| SNICKERS |
June 24, 2001 - Snickers' first night
of freedom of freedom, with his
new mom, my daughter, Amanda
of freedom of freedom, with his
new mom, my daughter, Amanda
Snickers is a puppymill survivor. On June 24, 2001, I
attended a auction in Wheaton, MO hoping to liberate
some Wheatens from the puppymill hell. While I was
waiting for the Wheatens to come up for auction, the
auctioned the Pomeranians. I was only half paying attention
until they came out with this little 4 lb. scrap of a dog. Upon
reading the sale program I was amazed to see he was
nearly 11 years old! Well the people doing to auction held
this poor dog up by the scruff of his neck and waved him in
front of the crowd. They discussed how "well hung" he was
and how they could still get "a little use out of him" even
though he was so old and did not have a tooth in his mouth.
Well, none of the millers was the least bit interested in him
and the price kept going lower and lower. I had images of
them taking him out back and killing him and watched
anxiously hoping that another rescuer would jump in and
bid on him. Well, that did not happen and when he got
down to $10 dollars I could not stand it any longer and up
went my hand. Suddenly I owned a nearly 11 year old
Pom, a breed I knew nothing about. I had no clue what I
was going to do with him but I felt better knowing he was
safe.
He was not in the best of shape. His poor feet were totally
splayed out and flat due to walking on wire all his life. He
did not have one single tooth in his mouth and his entire
underside was black. I was sure he had some terrible
disease or condition that would soon kill him. I told my
daughter, who quickly claimed him as her own, not to get
to attached to him. Well, the blackness turned out to be
years of dirt and debris caked on and soaked into his skin.
It is now almost completely gone but we still have flakes of
it coming off to this day.
He was so pitiful, the first time I set him down on the grass
he totally froze. He had no idea what to do. But, amazingly
even after living his life in a puppymill, lurking in this boy
was a little lost soul just waiting and craving to be loved. I
was amazed at how quickly he became a loving little dog.
When you pick him up now he immediately lays over on his
back and wants you to hold him like a baby and love him.
He would be perfectly happy if his feet never touched the
ground again as long as someone was holding him. He does
the most adorable little "doodlebug" dance when you come
home and he is just beside himself with joy. Despite all he
has been through, the horrors he has lived through at the
hands of uncaring, unfeeling "people", he still chooses to
love people and his good nature and sunny personality still
shines through.
Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago Snickers had a
setback in his new life. During the night one of my foster
dogs in what I believe was just play that was too rough for
a fragile dog like Snickers, grabbed him on the side of his
head. My daughter woke up in the commotion and heard
Snickers squalling and brought him out to me and at the
time he seemed ok. Well a couple of hours later when I got
up to get ready for work, Snickers came running up to me
and when I bent down and picked him up I immediately
knew something was very wrong. He was pulling his head
sharply to one side and making the most ghastly noise. I
raced to get dressed as I knew the vet's office was opening
in 45 minutes and I wanted to be there when they did. I
thought he was having seizures or a stroke and the whole
way there was worried that this was the end for him and he
would not be coming back home. We got to the vets just
after they opened and was taken off to be seen by the first
vet to walk throught the door. After examinations and
x-rays it was revealed that in fact what had happened was
that his fragile lower jaw, which had no teeth to give it
strength or stability, had been broken in two places.
I was very upset and worried but wanted to give Snickers
as long of a life of freedom as possible. After discussing it
with Dr. Richards I decided to let another vet at the clinic,
Dr. Miller, try surgery to try and fix the jaw. The problem
here was that since he had no teeth there was nothing for
them to wire the jaw to in order to stabilize it so it could
heal properly. So Dr. Miller had to get creative and devise
a contraption on the outside of his jaw.
The initial surgery went fine but the next day I called to find
out that Snickers had somehow managed to pull out one of
the pins and they were going to have to go in and do it
again. This time they added a second metal bar on the
outside of jaw and the had him safely in a cone before he
woke up. Pictures of Snickers after the surgery can be seen
below.
They had some problems during surgery getting a tube to
go down Snicker's throat. You see in his life in the
puppymill they had 'debarked' him. They do this to keep
the dogs quiet as they have so many there. As I understand
it, the way they do this is to shove a thin metal rod down
the dog throat and cut or damage the vocal cords. You can
be sure that this, as well as the pulling of every tooth in his
in his mouth was done without anesthetic or pain killers
afterward. I have even heard of the doing ceserean sections
on the dogs with not anesthetic. I am at a loss as to how
anyone claiming to be a human being can be so cold
hearted and evil to do such a barbaric thing to a poor
helpless animal. I hope there is a special place in hell
waiting for the people who do such things!
One of the vet techs remarked to me that they could not
believe how stoic Snickers was and how he stood all they
did to him without complaint and still wagged his tail and
danced with happiness to see them. But when you think of
the harsh treatment he received before, these kind people
who spoke softly to him, carried him around the clinic and
gave him medication for the pain must have seemed like
angels to him!
