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Sissy's Story
Sissy the movie
star
Update 1
Update 2 Update 3
Update 4 Update 5 Update 6
Update 7 - The Adoption
Update 8 - A Real Home
A Rescue's Story - How Sissy Finds a
Permanent Home
This is a continuation of the story of Sissy,
one of our urgent needs
saints. NCSBR was contacted in early
December about Sissy. She was taken in by a
family after her life as a breeding machine was
over. The family told us how Sissy had been
tied up outside most of her life, and had been
diagnosed with heartworm disease. Due to the
expensive veterinary work that Sissy would need,
they contacted us in hope of saving this sweet
girl. Additionally, Sissy will need basic
training and to be housebroken.
Since our funding had recently been depleted
for some prior urgent need saints, we simply
couldn't bring Sissy into rescue at that
time. Through the generosity of several
wonderful people and an adoption of one of our
other saints we were able financially afford to
bring Sissy into rescue. In about two and a
half weeks of first being contacted about Sissy, we
physically moved Sissy into rescue. Again we
want to thank those who made it possible, without
the monetary donations we could not have saved this
one.
Presently Sissy's vet bills to date
are exactly $243.00. Her total h/w treatment that
will start on or about the 15th will be a minimum
of $320.00.
What follows on this page will be weekly
updates on Sissy in the foster families own
words. Our hope is that this story will
inspire others to join in the NCSBR Foster Family Program and
share your love with one of these magnificent
creatures.
Here's a video of Sissy that her
foster mom made, several weeks back. I thought
everyone would like to see her.
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Sissy goes to her
foster
home.
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What can I say about
Sissy?
When picking her up from the vet's office
after her spay, both my husband and I saw her
at the same time. With big huge smiles on
both of our faces, we took her to the car.
She jumped right in and rode quietly
home.
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We've had her here for only a
few days and have already fallen in love with
her sweet personality. There have been no
problems integrating her into our family. She
likes the cats, dogs, and the kids. She's
great meeting new people and she hasn't had
any accidents in the house either.
She is working on being crate trained and
figuring it out really quickly. She's learned
the sit command and is getting better at
understanding her own name.
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Sissy has a long road of
recovery ahead of her. She was used as a
breeding bitch and kept outside.
Sissy came into the rescue with heartworms,
fleas, severely underweight, and un-spayed.
Before she came to our house, she received
all of her primary vet care, including a
spay, and received a long overdue dental. She
was also de-fleaed and groomed. She is
putting on weight here and learning the
basics. She's eating very well. Split into
several meals, she gets 7 ½ cups of dry food
and three cans of wet every day, plus two
pieces of ham in which her antibiotics are
wrapped.
Her heartworm treatment starts on the 14th or
15th of this month. We have never gone
through having a dog treated for heartworms
here at our house before. I have heard it can
be a very touchy procedure and we are very
anxious about it. Sissy has very little
energy and also has a hard time breathing.
This could be due to the heartworms or a
combination of everything she came in with.
It breaks our hearts when we see her panting
uncomfortably and there's nothing we can do
about it. But we do have high hopes for her
recovery from everything.
How anyone can see their dog like this and
not do anything about it is beyond me. With
her personality, you'd thinks she'd been
doted on her entire life. Pampered, over fed
even, and a beloved pet. But we know
differently. This is the life Sissy deserved
and now deserves for the rest of her
life.
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Update 2
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Sissy did just as well this week as
last week!
She keeps digging deeper and deeper into
our hearts. She's been more energetic and
playful and still putting on weight.
She is turning out very friendly, loving to
be around people. Her crate is no longer a
scary place to be, but her new sanctuary
and resting place. She has learned what
inside and outside means, is very good
about coming to her name, and sits on
command unless distracted by something a
little more interesting.
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We took her on her first outing
tonight to Petsmart. She did so well and
seemed the center of attention. She really
enjoyed herself there. As much as she loves
the car, she didn't want to leave. She left
the store two jumbo bones, a new collar,
and a new name tag richer.
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She's loving being spoiled. What a
great gal. We are so glad to have the
opportunity to have her in our home!
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Update
3
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Sissy's still doing great. She
started her heart worm treatment this week
on Tuesday. Everything is going very
well, I've noticed nothing out of the
ordinary with her.
During the next few weeks, we are supposed
to keep her calm to minimize the risks of
her treatment. This hasn't been a
problem with her, she's already very
calm! Just her
personality.
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She was weighed her when she went in,
she gained 13 pounds! That's a pound
a day! She still has about 15 pounds
or so to gain before she reaches her
optimum weight, poor thing. She was
so thin when she first got here. The
weight gain is very visible. She
looks so much better.
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She's really opened up this week
too. She's happy to see us when we
return from errands and loves her
brush. She knows when it's time for
food before I feed her, letting us know
she's hungry by laying by her bowl.
It's very cute. Any family would be
lucky to have such a regal, sweet, and
happy girl!
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Update
5
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Sissy's time for adoption is
near. She is still doing very good
here although the recent weight
loss.
