ANGRY!!!!!!

Sherman and Orchid

Woke up this morning:

So today is Easter. The crazy part of me decided I wanted to cook a twelve hour brisket with Maddy's (my oldest daughter, 4 yo) favorite vegetable.... Artichokes. So, I decided to wake up at 4am and start the smoker for this dinner I had all planned out in my mind. I got up, and walked into the kitchen to see sweet Sherman perk up in his kennel like Christmas morning to see what the clatter was all about. Poor guy had gone to the bathroom in his kennel (not uncommon for fosters since they may not know to go outside). I did let him out and his feet looked on so I let him out of the kennel for a while to explore the kitchen... poor thing just went into George's kennel. It's like he has no clue on how to be outside of a cage. I proceeded to clean up the mess and I had this overwhelming sense of angry wash over me...

First Crusty Bath

SHERMAN'S CONDITION

I think my anger stemmed from yesterday. I mean, I saw the photos of him at the shelter. I saw the condition. But once I actually laid eyes on him my heart hurt, my blood boiled, I wanted retribution for him, to make someone hurt as badly as he was hurt.

You see.... yesterday I gave him his first or many, many, many medicated baths. From what I have googled (gotta love Google), Demodex is a form of mite that lives in the hair follicle, making it eventually fall out and the skin to be crusty and smell horribly of yeast. It is typically passed on from mother to pup during birth and can happen to any dog. This isn't what infuriates me... What makes me mad is the  condition I first saw him in.

Sherman is estimated to be five months old.... 5 MONTHS!!!!! He looks like a dog you'd see on a zombie movie... he has almost no fur, he has flaky skin and sores over his entire body, he's itchy, droopy, crusty, a few open sores, and I can count many more bones on his body than I should be able to....he looked defeated. He's tired and yesterday he looked like he had simply given up. There's no reason a young puppy should have given up.

He's so skinny and lacked energy yesterday that when I was giving him a bath I thought for sure he had an inflamed anal gland. I later realized what I was feeling was his hip bone.... HIS HIP BONE!!!!! I mentioned yesterday that this dog has no reason to trust people whatsoever and it's true, but the entire time I was scrubbing him down he was leaning into me, grunting in approval, and laying his head on my leg. He would have a hard time standing but he would grunt and almost purr with approval. After the bath he went back to sleep inside the kennel (although he had free roam of the entire kitchen and backyard.

Car ride from the Shelter

Sherman's Backside (what I thought was an infected glad... it's his bone)

FAST FORWARD TO THIS MORNING

I was so conflicted this morning when he greeted me. I was more than happy to see him, see that he made it through his first night with relative ease (the first night with a new foster is always the hardest). But I was so angry he was failed by a person. Failed by someone he should have trusted. And as it is with many dogs... he showed me who the stronger species is. As I was cleaning his kennel, he sniffed on me and gave me licks , almost like he was thanking me. Like wherever he was before, a simple kennel cleaning wasn't a normal thing.

People suck. Not all people, but a lot of us do and we all know it. We argue about everything, we debate everything from politics to what we eat for dinner. Dogs are simple. All they want is a warm bed and someone to come home at night and give them attention and food. They don't argue over who spends time with them, they don't argue what you put in front of them to eat, they don't care about politics or celebrities... they're simple. Sherman in particular is a simple, sweet pup. He looks like he could be cast in "I Am Legend" but he has a sweet soul.

All of today has been more or less a whole new dog. He still prefers to lay in his kennel to rest but he's perked up, he followed me around the kitchen sniffing for food, we even got to hear his bark. (Note to self- don't feed the other dog first while I get his dinner ready or he will bark "what the hell dude"). By the end of the evening he would even come up to us looking for to be scratched. He's growing on us all fast. More updates to come.

Sleepy Boy

I've been asked quite a bit over the last day on how to help this guy. If you are one of those people or if Sherman's story has inspired you in some way you can find Underdog Animal Rescue's Facebook page here, there is a fundraiser post on the page.

At First Sight

THE BEGINNING

Hello, my name is Rick. I'll start by saying I'm new to blogging. I've always wanted to start a blog and talk about all the crazy things that run through my head on a daily basis but I could never hone it down to just one topic. Today I found that one topic, that one story, that needs to be told.

This journey with UNDERDOG ANIMAL RESCUE started a few years ago. To be exact it was the beginning of July 2017 when my wife asked me if we could foster two pittie puppies. At the time we already had our own three dogs, a toddler, my job and a pretty active social life. To be honest, I was cool with it. I just reminded my wife that the bulk of the duties of caring for the pups would be on her since she was home during the day. On July 3rd of that year she went and picked up four pit bull puppies that were rescued from the porch of a home about an hour and a half drive from our place. We ended up only fostering two, and the other two went to another foster home, but that was the start of our  three year journey into the world of dog rescue. Since that fateful day, we have had 28 different foster dogs pass though the doors and beds of our home. Some for months, other for days, one senior that stayed with us through his last days.

Rescue is hard work and my wonderful wife is a saint for how well she handles it all. I get to retreat to work during the week but she is here, feeding, bathing, and  cleaning messes from not only the dog but also our two kids. With that said, rescue is also a lot of fun and extremely rewarding. You get to hang out with and train a new dog all the time. You get to love on and cuddle with a new dog all the time, and if the dog has some quirks that are hard to get through, it isn't permanent. And there's nothing like sending that dog off to its permanent home, to live and be loved for the rest of their days.

We have had our fair share of sad cases. We've taken in Kennel Cough cases, malnourished cases, we even took in a 17 year old beagle that was deaf, lumpy, and had no teeth. Nothing prepared us for what was next...


 THE FACE OF RESCUE

I have had a special place in my heart for every dog that has come into our home but none have really made me tear up just looking at them. Maybe we are just lucky but these dogs bring a smile to my face. Some are sad but we try to do our part, and my mindset has always been that we are just a stop, don't get too attached.

Today was the day that changed. Today I realized we can be much more than just a random stop in the life of a four-legged creature. This is The Face Of Rescue....

Meet Sherman!!!! This boy has pulled at my heartstrings more in the last 5 hours than any other dog we've had. He's crusty, stinky, skin and bones, and he has no reason at all to trust humans. Someone let him get this way and I'm here to tell the story he can't!!!


SHERMAN'S BACKGROUND (as far as we know)

Basically all we know about this pup is that he has the worst case of Demodectic Mange any of us have ever seen, he's a sack of skin and bones (more on that in the future), he's got a cherry eye, and he was confiscated from a person in the Sacramento area.

He was brought to Front Street Animal Shelter with a female that wasn't in nearly as bad a shape as he is. Underdog Animal Rescue pulled both from the shelter, and we got Sherman.

Stay tuned for the story on this incredible pup and his rehab from Frankenstein back to, well.... I guess we'll find out together!