Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Pup Pup

Pup Pup needs a new name. He's one of the CASPCA scabies puppies that I took in several weeks ago. The other two have been long since returned to the shelter, neutered, and adopted out. This guy was the most shy of the three, and he had some swelling after the neuter surgery, and his skin condition still didn't look great, so he came back home with me as a foster. I initially brought back the three terrier pups to keep him company, but I returned them after a week when their stray hold was up and we were glad to see them go (fiesty, noisy, almost feral, and they looked like long-haired rats).

Pup Pup is called Sangha by CASPCA. Sangha is a Buddist word and I can't explain it further. The other two in the litter were called Dharma and Buddha, named by a budding Buddist CASPCA staffer or volunteer. I can't bring myself to call this little guy Sangha, so he needs a new name. I've just been calling him Pup Pup. He is still quite shy but is beginning to warm up. He moved inside just before the snow storm, not so much because of the snow, but because of the very cold weather that came along with it. He was cozy in his shelter and very warm when I crawled in there to drag him out, but I feel better with him inside and he needs it for the socialization and training anyway. He's been great indoors. He will pee on the newspaper but holds the poop until I get him outdoors. You can't ask for more from a pup his age.

The first day he barely left his bed and I was concerned that he wasn't eating and drinking, so I started squirting water into his mouth several times a day with an oral syringe because I was worried that he was getting dehydrated. He's now eating and drinking normally and has begun playing with things in his crate, mostly shredding newpaper. He's next to Molly and Emmylou and they are not bothering him. In fact, he is snuggled up next to Molly. He's still getting Clavamox for a likely skin infection and tomorrow I plan to give him a bath and a dip in that nasty lyme/sulfur solution that smells so bad but seems to work wonders on the skin.

I'm getting rather attached and hesitate to return him to the shelter because he'd be adopted out in a matter of minutes. I don't plan to keep him myself, but I would like to have a hand in finding his new home so I can exercise my own discretion about where he goes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

He has a very serious expression. How about a serious sounding name?

Anonymous said...

Here's a serious name - Fergus.