On our way back from Houston, today, we stopped in to Adopt-A-Pet...a local shelter that adopts out animals.
We oooh and aaaah over the cats then went to look at the dogs. Before the lady even opened the door, I saw a yorkie. The name on the tag read "Radar". I started asking questions on the yorkie because I thought he looked a little familiar.
The lady said he'd been there for a while. He had been adopted out 3 or 4 times but always returned because "it didn't work out". The lady said that he probably spent most of his life in a cage and was used as a breeder dog. He was about 7 years old. She said that he was a "special needs dog" because he had thyroid problems and has Demodectic...a type of mange that the lady said was hereditary. She said that was sad because he probably passed the mange on to his pups.
I then recognized the dog and his name. A friend's mother had owned him...bought him from a breeder, used him a few times then turned him in to Adopt-A-Pet for them to rehome him. I did tell the lady that I knew where he came from and that the lady didn't keep him in a cage (but the original breeder did).
I did a search on Demodectic mange and it said...
"The mite is not contagious from dog to dog in the usual sense, nor is it transmissible to humans. Dogs acquire the mites during the first two to three days of life while nursing their dams." http://italiangreyhound.org/pages/70...s/demodex.html
This leads me to believe that the "hereditary" mange the worker spoke of isn't necessarily hereditary. Is there one out there that is?
I called my friend to ask her if their "Radar" was the "Radar" that I saw out there. I mentioned the mange thing to her and she said her mother had taken "Radar" to two different vets because "Radar" had gotten into poison ivy but neither vet said it was mange...just a reaction to the poison ivy oils.