Long Term Foster Dogs

Tilly’s Story

Sadly Tilly has recently gone over the rainbow

Tilly was returned to us recently due to her owner’s ill-health, she was originally rehomed in 2017.

Tilly is now age 14 and has the usual old age problems, arthritis, and bladder weakness when she is asleep, both requiring on going medication, so she will stay with us on Long Term Foster.

She had a skin condition when she came back to us, which we have now successfully treated, but continues on medication to keep it under control, an ear infection, which has also now been resolved too and a urine infection, which has been treated too.

Old dogs can be expensive, but we pride ourselves here at Just Springers Rescue, that we give all dogs in our care everything they need. Tilly has regular injections of Librela for her arthritis each month and she is on daily medication for the Bladder condition and itchy skin.

She has now settled in her Foster home, going for gentle walks and she is doing well. She is a sweet, happy girl, but knows her mind and loves a tennis ball.
 

Update on Barty June 2023

We have had Barty in Long Term Foster for 18 months now and he has continued to be a Joy. He also continues to stretch the Charities bank balance. He has stayed at the Fostering Hub, as he will not settle anywhere else. He shows his feelings, by barking all through the night until he comes home.

After the challenging start he had with us, with all his medical needs, we have now settled into regular checks at Optivet in Havant for his eye condition (senile corneal endothelial degeneration, which means he can’t keep his cornea dehydrated and if untreated causes painful ulcers.), with all his daily eye drops. He has medication for his arthritis, itchy skin condition and ongoing ear medications. He is affectionately known as ‘the walking vet bill’.
   

Even with all his eye drops, his eyes have degenerated. He has just had to have a big operation on both his eyes to thin his cornea to prevent him getting painful ulcers in his eyes, due to his eye conditions thickening his cornea. This has cost the charity more than £4,000, but he is worth it.

We have made lots of trips to Havant for his appointments, but Barty has just had his last check up and his cone if off.

He had to have his cone on for 4 weeks and in that period we had a planned Holiday to the New Forest, so Barty came, cone and all. He still had a lovely time.

Following on from George’s update in October

George’s blood pressure had not come down enough in October so the tablets were doubled and instead of coming down it went up!!! Emma then referred him to The Ralph Centre in Marlow. So Jenny and I set off with me leaving Copsale at 6.15 am to go to Jenny’s who kindly did the driving and up to The Ralph for 9.15am Here George had a though history taken and then he went off to have MIR scans of his brain, ultra scans of his abdomen plus a lumber punch and samples of his spleen. It was discovered he had had a bleed on the brain, but why is still a bit of a mystery, was it the high blood pressure? or what had caused the high blood pressure, this is why they did so many scans trying to find any lumps or tumours which would have caused the rise in blood pressure, but they drew a blank. So back home with yet more pills, but all through this George has remained his usual cheeky self, balls, food, plus short walks are the order of the day plus lots of love, and he is as happy as Larry as the saying goes.

The Ralph is a wonderful place, the care both George, Kate, Jenny and myself, was second to none and we would like to thank them for all their care even for Kate who was with George all the time he was awake, they understood George’s need for his mentor dog and even made a fuss of her so she did not feel left out. Once again the Charity picked up the bill which after The Ralph’s very generous discount was in the region of £4,000 plus. George now at the beginning of February is doing well on his 13 medications, still going for short walks and playing ball in the house.

Update on George October 2023
George has been in the wars lately, besides his normal complaints for which he regularly receives treatment. The poor lad has been suffering from anul gland problems which ended up in him having them washed out and packed with antibiotics under sedation. When trying to relive himself before treatment he damaged his spine which the muscles were keeping in place , on recovering from the sedation his muscles relaxed and he temporally lost the use of his back legs, which after a few  trips to the chiropractor and having acupuncture he regained full use of.  Then very unexpectedly one Sunday he had 6 seizures the first being the longest of nearly 20 minutes the last 6 hours later only lasted about 30 seconds,  So after speaking to the vet up to Reigate it was  yet another visit, were it was discovered his blood pressure was very, very high being 226/149 (usual  range 110/60 to160/90 ) so more pills to bring it down. After one week it was down to 211 so work on this is still in progress.

But George being George takes it all in his stride, still wanting his walks, and still insisting on playing with his tennis balls, Any visitor is expected to play ball with him as his Mum won’t play until the evening, Balls are not now put on the bed but laid beside the bed in a pile ready to trip me up as I get out of bed!

Previous update
George is now believed to be 13 years old and is still work in progress. He came to JSR aged about 30 months via the Dog warden, having been found under a car when the owner of the car returned from holiday. It took three days to get him out when it was discovered he had a broken jaw, broken shoulder and a split pelvis, he was terrified of humans, having probably been used as a football!!

George ran loose on a committee member’s smallholding for about a year before he could be touched, he was very clever in never going into a building with a door and slept in the hay barn or under a hedge. He then fell in love with the late Bramble and jumped into my car to be with her, the third time this happened I managed to shut the cage door and had him trapped. On arriving home, he was tied to Bramble for three days as his fear flight was very, very high and he did not like going into any building with a door on.

Bramble was quite happy to stay in the garden until it was dinner, when the thought of not going in was not to be considered, George had no choice but to come in being dragged by Bramble up the steps on his back. Bramble put a lot of work into George helping him to get over his fear of humans and other dogs. On her death George was distraught until he had another mentor dog.

 Enter Kate a very beautiful, champion show Springer who has carried on Bramble’s good work and has greatly helped George with his confidence when out of his comfort zone. His greatest delight are his tennis balls, putting up to 14 in my bed in the morning to get me up! In 2017 he won a national award at the National Pet show in London for his courage in over coming his terrible start in life. George’s health is not brilliant but with regular visits to his vet and chiropractor he manages very well and enjoys a great life down here at Copsale where most people don’t realise his past history, he now goes to the village hall once a month to the coffee morning and is starting to get known and enjoys the fuss he gets.