Pretty Girl « Noah's Ark Society – Rescuing the Bottom 10%

Pretty Girl

Pretty Girl came to me in July 2018 as a “temporary foster.” Her foster mom was going out of town for a few days and needed someone to watch her. I was reluctant at the time due to my own beloved senior pup nearing the end of his life at the time, and needed to focus all my attention on him. But I agreed to it since it was only temporary, unfortunately Pretty Girl’s foster mom never came back for her.

Pretty Girl had a huge mammary tumor, other smaller tumors, and an extreme itching problem that caused her to spin miserably. She was in sad shape, she was shy, anxious and scared of everything. But she was otherwise pretty low maintenance, she kept mostly to herself, so it worked out okay. About a month later, my dear Deacon passed away. I was able to focus more attention on Pretty Girl, who my son had renamed Mildred or Millie (she actually answers to all of these names now)!

Noah’s Ark took care of Pretty Girl’s health issues – we had all of the tumors removed, and they were fortunately benign, at the same time she had to have most of her teeth removed. Even with everything she had just been through she was much more comfortable. We started her on a medication called Apoquel which has a lot of risks to it, but was the only thing that helped with her itchiness. She requires baths every few days with a prescription medicated shampoo. She is still itchy, but again much more comfortable than what she was.

After she recovered from the surgery and started responding to the Apoquel, Pretty Girl’s personality really started to shine! She still mostly keeps to herself, but she is so much happier. She smiles and wags her tail often, and when I come home and let her out, she zooms around the yard like a puppy! She lets me chase her, and I pretend I can’t catch her while she runs past me. She is a sweet old lady. Pretty Girl was absolutely unwilling to walk on a leash and we have worked on it for months, but she finally learned and we took a recent road trip to Chicago to see my son – her favorite person! She has some personality quirks, possibly early stages of dementia, but I have learned when to leave her alone and when she wants attention. She eats well and loves car rides and bison jerky!. Pretty Girl is a real sweetheart. She has come a long way from when Cheatham County Animal Control found her wandering!