Angel
Kenya
Mario and Precious
Please meet Tucker III
(We have had two previous Tucker's here at
TCC).
Tucker III came to us at 6 months of age after receiving a horrible beating from his owner's boyfriend. The story I was told is that he had kicked the six pound puppy and she told him to knock it off and he then proceeded pounding the puppy in the chest and rib cage with his fists. She jumped in to protect the pup and he proceeded to beat on her. She did file charges against him for her assault but chose to bring the pup to me so he would not end up in the county shelter to await a trial. When Tucker arrived, his eyes were swollen shut and had a lot of contusions about his head. He was very tender in the rib cage but x-rays revealed that he did not have any cracked or broken ribs. We allowed Tucker to have some time to heal, and to learn to trust and love again and then scheduled him for his neuter. It was at that time that we realized that this brutal beating did some internal damage.
I dropped him off at my vet clinic for his neuter and since we always have pre-anesthetic blood work done beforehand, I soon learned that his liver (ALT) reading was off the chart. The vet called me and told me that she could not do the surgery today because of this and we decided to do an extensive full blood panel to see if there were other things going on with him. She called me back with the results of that test and said everything else was in normal limits. She suggested giving him some more time as he most likely suffered a bruised liver in the beating and hopefully it would heal with more time. Two months went by and I rescheduled his neuter and the blood work came back even higher in the liver category.
She told me she could continue with the neuter but would have to use a different anesthesia and different pain injections that are safe for liver problems. We went ahead and had him neutered and had rear dew claws removed. Tucker came through the surgery just fine, but we still have a problem that stops him from being adopted. I would never send a dog down the road knowing that there could be a serious problem.
He had one more blood test since then and it is still high. The vet suggested several very expensive tests that should be done to rule things out or to hopefully pinpoint the problem, but we just don't have the money to do these tests. Tucker acts totally normal in every aspect of his daily activities, and I can only hope that we can get enough money raised to get these tests done so this boy can finally get to his forever home very soon.
The tests are around $1,000.00. In the years' past, we would have had these tests done immediately, but our financial circumstances have changed drastically due to GM's financial fiasco.
If you can help with Tucker's tests, you can either donate through paypal and place Tucker's name on the transaction, or you can contact me to discuss other arrangements.
Last update January 01, 2010 - by Bart's Group