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Red
**no, that isn't a dead animal in his mouth, it's his beloved Simba (lion king)
stuffed toy**
This is Red...... our newest addition....once again! Now I
swear to you that WE didn't go looking for him. HE found us!
My husband, my kids and I like to go 4 wheeling....the place we
go to is just a bunch of woods near a river...rather rough terrain. No houses
anywhere near, mind you.
One day in the middle of summer, this UGLY....seriously red dog
starts following us! Just following along, running behind our 4
wheelers. Oh he was ugly.... dirty....had long hair, but the coat was very
thin, very course. Not much more than a bunch of bones following us.
His hips protruded to the point of being disgusting....you could see all
his ribs as well. We petted him, but hated touching him and feeling all
those bones.
But this dog just wouldn't stop following us!!! During
that time, my son Matthew fell in love with him and vice versa. He kept
begging us to take the dog home and how everyone in the house had a dog except
him and he wanted his own dog. Oh and this ugly thing just wanted to play with
Matt SO bad! Even swam into water over his head to get to Matt during a
little swim break we took. I have to admit, he got to all of us.
Well, I talked to Floyd and we agreed that we really could use a
watch dog, even if we really didn't want one. So Floyd told Matt that if
the dog stayed with us the whole time and if, when we were ready to leave, we
could catch him, we'd take him home. In a rush for something to call him,
he ended up as Red (Red Dawg) for his color.
Needless to say, Red did stay with us....... for 6 hours this
dog followed us! Also needless to say, we did get him in the truck LOL.
So we bring him home. Now this dog was so skinny that I
was afraid to feed him much at a time, so he got fed 1/2 a cup of kibble several
times a day. He didn't want more than that either, sometimes it took
coaxing to get him to eat that much. He was also so skinny that I didn't want to take him to the
vet right away! Just wanted to get a tiny bit of weight on him
first.....GADS I didn't want anyone to think I did that to him!!!
So 3 weeks later he made it to the vet. Still way too
skinny, but not as bad as he was, though I'm not so sure that was saying much. But
at least he was starting to want to eat more than 1/2 a cup at a time now.
The vet figures he's part golden retriever, part chow (the tongue
was a give away) and was about 7-9 months old when we found him.
He was started in on the distemper and other
shots, rabies shot and heartworm test waiting til his health got better. Of course, as we figured,
there were worms....so he was on meds for those for 3 days....not to mention a
diet of 1 cup plain yogart once a day and 1-2 cups cottage cheese and plain rice
(as he healed
I was able to add 1/2 cup of kibble to the cottage cheese and rice) twice a day because
his intestines were so tore up from whatever it was he was forced to eat while
in the woods. This was a diet he stayed on for 2 months before he was
healed enough to eat kibble straight!!
We've had Red for about 6 months now and what a change!!
He shed that yucky coat and now it's shorter, but MUCH thicker and SO
soft!
He's so funny, he's like a kid when it comes to toys. I
swear, give this dog a toy and you can see his face light up!!! As
you can tell from the pictures, he really loves to play! LOL one of
his favorite toys (that he's not allowed to have because it's not a toy) is my
kids thick, fuzzy, reindeer house shoes with the antlers and jingling
bells. The day they got them Matt walked outside in them. Boy was
that a mistake!! Didn't take 2 seconds for Red to zero in on them and
start chasing Matt around the yard. He then knocked poor little Matt to
the ground and ripped one of his shoes off of him and ran with it! Both
kids were screaming and chasing Red around the yard for a good 20 minutes or so
before they got him and got the shoe back. Not intact mind you, but they
got it back. Just took a needle and some thread and it was good as new, if
you ignored the dog slobber. LOL
He's more than paid us back for bringing him home.....he's
always in a playful mood (sometimes too much so) and just recently, he ran off a
strange man who was in our yard at night. Yeah, I think it was a good
thing he found us. Funny how a dog that we didn't go looking for has
wiggled his way so far into our hearts so quickly, we even ignore the fact that
our once green, grassy yard isn't so green and grassy anymore!
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