Happy Birthday Jerry Regs

(That’s his Asian name).  I'm a bit obsessed with my animals, but if I blogged for each of their birthdays you would have at least one post a month.

I'm just very happy Jelly has made it to 2years old when at 6 months I asked how long he would live and was told, 'Well, we are really surprised he has lived this long."  Jelly has Ehlers Danlos which is rather rare in dogs.  He came into the shelter as a 4 week old puppy late on a Friday evening.  The only option was to put him to sleep as he was too young to adopt out and there was no where 'safe" for him to be housed. (Picture big old nasty shelter, tons of dogs in every cage and rampant disease).  He obviously had something wrong with his legs so I took him home for the weekend.

I was off that Monday so I made an appointment and took him to the veterinary specialist (AVS, who by the way rocks).  They did a lot of test but still were not sure what the problem was.  When I returned to work on Tuesday I was called into the director’s office and written up because the vet had complained that I took the puppy to another vet without her telling me to.  Now I paid for this out of my own pocket and as a foster parent had every right.  However the vet is one of those people with really low self esteem and even lower skills as a vet or a human.  I had apparently hurt her feelings by taking moral and financial responsibility for an animal instead of putting it to sleep.  But I digress; I'll save my soapbox for another blog.

Long story short I paid for the medical cost incurred by the shelter and for $11 I took home my little terrorist.  We made weekly then bi monthly trips to the specialist for quite a while.  A biopsy was performed and he was finally diagnosed with ED.  They really did an amazing job with him and for only a few boxes of Panera bagels.

Jelly has no idea he is disabled.  He hops on his back legs while scooting his front ones along.  He can run nearly as fast as a normal dog on the right surface. Because of his fragile skin I often have to staple him back together, he never complains and usually goes right back to playing when I'm done.  He has no problems bossing around the bigger dogs and routinely puts the cats in their place.  He hasn't met a human he doesn't like and greets everyone like a long lost friend.  He hasn't an ounce of manners because it never occurred to me to discipline him because I thought he was going to die. 

I love this little monster and I treasure each day I have with him.