1933710_513681805480362_1149036545856007198_o.jpg 10269197_514545888727287_8355543404800761014_o.jpg 21603_515566725291870_7182350873799161695_n.jpg 12376698_511571865691356_8890296797090466827_n-1.jpg
All my previous pets have been from breeders. I'd been thinking of getting a yorkie or a maltese a lot of late to have as a little companion. December 2nd I was leaving the movies and happened to go into the pet shop and fell in love with this cute little bundle of fur. I bought him (well my mom who was with me got him for me as a christmas gift..i'm 25 mind you) on the spot. They wouldn't let us have the breeder info until after we'd paid for him, but he's AKC so we took that as fine and they assured us he wasn't from a puppy mill. The store said he had to wait a few days to be cleared by the vet. I went to visit him every day and noticed he was making these squeaking noises. The girls at the store said it was just a normal yorkie thing. I pressed the owners wife about it and she admitted he was sick. That week their vet didn't clear him to go home. My mom was very concerned and asked for the breeder info.. To make a long story short after calls to the USDA and internet searches, he came from a puppy mill.. We were pissed, but loved the dog. Fast forward it had been two weeks since we paid for the dog and they finally let him come home on Wednesday December 16th and had signed papers that their vet said he was healthy. The second he got into the car he started coughing, worse then before. We took Baby Dave (what i named him) directly from the store to our family vet. Our vet told us he wasn't fit for sale, and she was very concerned he could have pneumonia. X-rays showed he was sick but not quite at pneumonia. She told him if his cough persisted bring him back in on Monday... We had him back to the vet Friday because it had progressed.. They put him on an anti-biotic and took blood cell counts (which were elevated). That weekend Baby Dave seemed better and so I took him to see Santa and to Starwars (the vet had said it was fine for him to be out & about). Monday he went to the vet again and she said he seemed to be getting better except for she was a bit concerned he hadn't gained any weight. Monday night/Tuesday (dec 22nd) morning at 2am he had a horrendous coughing fit that lasted 10 minutes, I noticed his tongue was blue. I rushed him to the animal hospital, where he was evaluated and the young vet said he seemed to be doing k and not to bother getting an X-ray, that i should only worry if he doesn't eat. Well Tuesday poor little Baby Dave didn't eat any food, he didn't poop at all, and that night he started throwing up. I rushed him back to the emergency animal hospital (the one her is literally like going to an actual hospital, its huge).
They took his x-ray and came back in and told me they were admitting him into the hospital; less than a week after I'd brought him home from the pet store!! He has a serious case of pneumonia with his right lung fully consolidated!(I later found out from my vet that his lung had collapsed) The doctors said if I hadn't taken such good care of him and hadn't been so diligent with taking him to the vet/hospital he would have died. He'd also lost 6 ounces! They put him on oxygen and they wouldn't even let me see him other then behind a glass door the night the admitted him as he was in the isolation unit. Baby Dave stayed in the hospital for 6 days, 5 of which he spent on oxygen.(his hospital stay ended up costing $7900.. a good part of which the pet store is supposed to pay by law, but they're refusing) My mom and I went to visit him every day, including Christmas at the hospital.. I had to put on a pair of scrubs and put my shoes in bleach just to go visit him in the isolation unit. Every day the vets told us it's really up in the air if he was going to live. Finally this past Sunday Baby Dave got to come home. They sent him home with 3 different medicines that I had to administer 5x a day.. Tuesday we took him back to his vet where he got x-rayed again, to my dismay his lungs had declined since they'd x-rayed him on Saturday. So they added another medication in. He's now getting 4 medications that I have to give to him at 6am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, and midnight... I literally have my cellphone set to put off alarms at those hours so that he gets his meds. He also can't really go outside or be near any of the other dogs in our home, because he might be contagious, so I have to keep him in his kennel most of the day and have a humidifier next to the kennel to help with his breathing. He seems better now because his energy level is up, but the vet is still 50/50 on wether of not he's going to recover. I'm pretty optimistic that he's going to survive because he's got a strong little spirit and is very attached to me.
