Lia

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Sponsored by:

Paul & Mary T.
"You gave us all such a scare! Get better, beautiful girl - the best is yet to come!!"

Lia had never been in a house till she came here, she has been here for about 4 weeks and she is coming from a breeder who was retiring her. She is 5yrs old, weighting in at 88lbs (she needs to lose some weight), beautiful red and very timid, shy and very unsocialized.  Lia  is almost completely updated on all her shots, she still needs just one more booster and to be spayed. Planning on Tues, Nov 18  for the spay if she doesn't go into season, we wait and see what comes first.  Also her ears have the worse bacteria infections I have ever seen, the vet packed meds into her ears where they are not touched for 2 weeks and most often the infections than go away.  Well it didn't work for Lia , so after a 2 week check we are back to cleaning and putting 2 different kinds of meds in.  Lia  was weighed tonight and she has lost 5lbs, so that is the upside for her.

The 1st 2 weeks were very hard for Lia  to get used to just being in a home and all the noises and what not's that come with being inside. She wouldn't eat the first 2 weeks and I tried just about everything canned, raw, bread and peanut butter, of course kibble, finally I broke down with feeding her cottage cheese and hard boiled eggs with kibble.  That was a BINGO!!  She has been eating ever since, she gets about 1/2 C of kibble morning and evening with a some raw in the evening.

Now to the potty issue, it took her 3 days before she would pee outside, no accidents in the house or kennel. It took her over a week to go poop.  Lia  will not walk to the patio door herself to go outside, I'm still putting her on a leash and walking with her to the door and releasing her as soon as we are outside.  As far as coming back inside that is a another issue, sometimes she will come up on the deck with my girls and comes right in and other times she won't come near anyone.  And some nights I walk in the patio door and leave the door open and stand calling and calling to her to come in. This process of coming in takes about 10 minutes or more every evening.  It's reached the point as it gets colder and the heat running in my home, that Lia  will go out on a tie-out.  One thing Lia  is starting to do is following my foster failure from a puppy mill GR, Lia  and Ali kind of chase each other in circles till everyone potties.  But it's a start for Lia , small step front but it seems to be working.

Lately I have noticed that Lia  is shedding a buck load of hair, so once I get her outside while still on the leash, I start to brush her. It takes 2 sweeps with the brush down her body and it's full.  It's undercoat, topcoat it's everything, she is even starting to get bald spots on her back.  So at the vet tonight I asked the vet about her hair loss and she even stated that this is not normal, she was surprised by how much hair Lia  is losing.  The vet checked for ring worm and found nothing, than we thought about possible a thyroid issues and more lab tests to come.

At this point Lia  is still a work in process so that she becomes more independent and relaxed with the humans being around her.

FM, Missy & Ali (resident sisters), Duke (the cat) and Lia