Sad Night :(

nerdrock

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I brought Fynn downtown tonight to a music festival that Mike was working at. As we were walking home, around 10 pm, we see this huge chihuahua wandering around in someone's yard. This is pretty common here, but as we got closer we realized that there was no one around him and all the houses around that one (about 5 in total) had their lights off. Fynn is dog aggressive oh his leash so Mike held him back while I went to check out the dog. He saw Fynn and started approaching, I knelt down and he came right up to me.. a little hesitant but wagging his tail slowly. He let me pet him but growled when I tried to pick him up. Mike took Fynn's leash off and was going to hold him while I got the handle around the dog's neck so we could get him back to our place and try to find his owner (no collar on him). The chi started walking down the street so Mike followed him and I scooped up Fynn. I noticed that there were some people hanging outside of an apartment building, so I went over and asked them if they knew who's dog it was. Thankfully, they did and helped us corral the chi, picked him up (he just let them and seemed to know them), then took him to his owner in the next apartment building.

The poor chi was sooo skinny though! He had huge tear stains and gunk around his eyes, long toe nails, obviously pretty old. He would have been about a 10-15 lb dog and looked like he weighed about 5 lbs. As we were walking home I told Mike that we shouldn't have tried to find it's owners, just brought him home, fixed him up and got him a good home out of the city. I felt so bad for him.
 

rafm

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But you don't know the dog's story. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he was so skinny, maybe he's sick.

But I do know the feeling of walking away wondering if you made the right decision in returning an animal.
 
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nerdrock

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Originally Posted by RAFM

But you don't know the dog's story. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he was so skinny, maybe he's sick.

But I do know the feeling of walking away wondering if you made the right decision in returning an animal.
That's true, and that's why we did what we could to return him to his owner. If we wouldn't have found them, we would have taken him to the vet tomorrow to be checked out and scanned for a chip. I'm kind of wishing that we would have done that instead of looking for the owner right away, then we would have maybe had a clue why he was skinny. I honestly don't know how he had the energy to walk and trot a little but, you could see every single rib and his spine.

There are so many animals in this area that are just treated like accessories and not cared for properly, if at all, so when I see one in his condition wandering my mind just jumps to that.
 

MoochNNoodles

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Aw. My old RB girl Tasha described like that in her last years. She got so she would wander a bit; where once you could let her out and she'd be right by the house. She mostly just went into the neighbors yards sometimes. The vet was even unable to clip her nails without putting her under and he didn't want to do that because of her health. She lost a ton of weight. It was sad. But those things helped me accept it when she passed.

I do understand your feelings though! I'd want to take him/her home to try to help em out too! I hate when I see other animals looking like they aren't getting the love they need. What bothers me is that he was wandering outsided the apartment buildings; not in a neighborhood with yards. Poor thing.
 
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nerdrock

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Originally Posted by MoochNNoodles

Aw. My old RB girl Tasha described like that in her last years. She got so she would wander a bit; where once you could let her out and she'd be right by the house. She mostly just went into the neighbors yards sometimes. The vet was even unable to clip her nails without putting her under and he didn't want to do that because of her health. She lost a ton of weight. It was sad. But those things helped me accept it when she passed.

I do understand your feelings though! I'd want to take him/her home to try to help em out too! I hate when I see other animals looking like they aren't getting the love they need. What bothers me is that he was wandering outsided the apartment buildings; not in a neighborhood with yards. Poor thing.
I think working with dog rescue in this area has made me skeptical of everyone. I liked it so much better when I didn't know the areas were dogs were the most mistreated in the city, which is surprisingly the richer areas.

I was trying to rack my brain about what it could be... he can't be a puppy mill rescue - all the mills in this area will only release to one person. She then gets them to the rescues. He can't be from a rescue, if he was a foster he would be wearing a collar and if he were and adopted dog he wouldn't have been in that condition. Medically, his eyes were bright and clear despite the massive tear stains and crud built up around them, his gums were bright and pink (saw that when he growled at me, lol), his fur was in pretty good condition - no dandruff, fairly clean... aside from the weight, nails and eye crud, he looked in pretty good condition. I've never seen anything like it to be honest, and I've seen a lot. Just out of curiosity, when Tasha was losing weight did she still look healthy despite it? Do you know what she had that caused it? I'm sorry for your loss as well.

If I see him wandering again I'm going to grab him and take him to the vet. Best case scenario, I know the building he lives in and could get him home by talking to their building manager. Worst case, there's nothing wrong with him and we can get him into rescue to help him.
 

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Originally Posted by nerdrock

I think working with dog rescue in this area has made me skeptical of everyone. I liked it so much better when I didn't know the areas were dogs were the most mistreated in the city, which is surprisingly the richer areas.
I completely understand this. Being involved in rescue myself, I am INCREDIBLY skeptical of people and increasingly jaded in general.
It's never easy to know what the right decision is, but you did what you thought best at the time and that is what matters. You can't beat yourself up over it. It doesn't do any good.
 
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