We help many dogs find their loving families every month, but there are 7 special cases we want to specially tell you about – of friends that have been very special to us. We delayed telling about their happy stories somewhat, because we wanted to make you a small autumn gift – 7 happy stories of 7 lovely dogs who are unfortunately especially hopeless cases.
Name: Michail
Special features: Misho was brought to the shelter from the street for neutering by the Municipal catchers. When we offloaded him, and he was just a bag of bones, we realized he is blind, so we kept him in the shelter. We put him in the Puppygarten, which is empty in the winter, but the boy didn’t put on any weight and we couldn’t find out what the reason was. He them spent some days at the Central Vet Clinic where the doctors performed all sorts of tests on him until they gave him a diagnosis – hypothyroidism (a permanent disruption of the thyroid gland). Later on, an even heavier diagnosis was added to this one – heartworm. Blind, with a life-time medication plan and a potentially deadly parasite, Misho was the perfect candidate for the “Dogs with no future” club.
Stay at Bogrov: 10 months
New home: Great Britain
Name: Johnny
Special features: Having lived for a long time in the street Johnny had made human friends in his neighborhood. So when his size brought him the threat of destruction, there was a person ready to act. He was put in a dog hotel, but ads rarely work and poor Long John remained there for an eternity and was unhappy, later he was moved to our shelter. Little John is not a young dog, but that’s the least of his worries – size matters and so this little guy could get nothing out, but a “Wow!” from our adoption visitors as they passed him by in search of the perfect pet.
Stay at Bogrov: 3 months + 18 months at the hotel (caged as well)
New home: Great Britain
Johnny and Misho have gone home together thanks to our fabulous British friends, this is how it all happened:
First, with a great effort from Katy and Bridget our bling giant Misho found people who wanted to have him in England – Nelly and Lucy, a lovely couple who had their minds set on helping a dog no one else would. Being blind, huge and on permanent medication Misho was just the dog for it. We were of course ecstatic. We began getting him ready for his journey and… BOOM! Heartworm tests turn out positive. Then it was your great help once more that gave Misho not his second, not his third, but his fourth chance – the treatment was on and it was successful.
Heartworm treatment sucks. First you have a whole month of premedication with antibiotics, then (depending on the severity of the case) a few shots of Immiticide are administered and after that the dog gets one whole month of immobility to avoid arterial clogging from the worms killed – they could cause the dog death in minutes. Being deprived of his senses as it is, Misho was really bummed and took it as a punishment. Meanwhile all of us were freaking out about the 2-month long treatment, because we worried Misho might have the same bad luck as Bruce who lost his adopters while he was being treated for heartworm.
Instead of that happening, at the end of his treatment Misho was not an unwanted dog, but one who had his special people visit from the UK! His new owners came to our shelter to meet him, to give him some happy time and look about the shelter.
As if all of this magic wasn’t enough Lady Luck decided to do something wonderful for us – she tossed a character from a totally different story on the path of Lusy and Nelly – Long John.
Johnny had just been moved to the shelter recently – skinny, sad, kind and gentle as usual. And as it always happens to the Good – something bad was just meant to happen. Annoyed with his size and privileges (John was very skinny when he arrived, so he had to be fed additionally every day outside his cage), his cell-mates gave him a serious beating. Bitten and grim, Long John took up a space at the clinic for his recovery while we wandered where it would be safest to put him in the shelter.
In their days in Sofia Lucy and Nelly helped us a lot. And one of the things they did was to walk the dogs on treatment during the day – including John who really is a wonderful, wonderful dog. And somehow – from a walk and a hug, from a scratch and a treat the ladies needed just a few days to realize they will never feel well with themselves if they left Johnny behind in a cage.
And since having Misho is like owning your very own blind bison, Lucy and Nelly decided there is no problem: Jonny will be going to England with Misho to help him have a canine friend and get around the unfamiliar environment. So, the two guys went from being the most hopeless cases of the shelter to the luckiest sods ever. The two lived together in their own enclosure for a while and then left for England on a sunny day.
Misho and Johnny have been home for over a month – Lucy and Nelly are doing great with them, both have improved a lot (John only needed to improve his pampering, nothing more), both are loved, both are beautiful, both are healthy and very happy.
Huge thanks to Nelly and Lucy for adopting them; to Katy and Bridget – our colleagues who made up and organized this miracle; to you – the donors and volunteers that give back the life and wagging tail to the saddest and most helpless of creatures.
