Meet Tula

Ok, you've heard me talk a little about her. Well, here she is, Ms. Thang herself, Tula. Tula was picked up in September by Dallas Animal Control officers. She was in horrible shape. This sweet, precious girl was running the streets of Dallas for who knows how long, but obviously given her condition -- a while!

Tula was microchipped and when DAS officers contacted the registered owner, they got the owner's mother instead. The mother explained to the officers that her daughter was in a mental facility and she was not going to take the dog on behalf of her daughter. The sentiment was that the mother had no idea how long the daughter was going to be in the facility. How sad for both Tula, the mother and the daughter. Lucky for Tula that Beardie Rescue was able to pull her from the shelter. The animal control officer told us that if we didn't, she would have been put down given how bad her health was - "No one will adopt a dog that looks like that." Sadly, they are right.


And that's where organizations like Beardie Rescue and others come in, we take those hard luck cases and turn 'em around!

After 3+ months of medication, medicated baths, good nutrition, skin and hair supplements, Tula looks fabulous! Now, her outsides are beginning to match her insides. And what a beautiful soul she has, too!

Heard from the Vet

A quick update on Lisa's biopsy results. As we suspected, the growth was something nasty. However, the whole thing is a bit of good news - bad news sort of deals. Let's do the bad news first, since I like to end this on a positive note!

Bad news - yes, the growth was cancerous. For me, this news was not a surprise. All of my research on the internet led me to believe the growth was a perianal adenocarncinoma. While this type of cancer is more often seen in neutered males than older, recently spayed females, it can and obviously still does occur.

Now for the good news! The vet was able to remove the entire growth. The report showed that while there were cancerous cells present, the numbers were small. I'm waiting for a copy of the report to see the results in black and white. The gist of it is that the tumor is being treated as a benign tumor and not a malignant one. Yay! So, now we'll watch and see if anything returns or if she has any other issues related to this. While the waiting and watching can make one nervous, I prefer it much more to the other option. :-)

If you'd like to learn more about this or other cancer types, click here.

Lisa's Vet Procedure

Over the last few months, I had been keeping tabs on a lump on Lisa's backside. Not to go into gross detail of the exact location of this anomaly, let's just say it's with in 1 1/2 inches of an area frequently used for bowel evacuation and leave it at that. ;-) We all know that as dogs age, they get bumps and skin tags here and there. We can choose to have them removed or watch them and act on them at later time.

In Lisa's case, she has a few that the vet and I discussed already, but this one kinda surprised me. Beardies tend to need a good butt-check and subsequent butt-wash now and again because of debris and feces being caught in the hair back there - not any fault of the dog or their digestive system, just nature of living with a long haired dog. It was at this time that I found this lump. It didn't seem to bother her when I touched, so I decided to do a little research online and keep an eye on it.

As the months progressed, the lump didn't really change much. However, the area around it did. In the last few weeks, Lisa had begun biting at her rear and as a result, she ulcerated the skin around one of her anal sacs. This prompted further investigation into lump. The vet and I agreed it was best to have the lump removed. So last week, Lisa went in and had the procedure. While she was out, we also had a full abdomen x-ray done and her teeth were cleaned up. I figure rather than have her put under anesthesia again, better to make good use of it while she was out.

I, of course, was a nervous wreck and resorted to the nearest shopping mall for some holiday retail therapy to take my mind off matters. ;-) It almost worked...almost. I knew she was incapable hands - that wasn't my worry. My concern was over her in post-op. If you remember, it was in her post-op recovery hours from her last procedure that she bloated. It was comforting to know that if she did bloat again, it wouldn't be AS bad as it was since her stomach had been tacked; she wouldn't torsion again. But, still I would prefer to avoid the entire scenario altogether. Since the bloating incident did not happen on this vet's watch, I was very thorough in making sure they understood she was a high risk dog and all necessary precautions were taken. Additionally, I took some additional steps of my own and brought a shirt I had worn to have in her cage with her, so when she'd wake up, she'd smell something familiar. That, plus us having been at the office the week before and Lisa getting a good dose of love from the staff set us up for a good outcome.

And that's exactly what we had! Thank the Lord! Lisa came through her procedure again with flying colors. She was quiet and never fussed and never showed any bit of anxiety. When I picked her up, she acted tired, but was ready to go with me wherever I wanted to go. When I got her back to the house and The Boys got to "debrief" her, I fed her a little canned I-D with some chicken broth on it and she gobbled it up. My Lisa was indeed back!

It's been almost a week and she's healing up nicely. Haven't heard back from the vet on the results of the biopsy yet, but the x-ray only showed a little arthritis in her back, so that was good news. This week we get to celebrate Lisa's first Christmas as a free dog! I can't wait to celebrate it with her and the New Year!

Completely Unrelated Notes:
Apologies for not being able to keep up regular status reports on Lisa. Another rescue has been taking great amounts of my time. I'll post some info about her remarkable story when I can.

I'm attempting to get more pictures up of Lisa and enhance her site a bit. If I get the time, I'll actually design her something of her own! My main goal, however, was to get the information out there to be able to help others. Design has to come second to that! :-)

The Changes Keep Coming

Lisa still continues to improve daily. It's still amazes me how far she's come in 8 months! Her daily improvements come in the form of simply doing something she didn't do the day before. It takes a vigilant eye and attention to detail to notice them because they are subtle. However, the changes keep coming!

Recently, Lisa has become extremely aware of her surroundings. In earlier months, she would mostly sleep through any activities going on around her; not anymore! She can be found repeatedly lifting her head or sitting up to see what the commotion is. It's great! She even has begun to respond to my homecomings, of which she was previously unaware.

Unfortunately, she still wishes to take to my walls and scratch likes there's no tomorrow. She also still does this in her crate, too. I've had to step up the correction on the wall scratching because the message is not getting through - no matter how much I try to redirect, she just goes right back to it again the moment I turn away. It's certain that she is using this as an attention-getter, because she'll scratch once or twice and then look around to see if anyone is going to interrupt her. And the moment you do, she comes practically running over to you. I realize it's how she's trying to alleviate her boredom, but with her lack of understanding of toys, there's not much to redirect her towards. This scenario sets up an interesting dilemma between reinforcing the scratching behavior and actually correcting it.

Lately, I've been introducing Lisa to the couch and bed. She's not comfortable on either, mainly because they're squishy and unstable. She also has no fear of heights and will and did unknowingly take a header off my near 3ft high bed. Luckily, only her pride was hurt. Still after that, she hasn't learned and has attempted to do it again. On the upside, after some coaxing she did lay down on the couch with me for about 30 minutes. I think she quite enjoyed herself, too. I've been able to get her to do this a few times now. Hopefully, it will sink in that cuddling is good thing. She already loves to be petted, but the cuddling part is completely foreign to her.

Also, I'm happy to report that her sits are improving. She does them regularly and sometimes without me even asking! We've begun adding a down into the mix and that has taken a little work, but seems to be catching on ever so slowly.

Lisa got the first cut down of her hair. I nearly cried as I took the clippers to her. Her coat is coming in so beautifully; lush and getting long! However, her hair mats so quickly that keeping her in a full coat is not an option, nor can she stand the weekly time it takes groom a full coated dog. Keeping her in puppy cut will make everyone happy!