Katie is our Pomeranian mix dog. My daughter and I found her several years ago wandering around a gas station parking lot begging for someone to help her. When we went inside to pay for our gas I asked the attendant who she belonged to – apparently she was a stray who had been hanging out there all day – no one paid her any attention. While I was inside, she found her way to our car and lay under it to make sure we couldn’t leave without her. Well, that was all it took, we gathered her up and took her home.
Once we got her home, Katie was scared, chewed up, starving, flea covered, had a severe skin problem, and she snapped at us if we came near her. All that changed within a few days as she gained her strength and came to trust that we weren’t going to hurt her.
Her first visit to the vet to get a check-up ended with 13 teeth being pulled along with special shampoo and ointments to clear up her skin. In no time, she was healthy and happy. She became my shadow when I was home. During the day, while I was away at work, she would go upstairs, find a shirt of mine and sleep on it until I got home. She would snap at whoever tried to get her downstairs and outside until I came home.
It is now many years later, and Katie is quite old. We will never know her age for sure, but we have had her around eight years, and the vet thinks she was around 6 when we found her. She is now deaf and nearly blind, and her health is failing fast. She has lost most all the muscles in her little legs, making it difficult for her to stand up, let alone walk. It was so heart-breaking watching her try to walk and end up splayed out on the floor or walking sideways like a crab. We thought about those little rubber boots they sell for dogs, but thought they would be hot and too uncomfortable for her. We tried everything else we could think of to help her walk with nothing working – that is until we thought about infant booties with those nifty little rubber dots on the soles! They are perfect, though even the smallest ones are a bit big for her. We purchased several pairs. We slip them over her little feet and hold them in place with ponytail holders. She now quietly prances around the house between naps. You can tell she is happy that she can get around on her own again.
Who knows, maybe being able to move around will help her gain a bit of muscle and strength back!
