Lacey's Veterinary Bill

This is the story of Lacey, who needs $750 to have dental work, which I cannot afford.  The money will cover her pre-op work-up and required oral x-rays, the anesthesia and surgery and follow-up care. 

When we got Lacey back in 2008, my husband and I were both gainfully employed.  By 2012, my husband was determined to be permanently disabled because of advancement of a chronic health condition that failed to respond to two aggressive treatments over several years time.  His condition has since deteriorated, and I can no longer work so that I can take care of him at home. 

Lacey is my best pal, especially since we are unable to socialize much at all anymore.  The thought of her enduring pain and suffering is unbearable, and the vet says she is otherwise very healthy.

I am able to schedule her surgery for April 19, 2017.   Your donation is deeply appreciated. 

I love dogs. The Dalmatian I grew up with lived to the ripe old age of 19. I’ve had mutts, Pit Bull Terriers, and a Rottie, and I especially love big dogs, the “bully breeds”. So, after I’d been without a dog for years, and my husband found himself working a three to eleven shift while I spent quiet evenings home with my elderly in-laws, I decided I wanted a dog again. Because my husband’s parents, both of whom were in their eighties and in poor health, lived with us, I couldn’t entertain the thought of another large dog. I didn’t want a puppy to housetrain, and I certainly didn’t want to purchase an expensive dog from a breeder when there are hundreds of terrific dogs waiting in rescue centers and foster homes all over America.

I first started looking for a pug, but quickly found many were adoptable because their owners, in a lousy economy, couldn’t afford to provide them with the veterinary care they required for a myriad of skin and craniofacial problems. Given I was working on a locked unit of a Long Term Care facility, and had my in-laws living with us, I decided I did not want to be responsible for the medical care required by the ready for adoption dogs came with. This was going to be MY dog, MY companion, and aside from my husband, my best friend.

It took a while, but eventually I came across an 11 pound Pomeranian living in foster care about an hour away. The ad said she was house-trained, spayed, micro-chipped and vetted–as most dogs coming from foster care are. My husband took one look at the picture of the bedraggled little dog looking tentatively into the camera lens, and replied, “You want THAT dog?”

I completed her adoption application, crossed my fingers and held my breath. A few days later, I received a call from her foster mom, who said she loved what I said on the application, and Lacey was mine if I still wanted her. I arranged a meeting with Lacey’s foster mom the next Saturday after I finished my shift at the hospital.

We drove the hour to Freehold to meet Lacey and her foster mom.   Lacey’s fur was short, thin and still had that awful kennel smell. She barked at me, and refused to leave her foster mother’s side. She was even less accepting of my husband. We were told she’d been a breeder at a local puppy mill, owned by a man who was well known in the community for his unscrupulous treatment of dogs, yet always stayed just barely on the right side of the law, thus preventing any intervention. Apparently, Lacey had been bred so aggressively that she could not get pregnant, and at the tender of three and a half years, she’d been brought in by her owner to the shelter to be euthanized. The foster group negotiated a handover, and that was how she ended up with her foster mom.

Lacey trembled in my lap all the way home. We stopped to let her out of the car to relieve herself, and in her terror, she urinated on herself. More bad smell. I promised her then that no one would ever hurt her again. When we got home, she immediately went into her crate, the only safe place she knew, and any attempts to coax her out were in vain. The following morning, after I’d left for work, my husband managed to entice her out of the crate, but instead of letting him take her out, she jumped on our bed and peed on my husband’s pillow. My lunch-break call to home to see how things were progressing made me think I’d chosen poorly, something that I have never experienced with any pet I have ever been owned by.

Upon my arrival at home that evening, Lacey thwarted my attempts to lure her from the crate.  She growled, snapped and cowered in the corner. I knew she was hungry, thirsty, needed to relieve herself, and above all, terrified. So I sat next to the crate, waiting, patiently, talking quietly to her. She made no conciliatory move. Finally, I thought the only way to let her see that she was safe was to remove the top of the crate – let her still sit in it, but not provide a place to hide from me. After doing so, she finally let me touch her without showing her teeth or growling. I fed her treats, and continued to talk quietly. Eventually, I clipped the leash her foster mom had given us to her ragged collar, and got her to walk with me. With that success, we took her to the local pet store, and purchased a collar and leash, dog bowls, a bed, food, shampoo and conditioner, and a host of other necessary things for dogs.

She was bathed, dried, and combed out–after much bribing with treats, chasing under the beds, cajoling, and just holding, to get her accustomed to being touched.  

She continued to bark at everyone, and hide under the beds. My step-daughter announced she hated dogs, “especially little ones”, but I could see she was secretly crestfallen that Lacey barked at her every time she came into the room.

Little by little, Lacey learned to trust us. She learned she’d get treats and much loved belly rubs if she came to someone. She learned no one hurt her. She learned how to be loved and how to love us.

In the time I’ve owned Lacey, or the time that Lacey has owned me, I’ve learned that poms are descended from huskies and malamutes, are naturally intelligent and comical, and as a result, they are frequently used in circus dog acts.

Lacey is now three pounds heavier, her coat has grown lush, she is happy, and bouncy, and fulfills her breed expectations. She exuberantly greets any of us as we return, whether after five minutes or five hours or five days. She jumps onto the ottoman by the door to allow my husband, who suffered a broken spine last year, to clip her leash to her collar so that he doesn’t have to bend down so far to her. Most of her walks with me don’t even require a leash. She walks on her hind legs for a treat, communes with us by howling, goes to the crowded farmers market on Saturdays and allows strangers to pet her. She adores my step-daughter, who affectionately calls Lacey the “wig with eyes”. She has saved me in more ways than I saved her, a sentiment I find most common among those who have rescued dogs. Her joy for life is infectious, and she has given us innumerable moments of happiness in the nearly four* years since she has come to live with us.

Even my husband now thinks “THAT dog” was a pretty good choice.

*This story, "Rescue Dog" was written in 2013.