Keisha the old, three-legged dog
Sweet
old Keisha was found wandering by Missoula Animal Control,
along with two buddies of hers. They were taken to the shelter,
and their family notified. The dogs had a habit of wandering
off and being picked up by Animal Control.
All three dogs were pretty well along in years, but Keisha was the oldest at 16 years of age. She had lost a rear leg a few years before. We were told Keisha was left tied up outside, and somehow fell off a ledge, and the tie-out chain had wrapped itself around her leg, cutting off the blood flow. By the time her family came back, the leg was too far gone and had to be amputated.
When the family came to collect the dogs, they told Animal Control that Keisha was the “ringleader” of the trio and they'd decided to leave her there to be euthanized. They went out the door with the other two dogs.
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Images open in a pop-up window
A few minutes later they had second thoughts and came back. No, they didn't want to take Keisha. They just wanted her collar back. Apparently the collar was worth keeping but the dog wasn't. So they drove off with two dogs and one extra collar, leaving this 16-year old sweetheart behind to die at the shelter.
That's when the folks at Missoula Animal Control called us. We drove in to town to get Keisha. The first thing we told her was, “Young lady, we'll take you to PetsMart and you can have any collar you want!”
Back at the ranch, she surprised us with a playful energy remarkable for a dog of her advanced years. Keisha loves to play what we call the “hand game:” We reach out with a hand and try to grab one front paw, then the other, in rapid succession while Keisha moves her paws around to keep us from getting them. At the same time, she reaches out and tries to grab our hand in her mouth. It's a flurry of hands, paws and dog mouth, darting back and forth.
At bed time, when we put the dogs up in their crates for the night, she loves to sneak into another dog's crate and see if we notice. She usually does this to one of the blind dogs, as if she wants to pull a surprise on them as well as us.
She suffers from hip displaysia in her remaining leg, and sometimes walks low to the ground on that leg … but even so, she'll scamper around like a youngster. We watch her scoot around and marvel at how fast she can go on three very old legs.
We don't know how long she'll be with us, but for the moment, Keisha is thoroughly enjoying her golden years here.
