We immediately had her vetted at my Hospital, EVC.

 

Her weight was ~46 kgs(101.2 pounds). She is skinny. Quite. I would like to see her closer to 112-115 pounds with better weight and muscle mass. She was a bit wiggly on the scale.

 

She is excellent with all humans!

 

She needs manners – not her fault. She will receive structure, consistency, and routine now.

 

She was indifferent to the clinic cat – she lived with a cat/dogs & she was overstimulated by most of the dogs she saw. She was wanting to see them!

 

Considering that she was in a pound for almost 6 weeks, travelled for 6 hours, and went to the vet, her being overstimulated was perfectly fine.

 

She is a smaller yet extremely well-proportioned, heavily marked fawn mantle Great Dane. Her headpiece alone tells me that there are some great lines in her pedigree somewhere.

I wish she had a chip, maybe we could have done some investigating. I have reached out to quite a few of my show mentor contacts anyway…just to see.

 

Once a dog is backyard-bred, one of the first things lost is headpiece. Her headpiece is lovely. She may well have been bred by a r/q show breeder and ended up in the wrong hands. Yet, most r/q show breeder’s microchip. Of course, there was no contract handed over with her, when she was dumped at the pound.

 

She is now microchipped to us, and shall always have us on her side!

 

I can confirm that I do believe her age to be perhaps a wee bit older than 18 months, yet no more than 2. She has had a very tough life to date, and that also may make her look a smidge older. She was kept outdoors, and never had her nails trimmed, per what we have been told. We had them done when she was spayed.

 

She also has the masking gene which as a Great Dane throws people off, and they think the dog is much older. This is, as stated many times over the years a genetic thing just as in humans. Premature greying is very common.

 

Her spay was on October 26th, and her incision has healed well, so we took out her staples.

 

She was healthy enough for her booster of DHPP – we did rabies while she was in the shelter on October 26th.

 

We also gave her Lepto, Lyme, and Bordetella per our protocols. We do not cut corners.

 

I wanted Nexgard for fleas/ticks and Interceptor Plus for heartworm preventative, and as an excellent de-wormer yet her size of flea/tick was not in stock. So, we went with Nexgard Spectra, which will cover fleas/ticks/heartworm/hw plus is a great de-wormer.

 

My biggest concern is her many mammary masses, one large area in particular – I nor her Vet do not like the feel. We have seen our share of extremely bad cases.

 

I also noted that she has a very enlarged lymph node on one side of her neck – right, the other is only slightly enlarged at this time. Her teeth look wonderful so it is not from a notable tooth issue. Her vet confirmed my findings. The enlarged one is on the same side as the largest mammary mass.

 

The plan right now is to get in better shape, allow her to decompress over this next month, and when she comes back – do the bloodwork I wanted to do, including for tickborne diseases and heartworm exposure. Then to also re-visit her mammary masses – she had a litter not all that long ago, and with the overbreeding, her mammaries are quite large. Poor thing. Babies should not be having babies.

 

The plan is to then schedule her to take biopsies. It would not be the safest to put her under anesthesia right now.

 

Her skin infection is clearing up nicely, and the fosters will monitor an inflamed area on one of her feet. It could be from the kennel or she is developing a behavioural issue with licking to self-soothe.

 

One of her nostrils has a minor almost abrasion, which is not concerning as she was in a kennel for nearly 6 weeks or could have scraped it on the transport to us.

 

She is also still in need of a special Secret Santa to call her very own! 

 

She is in need of an XL Costco dog bed, and treats, and I already bought her two wiggle bumz collars. The foster now has them.

 

Her bills on Saturday were just under $400, and I have already spent almost $400 when she was at the shelter for vet care.

 

I have her on a fish-based food as her colour can be prone to food allergies, seasonal and/or environmental allergies. It will really help her skin and coat.

 

If you may consider being a special Secret Santa for her or making a donation to her care – PayPal gwen@birchhaven.org or email transfer to contactbhrr@gmail.com – please do email us – contactbhrr@gmail.com

 

Thanks in advance for any consideration, and we will post updates as soon as we can.