Curly Tail received an urgent call about an emaciated pug named Pixie. Apparently her owner was very very ill & Pixie was dying along side of him. Her owner was not able to take care of himself, let alone poor little Pixie. Friends pulled Pixie from the situation and into informal foster care. Everyone meant well but Pixie needs a tremendous amount of care. That is when CTPR received the call.
Thank goodness Pixie was able to get safely into rescue and receive care within 2 hours of getting that call!
Pounds for Pixie Campaign  Pixie on 2/24/09
 Pixie on 3/24/09: Exactly 1 month later!
Pixie is looking better than ever! She is steadily gaining weight and we have been tweaking her diet & medications so that everything seems to be going smoothly and positively. We are getting ready to go back to The Center for Veterinary Care and see Dr. Solomon in another week.
 Pixie's coat is soft and glowing with better health....her ears and eyes are infection free....and all of her topical wounds are healed. Her nails are still long but we are working on getting the quick to receed. She is looking more & more like a round faced, happy pug. She looks up at me with eye of love and she knows I feel the same way towards her. She is eating and moving her bowels regularly. She is rolling on her back for belly rubs, playing like a puppy, leaping on tables and food bins. We are very pleased with the progress so far!! Now that she is at a better weight, we are going to run more tests and see of many of her symptoms will be on going or simply as a result of her situation.
She will hopefully be ready for adoption, with a great prognosis moving forward, within the next week or so! Below, she is pictured wearing an adorable sweater donated by our wonderful foster mom, Janet!
 ------------------------------------------- Update 3/7/09: Pixie has been in Curly Care for less than 2 weeks and is making great progress. Her 1st round of tests results are in. We were able to rule out disease of the pancreas which was a huge concern. She does, however, have a disease of her bowel. What that means to Pixie right now is that her absorption of food and necessary nutrients is being severly compromised. She was definitely neglected and starving to death ... but this was compounded with the neglect of this condition. Pixie got to us just in time - you can see the gradual progress in these pictures!  We are unsure if it is a chronic condition because of her prior living conditions (Click here to learn more: IBD vs. IBS). Dr. Solomon is taking a wise & conservative approach with Pixie's care. She is now being fed an Rx low residue food 4x/day and medication with every meal to increase the rate of absorption & treat her bowl. With weekly consultations with Dr. Solomon and additional testing, we will figure out what this will all mean for Pixie long term. At some point we may need to biopsy the intestine to get a finite determination. Pixie's condition and additional testing will continue once we can get her to a safe weight.
  Thank you to everyone who has been supporting Pixie. She is a sweet girl and doing so well in her foster family! She is fully paper trained. We dont take her for walks yet b/c it has been cold and she shivers terribly after being outside for just a minute. Pixie also just learned to get her bark back! With her increased strength, Pixie has proven to be quite the agile little girl. She can leap to the top of food bins, over her baby gate, to chair tops and furniture with ease now. She is starting to play little by little with the other fosters in care with her now. Mostly loves to sit with me on my chair whenever I am doing Curly Work.
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Update 2/28/09: Pixie and I went to see Dr. Solomon this morning. The news was a mix of good and not so good. We were able to take several blood tests,fecal and heart worm tests to start off. Based on her evaluation & prior medical histroy, Pixie's condition is a result of neglect but on a few levels.
 Her owners situation caused parts of her current condition but there are also clear indicators that something else is wrong with little Pixie. Not only is she very used to being this way (which means she has been this way for a long time)....the sad news is that Pixie's been getting fed 6-8x a day (all organic, protein/carb rich dog & baby foods) and she is LOSING WEIGHT! She went fro
m 11.9 lbs on Tuesday to 10.2 lbs on Saturday!! Our best guess is that she has something wrong with her pancreas or her bowels.
Dr. Solomon was hopeful that whatever her condition is, it will most likely be treatable. He is hopeful that it is not cancer and we know she doesn't have an obstruction after reviewing her xrays. What her condition is, or the course of her treatment, at this time is unknown. We will have more information and test results by the middle of next week. Pixie is still in good spirits and getting lots of food, love and care!!!
------------------------------------------------- Update 2/24/09: Pixie is a very sweet. She is only 3 y/o. She has a great energy level considering how emaciated she is. She weighs in just over 10 lbs.......all skin and bones. Even though she is ravenous, we have to feed her small amounts of food on a regular basis b/c
overfeeding is very dangerous. She has an Rx wet food combined with various baby foods and nutritional supplements to help get her stable. So far she has been holding down food in small increments. Pixie's ears are terribly infected, her nails were overgrown and curled into her paws.
 She has multiple cuts and infections that we are treating all over her paws. We cleaned out her wrinkle which was heavily caked with crusted dirt & yeast infection. Her teeth are clean. She knows to go potty outside and tried to hold it even though she has been having severe diarrhea. She has had a preliminary exam and an X-Ray. She will need much more medical testing & care to find out what really happened to Pixie & hopefully get her healthy again. Stayed tuned for updates on this little baby. Pixie has an adorable face and will be a beautiful little puglet if we can get her back to a normal weight again.  |
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Rehabilitation of Pixie 2/09 - 3/09 |
