Sofi the Explorer

Lots of developments in the last 48 hours! Each day she seems to morph into an altogether different soul....it's incredible to watch. I was wondering last night if we would wake up to her reading a book.

She hit another big turning point yesterday afternoon and evening when she started exploring outside her little sleeping area. She has started coming to us when we put our hand out, licking our hands, and she is going in and out of the door without freaking out. Last night she went around the corner into the bedroom and studied herself in the full-length mirror. This morning, she chased SlinkyBob down the hall, right out into the living room and kitchen. She stayed to sniff around and didn't seem uneasy at all!

I spoke with Dr. Bradley last night--he viewed her films with the radiologist yesterday and told me the two of them believe her pelvis was not previously broken, as his colleague told us last week, but he did say it was a bad view. We discussed the FHO (Femoral Head Ostectomy), and I want him to give her a thorough exam before going forward with it. As I type, she is zooming back and forth past my office window outside........

So apparently, when a limb is disconnected, the body makes a false joint out of scar tissue and muscle. It seems to be working pretty well for her, but the danger would be if she has bone rubbing on bone, which would cause pain. The FHO would take care of this and hopefully cut down on future arthritis issues. However, it's a painful recovery, so I want him to look at her very carefully before moving forward. I also want him to look at her shoulder alignment issues and bowed front leg to see how that might factor into the plan.

With the way she has been acting since yesterday, I find myself wondering which prospect is scarier--a dog with lots of problems, or a normal dog who is pulling up plants and chewing up all the wood chips outside, being rowdy and loud in the house, and generally acting like a puppy........I think we may end up with the latter.

You may have noticed on the comments from the last post that one of Sofi's "cage-mates" also has a blog! Check it out if you have a chance: http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/susiecreamcheeze/

Of particular interest is a comment posted by one of Sofi's rescuers:

"I work for the Kansas Animal Health Department. We are the state agency that seized Liberty and the other dogs from the breeder.

It might help to know a bit about how she was living.

The dogs were kept “up on wire” which means just that. They were in runs that were about 4 feet off the ground and they were walking on coated wire. (It is unusual but not unheard of for breeders to keep large dogs on wire; generally they are in ground runs). The kennel was extremely overcrowded, with multiple dogs in each run. The runs were indoor/outdoor but the indoor portion was only about 3.5 square feet. That is where their food and water were. It was obvious which dog in each run was alpha - one dog was fat, the next was normal, the third was thin and the fourth (or fifth) tended toward emaciation.

The indoor portion of the building had, at one time, been air conditioned but there was no electricity the night we were there (we seized the dogs at night because of the heat).

Many of the dogs had not had a lot of “hands on” contact with people and were frightened by all of the activity but the Bernese were delighted. One of them, in fact, literally jumped into my arms.

It may take a while, even a year or more, but Liberty will come around and start acting like a real dog - jumping and playing - eventually. You just need lots of patience. And giving her a crate is exactly the right thing to do. It gives her a safe retreat.

We cared for these dogs for 8 days before we finally obtained official custody of them. They are all very special to our team and to the staff members from the Lawrence Humane Society, the Great Bend Humane Society and Wichita's Kansas Humane Society who helped us.

Thank you so much for adopting Liberty. I hope other people who adopted these dogs also post comments. The turnout at the shelter was amazing and just what I normally expect from Lawrence. What a great community!"