February 2018
Knut was the sickest dog we ever had in rescue. In January we reported that after $5,000 in vet bills he was about to start the second half of his life, but sadly it wasn’t to be. He went downhill fast. He stopped eating and had problems with his esophagus. Rowdy donated blood for a transfusion, and the vet clinic kept him for hydration. Unfortunately, while he was there he developed mega esophagus, and then he bloated. The vets got together and felt there was nothing that would save him. They did a partial necropsy to see if they could determine what really happened to Knut, and the fluid in his abdomen wasn’t clear, as it should have been. It looked like he had a tear in his abdomen at some point and the contents leaked out. The infection was so severe he couldn’t have survived no matter what happened. There is no way to know if it was associated with the lesion in his stomach, which was probably an injury from eating a chicken bone, or if it was something that happened during the surgery to repair the lesion. We tried everything, but ultimately nothing could save him.
Herbie and Nanuk both had surgery this month for sebaceous cysts. At 14½ we had real concerns about putting Herbie under anesthesia, but he recovered well. He was visibly in pain for the first day and got all the pain meds he wanted, but he feels OK now and is recovering well. The vet removed a second smaller cyst while he was out. Nanuk’s cyst was enormous, both wider and deeper than most, to the point we agreed to send it for histopathology (it came back clear). He wore a t-shirt for two weeks, had his stitches out, and is finally dressed only in fur. Nanuk is Rowdy’s playmate and they have both have missed their romps in the yard. Between Knut, Nanuk, and Herbie, the last two months have been expensive, with more than $8,000 paid out to vets.
A few months ago we heard from a number of people about a new backyard breeder in Brush Prairie, close to Vancouver, WA. They were advertising lots of puppies for sale and nobody knew who it was. Then his web page changed to say he wasn’t going to breed Samoyeds after his litters were sold. We were surprised when he called Melissa to ask if rescue could take three of his five Samoyed bitches. We tried for all five, but he claimed he had to return the other two to the owner, which turned out to be White Fire Samoyeds. He had only “borrowed” them to get his breeding started. White Fire is the one that recently began dumping their dogs in a shelter in Mason City, Iowa. After nearly a week of negotiation with her, he drove the three bitches to Melissa’s home, and she took them to Ron and Kathy for fostering. And now he is advertising puppies again.
The three we got are Sophie, Fena, and Tessa. The first two are litter sisters born in March, 2016, while Tessa was born in October, 2015. All three had litters last November. We have since learned he was probably dumping his breeding bitches so he could return to White Fire and get more that are pregnant. We were lied to many times during the transfer. The result is that we now have three completely unsocialized young Sammies who are afraid of everything and will take months of work just to integrate into a home. Make no mistake, these are Samoyeds and we will get there eventually. It’s just going to take a long time.
Googling White Fire yields many complaints about dogs dying of cardiac problems. An Iowa friend told us Samoyeds in that area have a terrible reputation for cardiac defects. The guy who surrendered the dogs we have told Melissa one may have a heart murmur. We would like to know, but we literally can’t take the to a vet for an exam because we can’t catch them. They are that wild. This is going to be an adventure that will last a very long time. Unfortunately it means until we get to the end of this road we can’t take any more foster dogs.