GARDENA, CALIFORNIA – NEWS AND COMMENT: A 13-year-old German shepherd has been abandoned to an animal shelter: Saving Carson Shelter Dogs. The dog’s name is Macho. The shelter has a Facebook page and on the page is a video.
This story has caught the imagination of people judging by the number of people who have commented (982) and the number of views of the video which currently stands at 83,000. It is a popular video which you can see by clicking this link. Nothing happens in the video except to show this elderly dog. But clearly, people are concerned when a dog who is 13-years-old is relinquished like this. It does seem very strange because the implication is that the person who relinquished this dog cared for him for 13 years and then decided to give up.
The problem may be this dog’s health which is problematic. The shelter is seeking assistance and say that the dog is intact meaning that they have not been neutered and he is lame and underweight. X-rays indicated disc disease which in this case means a narrowing disc space along his back. They say this can be treated with pain control, rest and therapy. They started him on prednisone and pain control and he is being fed to try and get him to gain some weight. He’s being monitored and he may be outsourced to a fosterer. The purpose of this is to remove him from the shelter which is not an ideal place for a dog like this.
In a previous post I referred to some research which concluded that dogs are still anxious even after 12 days at a shelter. Many dogs don’t sleep for the first two nights in a shelter because it is a strange, noisy place with strange people etc. and they are too anxious.
Anybody who has read the story will be concerned about this dog’s welfare and hope that the last months or years of his life are as good as they can be.
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