I'm new and I wanted to introduce myself (and Leo) and tell a bit of our story. My family has been rescuing animals forever we have a cat from a drain and an RSPCA dog at the moment! We weren't looking for a puppy but my Mum stumbled across a lady sobbing in a bakery whose dog had just died of a paralysis tick. Mum being the person she is had to comfort the lady and hear the full story. Their dog (whose name I don't know) had recently had a litter of puppies, she then got a paralysis tick and died. We live in the country and find ourselves surrounded by what I refer to as rough and tough men. The lady's husband planned on drowning the litter as they were too much hassle to look after. To cut a long story short we just managed to save Leo from being drowned in a sack in their dam. He was the only boy of the litter and the only survivor
Leo fit right into our family and he was taking trips in the car with us each day from very early on - he has already stayed in a cabin at a caravan park with us twice (we literally take him everywhere we go!). Then we took a trip to the city making several stops at parks along the way for him to play. Staying with relatives in the city we wanted to make sure he wasn't restless overnight so we took him to another park to make sure he would sleep well. We had no idea that you could over exercise a puppy! The next day Leo couldn't walk and didn't eat or drink - we gave him time to rest and fed him individual pieces of dog food as well as syringes full of water. We made the car trip home, he still hadn't gotten up unassisted. It was too late to go to the vet so we kept a close eye on him overnight and made an emergency trip to the vet in the morning. Leo was hospitalized and tested for a number of illnesses including our worst nightmare, Parvo (he was 13 weeks old and had only had his first set of vaccinations at this point). The next day the vet diagnosed him with Panosteitis much to our relief. It meant we had to be more careful when exercising him and change his diet. The vet stay cost more than $600 but we were happy to pay to save our beautiful boy! This was the second time the vet suggested we call him Lucky.
Leo is a brilliant puppy and despite many setbacks he is well on the road to being a happy and healthy adult dog. He currently has an upset tummy - the vet says it's because of the course of antibiotics he has been on. I'll keep you up to date on any further developments, hopefully all positive ones!
Roxie and Leo
