day, I can’t leave Danny out in that heat. My mission is to save them, rehabilitate them, and find them loving homes. It will take a long time to find Danny a home which will stop me from saving others. Plus, I am not home during the day and I’m not really set up to care for him properly. He would be great if he had a shady screened porch in the day and could be brought in with a diaper at night or if he could run around a shop ( like a grooming shop) or something where his little "drips" wouldn’t be a big deal or if someone who was home wanted to keep him diapered and change him fairly often…..

I have written my rescue groups network and heard of other dogs like Danny. One group suggested acupuncture, and I am going to talk to my vet about that possibility. One group told me that it took them seven months, but they actually found a wonderful family to adopt their little dog with a similar problem. I know that there are angels out there who do take on these special needs dogs. I have cried and I have prayed. I don’t want to let Danny down. He is such a sweet poodle. He just wants to be loved.

I am writing you to see if you can help me find an angel for Danny.

Thank you,

Sharla Roussel Creole Poodle Rescue

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