She went in this week for her last shot for
her heartworm treatment and was also
weighed. She lost three pounds, which
I thought was odd because she's still
eating so ravenously. It was
explained to me that the heartworm
treatment really does a toll on a dog's
system. How sad that people would let
this happen! Just another reason to
make sure our dogs are on their heart worm
preventative, though Hopkins, our Welsh
Springer, could really do for this new
fandangled diet lol. Just kidding,
it's totally not worth it!
I also know that the Heartguard would've
been sooooo much cheaper than the
treatments. I feel so sorry for the
rescue and all the money out of pocket they
end up spending. Thank you by the
way.
Sissy's energy has really picked up
lately. She is a doll inside, still
the ornamental area rug, but loves to play
outside and run around. She now knows
the "down" command and we are working on
her "shake." She loves treats and
walks. With her new "miraculous"
energy, she has taken to love walks.
We are working on her pulling us out the
door. Once she's outside she's fine
though, she's just so exited to get out
there. She was sick yesterday and we
couldn't figure out why but she is fine
this afternoon.
I'm so sorry to all for the prolonged
update. With everything going on at
our house in the last week, I've hardly had
time for anything besides caring for my
kids and pets lol. Oh, yes, I have
decided to finally trust her out of her
crate at night. She sleeps on the
floor by the bed and hasn't had a single
problem with it. She still has not
had a single preventable accident, remember
she was so sick yesterday, and she is a
perfectly behaved girl!
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Update
6
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Tomorrow, we take Sissy to see her new
possible forever home. Sissy has been
looking forward to the day she gets adopted
by a loving home her entire life.
I think dogs know exactly what's going on
by our emotions and actions. They
have some sort of sixth sense. I
think she knows we have an appointment
tomorrow with a possible adopter.
What little I know about the family sounds
so nice and I am looking forward to meeting
them.
The time has snuck up on me, it feels like
just a few days ago that Sissy came to stay
with us. A skinny dog with no
energy. I look at her now and do not
see the same dog. Some might think of
her as lucky to get so far from so little,
but I think if she were lucky, she'd have
found the home she deserved before she
needed the help.
Hopefully I have one more "SHE GOT
ADOPTED!" update. With pictures of
course to come!
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Update 7 - The
Adoption
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Sissy's meeting went very well.
Her new family was very nice and
polite. Sissy warmed to them right
away. She also warmed to their Saint
Bernard, Olympia. Sissy now has a
older little sister, Olympia is somewhat
smaller than Sissy.
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The way I felt when she drove off was
very different than what I thought it would
be. I thought I would be upset, but I
wasn't. It was very nice to watch her
drive off happily knowing she would be
spoiled rotten. I thought about how
she was treated before and how she'll be
treated now. I thought about what I
did for her and the impression my children
got from the experience. Very
different from what I thought I'd be
feeling at that very moment.
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Later, when I returned home, it felt
like she had never left, but when I'd look
around for her, I'd miss her so much.
Then, turn my thoughts to how I felt when
she drove off and feel better. She
will always be a fond memory and always
have a place in my heart.
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Update 8 - A Real
Home
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I'm happy to report that Sissy is
doing fantastic.
She is such sweet and
lovable dog (just as she had been
described!) From the moment we met Sissy,
we knew she'd be a perfect fit for our
family.
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Sissy and Olympia did a lot of
sniffing at first, but by the time we made
the trip home, they were already beginning
to bond. They were so cute lying next to
each other in the
car!
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Sissy bounded out of the car into her
new yard as if she'd always known it as
home. She was still moving kind of slow
from her treatments, but she made her way
through each room in the house, finally
coming to rest on her pillow in the
den.
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She has been such a delight, even from
that first night; it's hard to imagine life
before she came. Olympia now has a sister,
and they love to run around outside and
jump and play.
After a few weeks, she
really began to get stronger and put on
some more weight. Did I mention that she
LOVES to eat? She no longer has a cough and
she doesn't wheeze or get short of
breath. She is weighing in around 125
these days. You can see just how healthy
she has gotten, especially compared to the
pictures of when she first came into the
rescue.
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She is such a joy. She loves to lay on
her back and "box" with her front paws. She
even likes her baths, especially getting
towel-dried!
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We have discovered that Sissy doesn't
like thunderstorms; the lightning and
thunder scare her! She's fine though as
long as she can be next to one of us,
snuggled up so she feels safe.
She also gets along well
with our cat, Libby, who is also a rescue
animal. We're just so thrilled to have been
a part of Sissy's life. We very grateful to
everyone who had a hand in saving her. She
has such a wonderful spirit. I feel so
lucky to have her in our family. We enjoy
spoiling her as much as we can!
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A note from NCSBR, hopefully we will
have additional updates on Sissy and her
new life. In the meantime, we would
like to thank everyone who made the happy
ending possible for this sweet saint.
Because without your help it simply could
not have happened. The world truly is
better today because of each of you.
We join everyone in wishing this
wonderfully loving saint a very happy life,
and hope her and her family have many great
years to enjoy together.
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If
you would like to assist NCSBR in helping saints
like Sissy find that loving forever home and
receive the much needed medical care, please
consider making a small donation today.
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