[jamiesaari]

Hi,

I'd like to share my story and would love to receive advice from your members.

Firstly, here is the story.

A couple days ago, I adopted a beautiful 10-year-old Yorkie who was seized from an abusive, neglectful home. A colleague of mine , Lisa, owns a moving company in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She found the Yorkie tied up in a corner of a decrepit home her company was moving someone into. The Yorkie - named "Orphan Annie" - was tied up on a short leash and wet from sitting in her own urine and feces. Lisa grabbed a towel, picked up the dog, announced she was seizing it from the owners and took it to her warehouse. Since Lisa has Rottweilers in her home, she brought the Yorkie to her business's warehouse. She and her staff had been taking care of her during the day and leaving her at the warehouse after the work day is over.

The moment I saw "Annie", I knew I was the right person to take care of her. Lisa was happy to give her to a good home and I have permanently adopted her and am working on getting her healthy again.

Lisa already took the dog to the veterinarian and he said Annie was malnourished, but generally in good health. She has a few small tumours on her body, but none of them are dangerous. He said we should keep an eye on them to make sure they do not grow much larger as they should then be removed.

Here are some questions I have:

a) Annie is 10-years-old and missing patches of fur on her back. I am guessing this is from lack of nutritional food. So I am feeding her high-end dog food and doggie vitamins. The dry food is Nutram for Senior Dogs. The soft food is Nutro Ultra for Senior Dogs and the vitamins are ProCare brand. Since her bowel movements were very loose and I could not get her to eat dry dog food, I have been chopping up the dry food and vitamins in a blender, adding some water and mixing with the soft food. She gladly eats this mixture. Is there anything else I can do to ensure she is getting the nutrition she needs? As well, is there anything further I can do to help grow back her fur?

b) We are working on training her to go to the washroom on a "puppy pee pad." She uses it 50% of the time and I try to encourage her when she makes mistakes. Any advice anyone can offer in regards to paper training an older dog?

c) It appears like she has likely had multiple litters of puppies and she has swollen anal glands. I read online that if the procedure of extracting the glands is not done properly, I could make it worse. Any advice on how to do this procedure correctly?

d) When she is placed in her kennel, she goes crazy crying and barking. This leads me to wonder if she has been left in a cage for a long period of time in the past. She goes ballistic at even the thought of being put in her kennel. Any way I can make her kennel less traumatic for her?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm Regards,

Jamie