Previous Animal Updates: March 12, 2007
Fun with Nike
Editor's note: Nic Ward, Nike's sponsor and champion, wrote this update on Nike's life since coming to Home for Life®.
Nic and Nike with a mall patron at the annual HFL holiday event a Mall of America.
It has been almost a year now since I was lucky enough to find Home For Life® (HFL) to take care of my husky puppy Nike. I had adopted Nike, who had a spine injury from a dog attack that left her with unstable rear legs. She was a wobbly and lovable little girl and lived with us for a happy and memorable year before the injury progressed and she lost the ability to control her rear legs and bladder. We moved her to a wheel chair and she did not miss a moment of fun, but eventually she needed full-time supervision and medical care. Luckily, we found HFL and Nike quickly felt right at home and moved in with her roommates Sapphire and Fritz.
I have continued to sponsor Nike and have been fortunate enough to be able to visit her regularly every two or three weeks. Over the year, that has meant many memorable visits that always left me with a smile as I drove home. Each visit, she seems to hear my car arrive and by the time I get to her doggy-condo, her ears are already up and she is doing fast circles in her cart with excitement. Our routine is for me to take her out for a walk in the field, but only after she feels she has had enough time to hug and greet me with licks. She then races off into the field looking back with a smile, and then at some point she runs back even faster for another cuddle.
During these visits, several things always impress me. It is amazing how confident she has become in her wheel chair. She is not only so very fast, but also so very confident and at ease when maneuvering. There have been a few times when she runs into the woods and has got stuck on a branch. I have gone to help her, only to watch her push back herself to reverse out of the situation and plunge forward again to chase whatever she was after.
I am also grateful and astonished at how clean and well cared for she because of the HFL staff. She is always groomed and pretty with fresh bandages when she needs them. The staff knows her well and she is a favorite. They even make the extra effort to pick bandage colors to give her a sense of fashion and style. Indeed, it is the continuous monitoring and medical care that the staff gives Nike that has allowed her to recover from several nasty episodes of infected pressure sores. It is only with the special care given by the HFL staff that Nike is such a healthy and happy dog.
I want to close this update on Nike with my two favorite memories in the last 12 months. One memory comes from a recent dedication ceremony at HFL with a blessing of the animals given by a local Native American medicine man. I came up to visit Nike and have her blessed. During the blessing the medicine man sang a native song accompanied by his wife playing a traditional drum. Nike watched the medicine man and tilted her head to listen to the drum and—to my surprise—began to wag her tail. This was amazing since Nike's rear-end is totally paralyzed so that her tail never moves. She must have heard something in the music that she understood.
My other memory relates to one of the trips that Nike took with me outside of HFL. Nike is often part of HFL celebrations and events such as the annual charity dinner and fund raising event at the Mall of America. Each summer, I also bring her to our local dog park where we have an annual fair for dogs and their families. Nike used to come to this park with me and her sister Sadie (a White German Shepherd), so everyone at the fair knows her and she is always a star—especially when I put her and her cart into the kiddy-pool set up for dogs to dunk for pieces of sausage. At the end of the fair last year, we took Nike and Sadie down to the lake for a swim. I swam out with Sadie as I normally do while Nike was enthusiastically chasing something on shore. Soon after, I turned around to see Nike swimming toward me in her wheel chair using only her front legs with the air-filled tires of the chair supporting her rear-end. Aside from the fun of having her out in the lake too, I was struck by how calm she seemed as if there was nothing unusual about being in a wheelchair and swimming. It’s just what you do when you’re Nike.
I look forward to my next visit.
Life gets calmer, and feels better, for Stormy
Stormy, a recovering tom cat, was running as a stray in a trailer park in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. A rescue group called St. Francis of Forest Lake, MN initiated a trap/neuter/release program for the many cats who ran loose in the trailer park, most of whom were presumed feral or untamed.
While setting traps and making ready their preparations for the widespread feral cat operation, representatives from St. Francis observed a blind cat running frantically in and around the trailers. He was thin and had obviously been struggling to survive for a long time. They were able to trap the cat, known as Gumby, and called Home for Life® to ask if we could help him.
Upon admission to HFL, Gumby, now called Stormy, was neutered and what remained of his eyes carefully examined by a veterinary opthamalogist. Stormy was found to be blind in both eyes with no hope for future vision. The specialist determined that Stormy had suffered trauma to the skull, from either a car or, most likely, from a kick or a smack with a bat or shovel.
Stormy with Bridget Kessey, one of the HFL Animal Care Specialists who convinced him that affection can be a good thing.
Stormy's right eye has a full cataract and the retina is detached. What's more, the lower eyelid rolls over and rubs painfully on his cornea—a condition called an "entropion." The left eye is very small and probably took the brunt of the trauma. The third eyelid rides up high over his eye and there are signs of extensive damage, including a cataract.
The specialist believed that Stormy suffered severe head trauma that resulted in retinal detachments and bleeding into his eyes with cataract formations. When there is enough inflammation to cause the eye to shrink, there is a chance of a future tumor in the eye called "posttraumatic sarcoma."
In the next few weeks, Stormy will have his left eye removed and closed to prevent any chance of a tumor forming. The painful entropion in his right eye will be repaired at the same time. Although Stormy cannot see with his right eye, the pressure in the eye is normal, so the eye can be spared. The money to help Stormy and pay for his surgeries is available through Home for Life's Emergency Medical Care Fund, which pays for treatment for animals admitted to the sanctuary with serious injuries or illnesses.
Stormy has been at the sanctuary for a couple of months now and seems to be trying to put hard times behind him. Initially, he stayed in the outdoor cat run at all times and had to be fed out there. He only ventured indoors to the cattery late at night. Although tolerant of petting and not feral, he did not seek contact was very wary and timid. But the appeal of regular mealtimes, a warm place to live, a soft bed, and kind people to care for him finally persuaded Stormy that life is worth living as a tamer cat. He will never be a gregarious cat, but he now enjoys receiving attention from our staff and also eagerly awaits his twice daily meals of canned food.
Many cats that are deemed "feral" are simply stray cats—house cats who have been turned loose outside and abandoned to fend for themselves. They grow cautious out of necessity, but once their confidence is won again, they readily take to being cared for like the most loving of house cats.