In
Memorium
Magnum
Magnum was a rescue dog. Here is what
we know about Magnum:
His original name was Lucky. He was about eight years old when rescued.
(The vet assigned Jan. 1, 1994 as his birthday). Sometime in early December, 2001, his
family sold their home and moved out. But they didn't take Lucky with them. Lucky was left
in a small kennel in the back yard without food, water or shelter. Why would they leave
such a sweet boy behind? Maybe it was because Lucky had developed a very large tumor on
his shoulder. He had never been neutered so maybe vet care was an expense that his family
didn't think was their responsibility. So they abandoned him.
That December was particularly wet in Portland, with pouring rain and
chilly temperatures. For five days Lucky waitedpatiently and wondered why no one came to
see him to take him out of the rain and cold, to give him food and water. When the new
owners of the house arrived they found Lucky, very, very sick and depressed, lying in his
own feces. They called a friend who worked at a veterinary clinic and their friend came
out and got Lucky and took him back to the clinic. The clinic got the phone number for
Lucky's family from the buyers of the house and contacted them. They didn't want him. That
was pretty obvious.
So the people at the clinic tried to decide what to do with Lucky. At
first they considered putting him down as he was in such poor shape but the tumor offered
a chance for an interning vet to get some surgical experience. And there was Tovik Kennels
in Salem, which rescues Siberians when there is room, that offered to take him in when he
was healed. They would try to find a forever home for him. So Lucky underwent surgery to
remove what turned out to be a tumor weighing nearly 3 lbs. It was malignant. The people
at the clinic changed his name from "Lucky" to "Magnum." He hadn't had
much luck with his first owners.
His caretaker at the clinic had plans to go out of town for Christmas and
would not be back until New Year weekend. Magnum needed a temporary home where someone
could watch over him while he healed. So a message was sent to Sibernet-L, the Siberian
Husky e-mail list, asking for someone to take care of Magnum over the holidays.
Initially I was to pick him up at the vet and deliver him to his
temporary home but when I first saw him at the vet I was shocked at the extent of the
surgery. Half his body was shaved, he had a huge 9" incision down his back and
drainage tubes hanging out of his sides. Neither I or the young woman who had volunteered
to take him over the holidays had had any idea of the extent of his surgery! But he also
had that wonderful Siberian attitude and a big, goofy smile when he emerged from the side
door of the clinic. There he was...a half naked little husky prancing around the clinic
parking lot as if all was right with the world. I received the instructions and
medications for his care and set out for his temporary home with some trepidation.
When I arrived I found that the young woman who had offered to care for
him also ran a small child care business in her home and had two children of her own. She
was still willing to take him in after seeing what she would be in for but I asked her to
let me take Magnum for the holidays. We were not expecting any family for Christmas and we
had a tiled foyer where an X-pen could be set up between the kitchen and livingroom.
Magnum would be in a warm place, with my husband or me around him at all times. She agreed
and so Magnum came home with me.
My husband was a little skeptical but he is soft-hearted and agreed that
it was the right thing to do. We set up the X-pen and got Magnum installed with blankets
and fresh water. When it was time to go to bed that first night after Magnum arrived I
went into the living room to check on him one last time and was surprised to find my
husband bedded down beside the X-pen. He would watch over Magnum he said. It was pretty
obvious that the little boy had pretty much won his heart!
The next day we dutifully cleaned his incision and the drainage from the
tubes and gave him his medications on schedule. Towards the evening I was alarmed to see
that the suture was beginning to open slightly where the tension was greatest -- over his
shoulders. The vet had both sutured and secured the wound with metal staples but the
staples were beginning to create holes from the pull of the skin. Christmas morning it was
much worse. A hole a little over an inch in diameter had opened and some staples had
pulled out entirely. A call was made to Dove Lewis the emergency vet and we were told he
should be seen as soon as possible. The branch nearest us opened at noon so we hurriedly
opened presents, gobbled some of our usual Christmas morning breakfast treat -- stollen --
and loaded Magnum in the van.
The emergency vet cleaned the wound, removed the useless staples, and
bandaged Magnum in a colorful vet wrap "shirt." She told us that the opening
would have to heal as an open wound, gradually growing in from the edges. This was not
happy news as obviously Magnum was not going to be nicely healed in a week when he was
scheduled to go back to the vet and then into rescue. By New Year's weekend we had decided
to ask the clinic to let us take care of him until he was fully healed. Linda Boyd of
Tovik Kennels agreed as she had her own dogs to care for and taking on a high maintenance
case like Magnum's was going to be difficult. We were very unhappy at the thought of him
leaving our care in the shape he was in. The vet office agreed so for the next six weeks
we went through the daily routine of changing his bandages twice a day as there was a
great deal of drainage from his incision. This meant we were using a lot of vet wrap as it
took a complete roll each change of bandages.
By the time the third box of vet wrap had arrived from Omaha Vaccine it
was decided that the wound had stopped growing new skin and that another surgery would be
needed to close the hole. This time we paid for the surgery as by then we had made the
decision that Magnum had found his forever home.
And one more bit of good news: the lab reports that came back on his
tumor indicated that it was a type of cancer that has a low chance of reoccuring.
There are rescues like Magnum, some in better
shape, some worse, in pounds and rescues all over the country. They have been abandoned
for many reasons: in some cases people bought a Siberian Husky without knowing anything
about the breed and dumped them when they became too much trouble. Some cases are like
Magnum's where the owner doesn't want the expense of taking care of a sick dog. Saddest of
all are the old dogs that are dumped just because they are old and their owners are tired
of them. Many of these dogs never make it into rescue. They are put down because no one
wants to adopt them or the local rescue organizations are full. Please help by
contributing time or money to your local humane society or to a breed rescue. Better yet
-- adopt a dog. Second hand dogs give the best love! And they do, because somehow they
seem to know that they have been given a second chance.
I'm feeling MUCH better now.
When can I get out of jail?
I tell you what....those
pills wrapped in liver sausage are pretty darn good!!
I'm catching some rays in my favorite sleeping
spot. I'd just had my second surgery when this picture was taken so I'm still a little
uncomfortable. You can see that they shaved off all of my fur all the way back to my hips!
I grew some of it back over the first incision and then they trimmed it again for my
second surgery!! A dog can hardly get ahead.
More
Magnum!
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