Kobuk

He was rescued at the same time as all of the other national park dogs in January and what a challenge it has been. The vast majority became very ill from Mycoplasma, to Bordatella, to Adenovirus, pneumonia, and worst of all distemper. The sanctuary was shut down and hunkered down in isolation while we waited and swabbed and repeated tests and swabbed some more with countless respiratory panels.

Weeks and then months slowly went by while they worked to recover and get healthy. So many problems arose from this whole thing, not only the illnesses but the damage to the dogs mental health. The male dogs that we had took up the hobby of fence fighting to alleviate boredom, they then because enemies to each other and even when they were well we had no ability to put them together because all of the behavior had come to a boiling point and so a huge amount of them had to be rotated outside to spend time in the yard with people as solo dogs. Kobuk was one of the males who absolutely had decided that he could not be with other male dogs, at least we knew he couldn’t be with (these) male dogs.

As time went by and dogs got well, many of them ended up finding families and leaving for adoption. Kobuk was not one of them and he remained in isolation hoping for an application that never came.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago Kobuk began to get sick, he had terrible diarrhea, he would become lethargic and sometimes wouldn’t even get up to walk or move. We hospitalized him multiple times running a battery of tests and the results always came back with nothing. We would take him back to the sanctuary and it would start all over again.

Two weeks ago we were so worried about him that he was rushed to the ER and once again Bloodwork was normal, urinalysis was normal, we took him to be scoped to see what was going on inside and biopsies were taken, his duodenum was very inflamed and we knew it was either IBS or perhaps intestinal lymphoma. He was once again sent home while we were to wait on the biopsy results and we were told it could be as long as 2 weeks because of delays from the lab like delays we have all come to expect in our lives.

On Monday he basically crashed again, refused food, lots of diarrhea and would not get up and he was taken back to the ER, once they got him there he had to be taken back on a gurney because he just wouldn’t get up or move. We felt like this was a dead end, we had already waited a week on the biopsies but they hadn’t come back yet but it seemed very clear that Kobuk had given up on life and whatever it was that ailed him was not going to be found. The battery of tests included multiple ultrasounds, x-rays, blood panels searching for many, many things, they tested splenic acids, he was being treated for IBD with a multitude of meds, none that he responded to, they talked about was it possible for him to have distemper in his central nervous system but he tested negative multiples of times, could it be a fungus of his central nervous system and they said no he didn’t have any neurological signs. Everything came up empty but Kobuk was down and out. Dr. Rolfe and Dr. Bronstadt consulted together and I will remind you these two internists have seen everything and have no shortage of knowledge on trying to figure out what is wrong with a dog and lord knows we have had some very unusual cases before.

The biopsy results still weren’t back and Dr. Rolfe just didn’t feel like it was intestinal lymphoma but he had no idea why Kobuk was doing as poorly as he clearly was. He said he has had clients dogs that have had IBD before that never responded to medication and they just deteriorated and slowly died. We talked about it and talked about it some more and we just felt like we couldn’t keep trying when Kobuk was clearly suffering. We decided that we would let him go and signed all of the paperwork and the plan was to help him across the bridge on Thursday afternoon. Dr. Rolfe agreed but just felt terrible that we couldn’t do something more. He said if the biopsies are back in the morning he would call us and we could talk again before moving forward with euthanasia. We have vet bills that are upwards of 9,000 and if money was what he needed to save him we knew that the village would provide, but it felt hopeless at this point.

The morning came and the biopsy results did come in and just as Dr. Rolfe presumed he has no cancer, and his IBD was listed as moderate, absolutely no explanation for what we saw with him. We just began to wonder could his problems not be physical at all, could it just be depression from all of the weeks and weeks of isolation and he has given up on life. We decided that we need to find out and haul him out of the hospital and take him to the ranch, today was that day and he came with his big bag of medicine, his diet of boiled rice and chicken and Travis brought him out to see how he felt about all of the dogs at the ranch, male and female, large and small. He came out quietly and Travis reassured him and before we knew it he had his tail up and he was set loose with all of the other dogs without any issue whatsoever, his face lit up and he strolled all over the ranch yard meeting new dogs and peeing on trees and doing absolutely just fine.

Now will this continue? Will he crash again? We simply do not know, all we can do is assume and hope that Kobuk was suffering from depression. Had the isolation taken him over? Did he lose all hope of having joy and gave up on life? We just don’t know but it was the last hope we had and so far up to right now he is doing great and seems to be very happy.

We shall see but for now Kobuk is doing pretty darn good.

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My name is Kobuk, I’m healthy and ready to be adopted, won’t you consider me?”

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Kobuk is completely vetted and has a clean bill of health and is waiting for someone to love him. Is that you?

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He was one of the sickest dogs we had when he first came in with mycoplasma, his fever was high, snot coming out of his nose, and it took awhile for him to recover.

Kobuk was a stray estimated to be 3 years old when the shelter picked him up.

Kobuk does not like male dogs, he is awful with them any of them.

Kobuk loves female dogs and is lovely around all of them, no matter what size or no matter what energy level.

Kobuk only wants to live with female dogs, so that is what we have to find.

He is all vetted. He is healthy and he is ready to find his home and be on his way.