Polar Bear? Seal Pup? Gibbs has quite a story.
UPDATE 12/23 – The mass responded to the prednisone and has fixed his coughing, but unfortunately that has only halfway solved the issues.
Gibbs does have congestive heart failure (CHF), but no murmur was detected. At this point we will need an adopter that is willing to provide the care and medications needed to give him a good quality of life.
He will need to be on a maintenance dose of Prednisone 5mg per day and Furosemide 10-20 mg per day to keep fluid from accumulating. The cost of these medicines combined should not exceed $20 per month. It is very affordable and dogs can live a long and comfortable life with treatment.
He will need to be a true lap dog as he needs his exercise restricted. He will have no problem with that. His exercise consists of following me around the house, wagging his little tail and standing on his back paws against the couch asking to be picked up for snuggles.
ORIGINAL POST – He is a purebred Pomeranian bred by a show breeder of Champion Pomeranian’s in New York (Great River Poms). He was sold approximately a decade ago, but the records were destroyed during a divorce so we don’t know to who. The microchip implanted by the breeder was never registered so we cannot trace it to the purchaser.
Sometime after he was purchased, Indianapolis Animal Services (Animal Control) ended up with him, though we don’t know how. All we know is that they implanted a second microchip that also was never registered by the adopting family. We reached out to them to try and get more information but did not hear back from them.
Fast forward to October 6, 2016 and Gibbs is picked up as a stray in Rustburg, Virginia by Campbell County Animal Control and brought to their shelter. With the exception of a couple of mats behind the ears he is remarkably clean and it is assumed he will be claimed quickly. One of our adoptive moms finds out about him so when the 10 day stray hold passes, the Pomeranian Club of Central Virginia asks that he be released to their care.
Gibbs is given a course of Clavamox by the shelter to treat a cough and then given a course of Baytril by a rescue vet when the cough has not subsided by the time the Clavamox was completed. When it is clear we are not dealing with kennel cough, Gibbs is brought in for an X-ray which is when we find the second microchip that Campbell County did not find. It is assumed they stopped looking after they found the Indianapolis chip.
We had hoped to have surgery performed at this time. While he has obviously changed hands many times, no one had him neutered and his mouth is the worst I’ve ever seen. He cannot eat anything but very soft, almost puréed food due to mouth pain.
Unfortunately, in addition to the chip, early aspiration pneumonia is spotted in his upper lungs as well as an unidentifiable mass which is pressing on his trachea that is believed to be the actual cause of his cough. He has an enlarged heart, so we cannot clearly determine the nature of the mass on the X-rays and we decide on a course of doxycycline & prednisone in an attempt to shrink the mass to make it safe for surgery.
He is extremely sweet and very quiet. He is almost all white until you get to the ears, then he is a light cream. In the non-Pom world, he would most likely be called a white dog, in it, we call him cream. He is 8.25 pounds right now.
Click here for Gibbs Photo Album
