McCoy and Ranger

 

I’ve written about these boys before. They used to live with a very old, sick man who couldn’t care for them. I first found these boys last winter on a very cold, snowy day. Ranger, the Chowx, only had a 3-sided plywood piece of trash for his shelter. The other dog, McCoy, had a doghouse. I introduced myself to Elmer and began helping him with his dogs, starting with a doghouse for Ranger and hay and food for both. The dogs were unsocialized, although Ranger was not quite as bad as McCoy. McCoy was totally shut down. He would not make eye contact, he ran as far away from me as he could on his chain. It was all very sad.

When Spring came, it became very apparent that McCoy was chained in a sewage area. He was living in a mixture of mud and feces, which we call it for what it is-shit. It stunk so bad that we would get the dry heaves when we tried to get him fresh water, etc. We finally convinced Elmer to let us move McCoy to a different spot in the yard and we got him set up in a better area. We continued to care for the dogs and check on Elmer. We battled the fleas and flies for them all summer. One day we went over and found McCoy off of his tie-out and hiding under an upside-down sofa. When he peeked his head out, Marilyn noticed that the side of his face had a terrible wound on it. We told Elmer that we had to get him to the vet and Elmer told us not to bring him back. It was quite an ordeal to get this totally unsocialized, injured dog out from under that sofa, but Kate, Marilyn and their control stick finally got him. They had to knock him out at HSGKC and get his face cleaned up. Now McCoy could get on with living a happy life for probably the first time in his life.

McCoy stayed at Chain of Hope for a couple of months while he healed, was neutered and went through his heartworm treatment. He is now with Ashlee, who has been with me for about 3 yrs. doing outreach. Ashlee takes some of our challenging dogs and fosters them and she does a phenomenal job! Ashlee is an excellent trainer, a very patient person and very smart about dog behavior. McCoy has come a long way, but he is a very damaged boy. Ashlee continues to make progress with him, but it is slow. He has finished his heartworm treatment and is finally all vetted and healthy.

We always felt so bad that Ranger was left there. We hated to think of him still over there. Elmer had tried, but he was just too debilitated to care for the dogs. We continued to care for Ranger and work on Elmer to secure Ranger’s release. Ranger so deserved what McCoy finally had. We continued to press on for Ranger and were finally able to make Ranger a Chain of Hope dog as well. We were so glad to finally get him out of there. He proved to be heartworm positive as well. He has not started his treatment yet, but will sometime this month. Ranger is a super dog. We took him to the doggie wash and washed all of the scum and filth off of him.He is still pretty shy, but there are a few of us that he will come up to and let us love on him. That is a special moment when he allows that. It makes me smile.

The really cool part of this story is that through getting both of the dogs back and forth for vet appointments, etc. Ranger and McCoy ended up back at Chain of Hope at the same time. They got to see each other again!! They just smelled and smelled each other and wagged their tails ALOT and kissed each other. It was an amazing thing. It still brings tears to my eyes. They both made it out and are on to better lives. They finally crawled into the same crate together. It was very, very touching. They both seemed to know now that the other one was safe and happy and they can proceed on. This would not have been possible without your support. Thank you.