Hello, Beatrice and Hunter!

That’s Beatrice, a Boston Terrier-mix who is one-half of a bonded pair who came to us over the summer from a southern Virginia shelter. The animal control officer who asked if we could take them said these two senior dogs had been abandoned in a neighborhood. The ACO had gone house to house, asking if any resident knew who the dogs belonged to, and no one said they’d seen the dogs before. So the ACO took them to the shelter and eventually got in contact with us. No one had come forward to claim them.

She told us they have a difficult enough time getting young, healthy dogs adopted, and trying to get a bonded pair of seniors adopted — with one of them, Beatrice, having an eye disease — was nearly impossible. These dogs were so sweet, she said, that she hoped we could give them another chance. We had taken in a few disabled dogs from this shelter in the past year (most recently our two heart-break cases, Tommy and Maple), and we agreed to take these two as well.

We could tell from the photos the ACO sent us that Beatrice had a definite eye problem. It looked like glaucoma — bulging eyes, red sclera, and that gray sheen in the cornea. The shelter vet also thought Beatrice had glaucoma, but she didn’t have a Tono-Pen to measure the intra-ocular pressure, so she couldn’t confirm her suspicions. We figured we were getting a dog who was going blind from glaucoma, which is something we’ve dealt with dozens of times over the years.

This is Beatrice’s pal, Hunter … yes, he always looks like that when we try to take a photo:

Usually he runs and hides when he sees a camera come out (even the phone!). Alayne managed to get him to stay still long enough by holding a cookie over his head while I used the phone to get the shot. In the photos from the shelter, he always looked like this, too — a bit fearful and suspicious. Yet he has no fear aggression at all — he’s just timid.

Hunter is not actually disabled. We try not to take dogs who aren’t disabled, given our very limited openings, though we will make exceptions in the case of bonded pairs.

Hunter has lots of large lumps, but they’re benign fatty tumors. He’s definitely a senior, yet as with Beatrice, we don’t know his real age either. We think he’s mostly Dachshund mixed with something else.

I managed to get Beatrice in to see our veterinary ophthalmologist in Burlington the week after she arrived. It turns out Beatrice did not have glaucoma — yay! — but rather a more uncommon disease called corneal endothelitis. This affects a layer of cells in the cornea. It could be an inherited condition (Boston Terriers are known for this), or it could be secondary to a tick-borne disease (though she tested negative on a tick panel). It is manageable for now with two different eye medications we give her twice a day. She could start developing eye ulcers down the road, and then there’s a different surgical procedure we could pursue.

At the moment, though her vision is cloudy, she can still see.

Both dogs are as sweet as the ACO said they were. They’re affectionate, friendly, get along great with others, and are house-trained as well (always a plus!). They are definitely used to being in a home and being cared for. Beatrice and Hunter give every sign of having been someone’s beloved pets.

So how did they come to be abandoned? We’ll never know, of course, but we suspect it could be something as dismal as this:  They belonged to an elderly person who died or had to go to into a hospital or nursing home, and the family promised to take care of the dogs. But then family members simply drove them to an unknown neighborhood and dumped them out of the vehicle. What’s worse, there is a county animal shelter nearby … why not simply take them to the shelter rather than turn them loose to fend for themselves? We just don’t understand how anyone could do something like this, nor how they justify it to themselves.

Beatrice is quite the character. She’s built like a tank, and we joke that if she’d been a male we would have named her Sherman. (The shelter had named them Huntress and Hunter, but we changed hers to Beatrice when they arrived.) We also call her “Tux Lady” in honor of her coloring. When she sits down on the floor, we can literally hear and feel it because there’s always a ‘thud!’ She’s become a Velcro girl, needing to be by our sides at all times. I suspect it’s the fear of being abandoned again.

And goodness, is she ever the jealous one! We can’t love up any of the other dogs without Beatrice coming over, shoving her way in, and insisting on getting her share of the affection. She’s also a constant kisser — get any part of your body within a few inches of her face, and you will definitely get a lick!

Hunter took a little while to warm up to us, but he is now part of the gang and happy to have plenty of dog friends to hang out with. We can see him looking around the living room, taking it all in. We wonder what goes through their heads after such traumatic upheavals in their lives.

In any case, they’re enjoying their new lives and we’re delighted to have both of them here at the farm!