Hoover makes new Friends

My Friends: I have LOTS of friends here and they are all very good to me. Kelly is one of the angels who helped get me here. She also gave me my first bath, I have since forgiven her for the bath. Chris is the receptionist who feeds me lunch and calls me her little man. I get to spend alot of time at the front desk, which is good beacause the man in the brown suit has been bringing me lots of stuff. He makes me put my paw on this little machine before he gives me my package... kind of weird but they all think it's adorable and it usually yields me extra treats. Dana and Lori take me on walks and Dana spends alot of time lecturing me about leash manners and begging. Dr. Reppart and Amanda spend most of their time poking and prodding me, and they argue about appropriate treatment protocol? LouAnn works somewhere else but she stops to see me every day. She comes in the middle of the night when everyone else is gone. She sits in my kennel and gives me snacks. She is my favorite person to drool on. I worry about her, she says that her dry cleaning bills are killing her. If I ever see them I will chase them away.

Hoover's promise: I Shall Never Go Hungry Again!

My First Toy: See my toy! I love my toy! I carry it everywhere and never tire of showing everyone that I have my very own toy. I have another one too, it's brown and furry and I use it as my pillow. Thank you to the very nice lady who sent me the toys. Also a HUGE thank you to the savior who sent me the dog food, I have made a very serious committment to eat every kibble.

My next blog will include my two week weigh-in. I can tell I'm gaining weight, because I'm not so cold all the time!

Hoover Goes on a Farm Call

From Hoover:
My First Outing: At first I thought we were playing a very bizarre game of dress up, then I found out that I was going on a farm call with Dr. Reppart. I am so excited! I get to ride in the big truck and we are going to go out to the country and make a sick horse all better. At first the whole boot thing was embarrassing, but Dr. Reppart put some on too so they must be cool! As soon as they find my sweater we are good to go.........yahoo!!

Hoover Update

From Hoover's Foster mom:
Hoover has had a very good week. He has completely recoverd from the kennel cough, is free of the intestinal parasites and continues to gain weight. He also received two care packages this week. One package was two toys and the other package was 200lbs of Canadaie dog food! Hoover instantly attatched himself to the blue squeaky dog, he never puts it down. He walks around with that toy in his mouth and his tail never stops moving, you can tell that he is very proud to have his very own toy.

Lunch!

Mmm, I get lunch EVERY day!!!

The Snack Drawer!

After that fiasco called a bath they did let me go up front with the receptionist and I got my lunch, lunch is GOOD! And then she left me up there all by myself and I found the drawer where they keep the snacks! Of course I helped myself to a few... well maybe like five or twenty biscuits. Dr. Reppart said I'm probably going to have a tummy ache, but it was worth it. No self respecting Bullmastiff would just ignore a drawer full of bicuits or eat just one!

I'm starting to feel a little better, most of my intestinal parasites are gone and my kennel cough is almost gone. I'm still very tired, but I'm never hungry, thirsty or cold. Actually I think the bath made me feel better too. I have alot of crusty sores all over me and now they don't itch so bad and I smell better too... man I didn't realize how stinky I was.., yuck! They ends of my ears are all chewed up from lots and lots of fly bites. They rubbed some oil on the scars and they fell better too. Hmmm maybe I will have to give this bath thing some thought. I'll think about it later, right now it is nap time and then before you know it someone will be feeding me again.. Oh joy!

My First Bath

Well they finally did it...all week long I've been hearing the same words over and over.... stinky, crusty, gross, bath.... NOW I know what a bath is and I'm not sure I like it, in fact I'm fairly certain I hate it. I must plot my escape soon, apparently I am to get one every week. After the bath they made me sit in a special kennel with warm air blowing on me, now that felt pretty darn good, but I howled the entire time just to see if I could deter them from ever doing this again.

Me in my Sweater

This is me in my sweater. I just have to wear it because I'm cold all the time. But I think things are looking up for me. For starters, no one ever put a sweater on me before.

Day One: I am rescued

Day 1: I wake up and I'm still on a hard cold floor, I wonder why they don't give me a blanket? My chest hurts, my stomach hurts and I am so hungry ... I'm just too tired to get up and eat. I can't stop shivering. I'm always so cold. I heard someone say I was going to be "put to sleep" because it costs too much money to make me better. I'm barely a year old and I really don't want to die.

Luckily for Hoover help arrived later that day. Through the kindness and compassion of a shelter worker a volunteer from The American Bullmastiff Association was contacted and immediately went to the shelter and removed Hoover from certain death.

Hoover was transported to Mount Vernon, OH where he will be a guest of Dr. Barry Reppart and several bullmastiff rescue volunteers. After a thorough physical exam, Hoover was diagnosed with heartworm disease, hook worms, whip worms, kennel cough and severe malnutrition. Hoover is a very tall boy and topped off the scales at a very meager 59lbs, a good sixty pounds underweight for a boy his size.

First night in hospital: This place is much nicer! I have piles of blankets and that nice doctor heated up rice bags and placed them all around me. Since I'm too weak to stand up, he sat beside me and hand-fed me this really yummy canned dog food, he said it's a special prescription diet to help ease my digestive system back into normal food. He said it had been so long since I'd eaten regular meals, that to have one would make me sick. I was given medicine to help get rid of those nasty intestinal parasites and I have all the clean fresh water I want. I can't remember the last time I had fresh water. Dr. Reppart also put these funny looking things in my kennel with me, he called them toys ... I'm really not sure what to do with them. I'm too tired to wonder about what to do with the toys ... But for the first time since I can remember, I'm not hungry or cold. I don't know when I last went to sleep with a full belly. I am going to go to sleep and look forward to tomorrow.