Anna
She
arrived one afternoon huddled in the back of a pick-up truck.
She was frightened, filthy and starving. A neighbor had found
her in the bottom of the industrial-sized dumpster at the
county dump. She had fallen in searching for food. He was
about to throw his trash in when he looked over the rim and
saw her there, eight feet down. She looked up at him, trembling
with fear. Our neighbor lowered himself into the dumpster,
and with the help of another person, pulled the dog out. Not
sure what to do with her, he brought her to us.
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She was truly bone-thin. Even under her thick, matted fur, we could feel literally every bone. There was so little flesh under her skin we could stick our fingers between her ribs. This dog had clearly been on her own, wandering the countryside and fending for herself, for a very long time.
She is, in fact, a very small Great Pyrenees. We think she must have come from a backyard breeder, the victim of inbreeding and chronic malnutrition. At 56 pounds and only 18 inches at the shoulder, she is a fraction of the size a Great Pyrenees should be. She's had recent litters before, judging from her nipples, and was in heat when she came.
We named this poor thing Anna. We spent more than an hour with scissors, garden shears and electric clippers trying to cut the knotted, dirty mats from her fur.
The next day we took Anna to professional groomers to finish the job. Because of the condition of her fur, the groomers had no choice but to give her the canine equivalent of a crew-cut.
Her next stop was our vets, where she had a complete medical exam and blood work. Despite her overall appearance, she turned out to be in reasonably good health, with only one infection needing treatment. Our vets believe she's probably three or four years old.
She did not know what a leash was, hadn't tasted a dog cookie before, and was never inside a house as far as we could tell. You can just see in her face that she's had a very hard life, and has rarely if ever known love or a kind hand. So we are going through all the basics, starting with housetraining. She does enjoy playing with the other dogs, but after about 2 minutes of rough-housing, she tires quickly.
Anna doesn't really display affection like her new buddies -- no big wet kisses or running up to get a hug -- but she will quietly press herself in against our chests when we kneel on the floor. When she gets excited and joyful, she winds herself up like a spring and then skitters around the house, hindquarters low, head up, whirling across the floor and up and over the furniture. Then suddenly -- poof! -- it's over and she's tuckered out. She has two speeds, on and off.
With plenty of love she is beginning to blossom.
