This is the story of Peter Rottentail. Peter Rottentail is not a child’s fairytale, it is a story of how humans treat their fellow animals, leaving one little dog behind to die, and a story of humans who took a chance on giving him life.
Please note, pictures may be graphic*
“Mario. Do not kill that dog! I will have someone there.”
10:00 a.m. A random Tuesday morning in the Spring. My phone rings. Caller id tells me it is an out-of-state number. I figure it is another robocall. I walk into my executive committee meeting at work. An hour later, I listen to the voice message. “This is Mario . Our vet is recommending euthanasia for this little dog you tagged. He’s pretty bad.” Oh shit. Why didn’t I answer the call?
“Mario. I’m asking you, please do not kill that dog! I will have someone there.”
“They need to be here within 10 minutes. We already have him on the table and sedated.”
“She is on the way!” I lied. I hung up and called my friend and volunteer in the area. Frantic, I begged her to drop everything and get to Garland. “They are going to kill that little white Pekingese. He’s very sick and they aren’t going to give him a chance.”
“I’m on my way,” she said. I don’t know exactly what happened next. All I know is in about 20 minutes, she called me back. “I have him. He is very sedated. Almost dead. Where do you want me to take him? I can try my vet…”
“No,” I interrupted her. “No, he needs to go to the emergency clinic right away.” They kept him in the shelter too long. He came in very sick. They did not look at him closely enough. His anal glands had ruptured days, maybe weeks earlier. He had maggots in him. He was infested with fleas, tick, and mites. His tail had almost rotted off; his thighs were raw. The shelter left him in the cage for a week waiting for someone to claim him. Another case of sitting and waiting while dying. As if being ten pounds and found lifeless on the streets was not punishment enough…
Another 20 minutes. Rhonda calls me and tells me she has the dog at the emergency vet. My phone rings. It was the doctor at the emergency clinic. “This little dog is in very bad condition. What do you want us to do? He may be septic. I agree with the shelter vet.”
“I want you to run blood work, start an iv for fluid and antibiotics. Get him stable and then start working on his wounds,” I told her. Hell, I don’t know? I’m not the vet. I have had formal training in a veterinary technology program, I am thinking through where we always start, but I was also five hours away. I was letting her know that killing him off was not an option. I wasn’t going to go for that without knowing exactly what his condition was.
“I don’t know if that’s going to be worth it for you,” she replied, “this is going to be expensive.” Worth it? That’s funny but not in a humorous way. Who determines what’s “worth it” when it comes to saving dogs? The general public? The dog owner? The veterinarian? Those with the most money? Those with the most time? Those with the most compassion? I will tell you who determines if this dog is “worth it,” the two people that bust their humps every day to save those in dire straits. Dave and I. We work full time, we raise the funds, we pay the bills, we lose the sleep every night, we clean up the poop, we dig the graves. We will be the ones who determine what and who is worth it.
I have met some awesome people through rescue and some not awesome people (more on that later). Our friends that we have made in the greater Dallas Fort Worth area have never let us down. One of them works at the emergency clinic. She kept an eye on this guy. She made sure they kept working on him.
The doctor called me back with the bloodwork. “He’s not septic,” she said. That’s great. Step one, check! He was so heavily sedated they let him sleep while they got his iv’s started and got him stable. Both of his ears were infected and so swollen that the doctor doubted he could hear. He had a tumor in one eye. He was anemic from the flea infestation. The hospital had never seen so many fleas and so much blood from the fleas. He was heartworm positive. His heart was struggling due to the heartworms clogging up his lifeline. Then… they found his ass end. The rotting flesh, the origination of the stink, and the maggots. The doctor called me back, “He is rotten to his bones. I can’t tell you if he will ever be able to poop on his own. I can’t even tell you if he will even be able to walk. We have him in intensive care. He will need critical wound care.”
“It doesn’t matter. Keep working on him.”
This is one of our most historic saves. Why? He came off the euthanasia table. The professionals were giving up on him. His time in intensive care could have gone either way. The road ahead of him may have been worse than the road behind him. I honestly don’t know how he survived. He must have thought he was being tortured throughout the healing process. It was probably the longest three months in our rescue’s history-for him and us.
The next three nights, the hospital would call and give me updates. He wasn’t free and clear but he was still here. His wounds were clean. He had a corset bandage stitched into his skin on his back end to keep him clean and keep his wounds covered. One of our other volunteers in the area would go visit him during visiting hours at the hospital. She would sit with him and talk to him while he slept. On day four, he ate. When it comes to sick dog care, eating is a big deal. That was his new beginning. He was able to go home to our friend’s house. She brought him to the emergency hospital each day so he could get his wound care and took him back home at night. After about 10 days, he was able to get on the road to the sanctuary. He slept the entire ride.
When he arrived, he was weak, scared, skinny, and had a saggy bandaged dressing hanging off his tail. His ears were still infected, his eye tumor was still there but he was home. We named him Peter as in St. Peter. His first order of business was to take some licks from my ice cream cone. Again, if a sick dog wants to eat and shows interest, this is fantastic news. His second order of business was checking out the girl dogs. Ok, maybe not exactly what we wanted or what he needed at the time, but again, fantastic news! A sweet boy checking out the ladies! Neutering would be added to the list of additional surgeries!
The wound care days turned into weeks, which turned into months. His eye still needed attention. He was pissed that his ears needed attention and he was livid that his ass end needed attention. The first week I took him back and forth to the vet. After that, Dave and I did all of the wound care.
We found the best products, the best infection fighters, and eventually, we were able to start water therapy with him. He screamed, he bit us, he knocked everything off the counters trying to get away from us. We cussed, we cried, we bled. It was a long journey to realize if his tail was going to make it or have to be amputated. But guess what? Pete healed. From the euthanasia table through all of the doubting Thomas’s, Pete healed.
He still needed his eye and his “brains” in the back removed and to be treated for heartworms. He was equally pissed when the time came to have surgery again but this time, he was much stronger. His coat was growing in, he could stand, pee, poop, and put his tail in the air, like the royal plume it was meant to be. Pete took an interest in the donkey, chewing on sticks and running. He loves to run on the grass, the beach, or at the pool. He feels free off-leash and he loves to play with other dogs who will entertain him.
Today Pete is a resident at the sanctuary. All three of us went through too much to ever part ways. Peter loves Dave. His coat grows super thick and fluffly throughout the year. He receives a summer haircut every year, right around his new birthday.
This year, Pete has been living his best life for three years. Peter Rottentail is exactly what Dave and I said we would do from the beginning, give new life to those who have been left behind.
