Foster pup:)

Meet King Julien:) He was named after the character in Madagascar and he is voiced in my head like that character from the movie. Soooo funny. And here's another great clip in case you aren't familiar with him.

Our Julien:

Madagascar's Julien:

Anywho, we offered to foster an 8 week old black lab puppy initially but were then told the pups were all taken care of and could we take Julien? We were told he was a pup too and needed rescued or he'd be put to sleep. If you know me at all, you know I couldn't say no. So on my way to pick him up from the vet (where he'd been neutered), I was told "oh by the way, he also has a skin condition and he'll need to take an antibiotic for that once a day in addition to his 3-times a day pain pill for losing his balls". This wasn't a big deal because they claimed it was nothing contagious and I've had to hide pills in peanut butter many times for my dogs.

So when I arrive at the vet, they proceed to tell me he also needs to come back in 3 days for a shot and will need these shots once a week for who-knows-how-long. The vet was in Matthews, NC and I live in Fort Mill, SC not to mention I work full time. I was excited to meet Julian though and figured we'd worry about the shots later. No sooner had I walked him out to the car than I realized he was COVERED in fleas. At this point I've already picked up an extra cage from the rescue (because all of mine are in use) and I've gotten his meds not to mention HIM from the vet- and I start to freak out. Mostly because I know how easily these pests can spread and I have three dogs of my own. I also feel guilty and sad because he is in pretty poor shape and seems so confused. But he is the sweetest, most gentle and happy dog! Ughhh! How could someone treat him so badly??

When we get home, I realize that he can't be on our carpet because the fleas will breed there. I also don't want him in the kitchen (our biggest area of non-carpet) because that's where we cook. So that leaves the guest bathroom. I set up the play pen thingy we bought when we got Scooter but he jumped over that thing in about 30 seconds. I had no option but to keep him crated... which made me feel even worse. I would take him out on a leash every hour or so in the front yard because the fleas spread in grass too so I was afraid to let him out back where our dogs go. The worst of it all, though, was he cried and howled almost non-stop. The first night we probably got two hours of sleep. The second night Mike got up at 3am to take him for a 30 minute walk in hopes of tiring him out. We couldn't actually let him run or anything too rigorous because just two days before he'd been neutered and his stitches were still very new. All this made things so much more frustrating because every time we thought of a possible solution, there was something that made it not work. And to make matters even worse, he smelled pretty bad because (I assume) he'd never been bathed before. Yet of course we couldn't bathe him because of the stitches from surgery. Add that to going in to our third day with almost no sleep and we were feeling guilty (because we knew we couldn't keep him any more), sad (because he hadn't been treated right and we weren't helping), and frustrated (because we couldn't fix him AND we were TIRED).

I am such a sweet boy!

So after a lot of talking and feeling even more guilty (and a lot of really not helpful people at the rescue that I don't even want to get in to seeing as how they didn't tell me even HALF of his health issues), we knew and decided we had to find him a new foster :( The saddest part to me was that Michael of all people had bonded with this pup/dog. Finally on Saturday (the 3rd day) we decided to bathe him (one day ahead of the vets orders- but we held a dry towel over his stitches during the bath). Then that meant we could finally apply flea killer - Advantix - in between his shoulder blades. Later that day, each time Mike walked him, I would clorox-wipe the floor because so many dead fleas were just falling off him and were all over the place. I'd also replace his blankets and wash the dirty ones. That way, when Mike would bring him back in, everything would be clean (in hopes the fleas wouldn't spread). Anyway, this went on for the next 12 hours or so. Then came another almost sleepless night (we got about 4 hours in the beginning because we learned if he heard the TV on, he thought we were still up and he was more content with that... but after 4 hours of not hearing us, he figured it out). By Sunday, I had contacted the lady I'd been working with at the rescue and told her we were bringing him to her house (she lives on a farm with SO much land and for-real dog kennels - like AC and heat, real buildings, almost like horse stables but for dogs). I knew he'd have other doggie friends to play with and LOTS of space to run. Mike gave him one final bath and we put on the new collar we had bought him the day before at PetsMart when picking up all his get-clean-and-bug-free stuff.

Look at me now:)

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Chopper (no surprise there) was very aggressive towards Julien. We're talking hair raised, teeth showing, growling and barking. And (surprisingly) so was Scooter! That just added to our problems. We were afraid once we got him clean and bug free, what if we still couldn't let him out because our dogs tried to attack him?? (who knows how long it would have taken me to actually feel comfortable letting him out of that bathroom after all I'd seen...) On a good note though, from all signs, he was housebroken - when we'd take him out, he'd pee at the first tree and never once had an accident. Not even close. So needless to say he was actually a really well behaved, sweet, loving, excited boy who just needed a lot more attention than we could give and a LOT more medical care. I assume he howled so much because he was alone in that bathroom and has been left alone too many times now. He was just anxious. And to add to my guilt, I've only added to that cycle by taking him to yet another new place. I really, really feel bad. But we've already had to flea-treat our carpet (just as a precaution and out of my anal-worried-ness). I couldn't risk our dog's health.

I guess now I know that I can't handle seeing the suffering first hand. I will stick with driving transport legs to help get dogs to a rescue and with donating money! And I hope Julien finds the best home imaginable. He deserves even more! To end on a happy note, here are me and the boys later that evening, sleeping because we were worn out!