Walker the old, deaf dog
The
request came in over Labor Day weekend, in an e-mail titled
"Got Space??" A rural shelter was asking if we had
room for a dog "who is really sick. He has cancer and
his anal glands are bad, too, but he is still up and moving
around. He is 5 years old though he looks a lot older."
The dog had been found a year earlier, wandering in the mountains, thin and sick and hungry. The shelter staff named him "Walker" because he's a Walker Hound, a type of American Foxhound.
His list of problems was a long one: exploding anal sacs, chronic and severe ear infections, huge nipples. .. and, oh yes, he wasn't neutered and peed on everything.
For all these reasons, the shelter considered Walker unadoptable. They were unable to care for him any longer, and his medical needs far exceeded their limited budget. Rather than let him suffer further, they were planning to euthanize him.
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Images open in a pop-up window
We agreed to take him in, thinking this poor dog would be a hospice case. We figured we'd get him whatever medical care was possible and provide him with a warm and loving home for his final months.
Even so, we were shocked when we saw Walker for the first time. He had a huge hole in his rear end, as if something had been eating away his flesh. His ears were so painful he yiked at the touch. We drove him straight from the shelter to our vets in Helena.
It turned out that all the medical problems were treatable, either through surgery or expensive medication. Once we got all those cleared up, we found out about Walker's real problem: he's mentally handicapped.
He has no learning ability, can't be housetrained, and is unable to learn basic commands like 'sit' and 'stay.' No amount of correction could keep him from peeing at will inside the house. .. and even inside his crate. He has never mastered going through an open door and often ends up behind the door, not in front of it.
So we sighed and reluctantly set up an outdoor pen for him. He gets to roam the 5-acre dog paddock during the day and is put up in his pen at night, where he sleeps in a heated igloo.
