Marco

Adopted!

New Name:
Age: Adult
Sex: Male
Breed: Doberman Pinscher
Weight: 63 pounds
Current Location: Anna, TX
Adoption Date: September 25, 2020
Adopted by: Wes Eden
Latest Update:

This is not a happy story but I will close the night with it nonetheless. Marco was a stray in Dallas almost 2 months ago, skinny and alone he was picked up and we rescued him from there. He was seen by Dr. Reno, discovered he was heartworm positive but his bloodwork looked good, he was neutered and we began trying to fatten him up and get him healthy enough for heartworm treatment.

He stayed at the Ranch for well over a month but he never gained weight, we decided to send him to a foster home with Amy to rest more and try and get some weight on him. He didn’t gain weight and he had a couple of bouts of crying, pacing, and some neurological behavior with wobbling with his back legs.

We took him to the ER and a battery of tests began, we discovered that although his bloodwork looks normal there were clearly other problems lurking with him.

Dr. Rolfe and Dr. Bronstadt were suspicious of his liver and ran some bile acid tests and thats when we discovered that he appeared to have a liver shunt or worse. They sedated him and performed an ultrasound on his abdomen and they could clearly see there are all kinds of problems happening with him. In addition he has a hard time waking up from his sedative which also point to the problem his body has with filtering.

We had to send him to Animal Imaging but we kept him in the hospital over the weekend, here’s the odd part about Marco, he crashes but rebounds and when he rebounds he behaves completely normally and is quite agile and a happy boy, when he crashes he feels terrible, and cries and has some neurological symptoms.

So we sent him for imaging and what we discovered was very bad news. It turns out that he has multiple congenital defects, his liver, his kidneys and his caudal vena cava which is the main artery running through the abdomen.

In short he has many malformations with providing blood supply to his liver, his kidneys and the main blood supply to his whole body through the abdominal caudal vena cava.

Dr. Rolfe showed his case to Dr. Wilkins about surgery for liver shunts but Dr. Wilkins wouldn’t touch him, because of the whacky blood supply to his liver his body has continued to produce multiple shunts but none of them are operable. If they tried to do surgery on his liver shunts his kidneys would blow out.

What is happening to him with neuro events and him feeling poorly is toxins building up typically an hour or two after eating. He needs to be on a liver diet, but the only medications that we can offer is lactalose which he gets every 8 hours. The job of the lactose is to keep the toxins in his gut, the balance that has to be found is giving him the right amount of lactalose without giving him diarrhea. He will be on Amoxicillan for the rest of his life, the Amoxicillan’s job is to kill bacteria in his gut.

His issues are very similar to a dog with microvascular dysplasia and the treatment is the same, there is nothing else to be done for him, he will always be very skinny, he will never gain weight, he may develop seizures due to toxins but there is nothing to be done about that either. As I said he has been like this his whole life and I’m thinking this is why he ended up on the street, he got kicked out for being sick.

Dr. Reno said he may manage well with lactalose and not have any more episodes, but he also he may start having them closer together. At some point his body will not be able to keep going but we don’t know when that will be. He might only live 3 months before his quality disintegrates, or he may live 5 more years. There is just no way to know. We do know there is nothing we can do to fix this, he will always look emaciated and all we can do is try and make him as comfortable as possible.

Pam and Chad Holbrook from Idaho have adopted Star Sapphire, and they also adopted Samson the Doberman from the valley who was rescued from living in a shanty with Delilah. Samson lived with the Holbrooks for a few months and was loved dearly, sadly he only lived for a couple of months and had a massive heart attack and suddenly died. Pam was devastated as you can imagine.

When Marco came in to the rescue they reached out and the plan was for Marco to go live the rest of his life with them. Then shockingly Marco began showing us just how sick he is and we discovered that he was born this way and will never get better. We knew he wouldn’t be adoptable, we don’t expect any family to take on that heartache especially when they just had a catastrophic heartbreak. Laura called them and broke the news to them and they agreed that they weren’t ready for that.

Marco is a fospice, a dog that is in essence terminal and will never get better, and has no place to go. Wes raised his hand and said that Marco could live out his days with him, however long he has we know he will be okay, he will be safe and as comfortable as he can be until he isn’t.

It’s all about quality of life and a dog like this you take care of one day at a time, doing the best you can, give him all that is possible but keep your head on straight and know when his time is up.

The Holbrooks will be adopting Janny, and we are happy for her to find her family too. Don’t feel sad for Marco, he will want for nothing, he will be loved, I adore this dog, and selfishly I’m happy I get to see him regularly and give him a boop on that big nose.

All of his medications and his liver diet has begun. Let’s all send up prayers and positive thoughts that his body responds very well to both and he proves us wrong. We’ve seen it before, and we know full well not to take anything for granted, not to bury a dog before its time. We certainly won’t be doing that with Marco and he will live his life one day at a time like all of the rest of us always should.

About Marco:

We tagged this boy several days ago at Dallas Animal Services, he was on stray hold and was just now released with nobody looking for him. His body score is reported to be very low which means he is emaciated, I can’t tell too much from the pics but we will get a better look at him when he comes to us. Ricky has gone to pick him up and his days of being starved and unwanted in a shelter are now over. He will stay with us at the ranch in the lounge in isolation for a while to rest in quiet and recover.

His name will be Marco he is named after a medical care worker who worked in the ER for 43 years before putting off retirement to continue to work during the pandemic.

Welcome to Dog Ranch Rescue Marco

UPDATE 8/7/2020

He is a beautiful boy and of course he loves Ricky, like they all do. Travis got him in the tub and scrubbed him clean, he was absolutely filthy and Travis said he had motor oil or something on him that was very hard to get off. The shelter staff said he never would soil his run and Marco appears to have just been holding his pee. Ricky said he peed for many minutes outside of the shelter, he did the same when he arrived at the Ranch and now he just continues to strain so I’m worried he has developed a bladder infection because of it. He has an appointment on Monday to get everything looked at, of course he is high heartworm positive, a dog in Texas that has been neglected like he has generally always does. He is a very skinny boy but he cleaned up all shiny and boy was he happy to just be allowed to run loose in the grass.

We are happy to have you Marco, you’ll be healthy again in no time and we will find your forever family.

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