Everyone buys souvenirs on vacations and trips, right? Everyone has different tastes, things they like, things they collect, and things that pull on their heartstrings.
Well, here is our souvenir from our trip to Arkansas:
Her name is Ruby and she weighs 9 lbs. She was running along a busy highway in Kansas on our way to Arkansas. We got turned around and called her over to us. Surprisingly, she came running to us as fast as her little legs would carry her. I grabbed her and ran to the edge of the highway, and Randy noticed as we were coming toward him that she was prolapsing. We tied a bandana around her like a diaper, called mom to start searching for a vet, and called a nearby friend for a vet recommendation
We found a wonderful large animal vet in a little town in southeastern Kansas who stitched her up to temporarily keep her together until we could get her to a vet who could further diagnose her and kennel her for the duration of our trip. It was getting late in the afternoon and our hotel would not accept pets, so we stopped at the first vet we found who was open. The vet and her assistant were so nice and willing to help us out.
We knew she was prolapsing, had an ear infection, and was going to have to be vaccinated just by looking at her. As the tests progressed so did her list of problems. They are estimating she is 7-10 years old, but did say it is really hard to tell once a dog is passed the age of two. She needed 3 surgical procedures to correct a hernia, spay her, and correct the problem causing her to prolapse, part of which was the spaying. She has a bucket of meds to take care of the incredible infection she had growing inside of her.
It was concluded this little girl only had a day or two left before she would have died. We dropped her off on Thursday and went back to visit her Friday afternoon after her surgeries. She was already sort of drugged in the picture above from being temporarily stitched up. When we saw her after her surgeries she was groggy and scared, but still as cute as she can be.
We absolutely did not need another dog and everytime we find a dog in need we say, “at some point we are going to have to look the other way.” However, we just can’t keep driving. We just can’t look the other way and go on about our lives as if we never saw it. It is just not the way we are built for better or worse.
Tomorrow morning we will pick up our little gremlin-looking dog with a cone on her head and head to Eureka Springs to do some outdoor sight-seeing. In the meantime we have a shopping trip planned for a little pink collar, a little pink leash, and possibly a little tote to carry her around in so she doesn’t have to walk after everything she has been through.
Some people have shot glasses, refrigerator magnets, or t-shirts…..we have dogs someone decided they didn’t need anymore or were too much trouble. We love each one we find as much as the last!
A Simple Prairie Life 