I cannot say enough good things about the wonderful
people at the Gladstone Animal Clinic! Snickers was there
for 12 days, had 2 surgeries and was on intravenous
antibiotics, not to mention being taken care of by thier
expertise and the entire bill only came to $185 which is
phenomenal! If you are in the Kansas City, MO area and
are in the market for a new vet, this is the place to go!
These are the same people who took such wonderful care
of the "Frozen Puppies" earlier this year.
Snickers is home now and doing very well. He is eating and
drinking well and doing the "doodlebug" dance just as
before. Amazingly, the surgery seems to have helped heal
his vocal cords and no instead of a raspy wheezing sound
he actually has a real bark, very soft and quiet but quite
distinct as it never was before and he seems to delight in
using it. I have high hopes for a complete recovery and
many more years with him.
So what is the moral to this long story?
I hope that the next time someone who has read Snickers'
story goes into a petstore and is tempted by those cute
puppies that the image of Snickers and all the metal coming
out of his jaw will come to thier mind. Snickers is just one
tiny representative of the millions of dogs suffering in
puppymill hell all over this country producing the puppy you
are looking at and and contemplating buying. The ones that
end up in the petstore are the lucky ones by far. The ones
that truly are suffering from this national disgrace are the
ones like poor Snickers, spending thier lives in cages
walking on wire until thier feet splay out and become flat,
never running free or being loved. Having thier vocal cords
damaged so they cannot bark and voice their pain and
anguish. Being kept in filthy conditions and being fed food
so bad and nutritionally deficient that thier teeth rot and are
yanked out one by one until none are left. These are the
voiceless victims of puppymill abuse.
When you buy that cute puppy you are signing the warrant
and sentencing the parents of that puppy to a life sentence
of in the hell of a puppymill churning out another puppy to
fill that empty cage.
Please remember Snickers and pass it on.If even one
person does not purchase a petstore puppy after reading
his story then his pain will have some meaning!
UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 2001
Snickers' once again managed to pull one of his pins out.
Fortunately he did a nice job and pulled it out cleanly
without doing any damage and after x-rays it was decided
that he was sufficiently healed and all the metal was
removed as well as the cone he hated so much! Let me tell
you that it was a VERY happy boy I took home that
afternoon! He is doing wonderfully although we still have to
be extremely careful as his jaw is still fragile and another
break is a very distinct possibility. He is a very happy and
loving boy and we intend to make his senior years
wonderful enough to wipe out the horrors he was forced to
endure in his younger years. He is a much loved and
cherished member of our family and we look forward to
spending a lot of time with him.
attended a auction in Wheaton, MO hoping to liberate
some Wheatens from the puppymill hell. While I was
waiting for the Wheatens to come up for auction, the
auctioned the Pomeranians. I was only half paying attention
until they came out with this little 4 lb. scrap of a dog. Upon
reading the sale program I was amazed to see he was
nearly 11 years old! Well the people doing to auction held
this poor dog up by the scruff of his neck and waved him in
front of the crowd. They discussed how "well hung" he was
and how they could still get "a little use out of him" even
though he was so old and did not have a tooth in his mouth.
Well, none of the millers was the least bit interested in him
and the price kept going lower and lower. I had images of
them taking him out back and killing him and watched
anxiously hoping that another rescuer would jump in and
bid on him. Well, that did not happen and when he got
down to $10 dollars I could not stand it any longer and up
went my hand. Suddenly I owned a nearly 11 year old
Pom, a breed I knew nothing about. I had no clue what I
was going to do with him but I felt better knowing he was
safe.
He was not in the best of shape. His poor feet were totally
splayed out and flat due to walking on wire all his life. He
did not have one single tooth in his mouth and his entire
underside was black. I was sure he had some terrible
disease or condition that would soon kill him. I told my
daughter, who quickly claimed him as her own, not to get
to attached to him. Well, the blackness turned out to be
years of dirt and debris caked on and soaked into his skin.
It is now almost completely gone but we still have flakes of
it coming off to this day.
He was so pitiful, the first time I set him down on the grass
he totally froze. He had no idea what to do. But, amazingly
even after living his life in a puppymill, lurking in this boy
was a little lost soul just waiting and craving to be loved. I
was amazed at how quickly he became a loving little dog.
When you pick him up now he immediately lays over on his
back and wants you to hold him like a baby and love him.
He would be perfectly happy if his feet never touched the
ground again as long as someone was holding him. He does
the most adorable little "doodlebug" dance when you come
home and he is just beside himself with joy. Despite all he
has been through, the horrors he has lived through at the
hands of uncaring, unfeeling "people", he still chooses to
love people and his good nature and sunny personality still
shines through.
Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago Snickers had a
setback in his new life. During the night one of my foster
dogs in what I believe was just play that was too rough for
a fragile dog like Snickers, grabbed him on the side of his
head. My daughter woke up in the commotion and heard
Snickers squalling and brought him out to me and at the
time he seemed ok. Well a couple of hours later when I got
up to get ready for work, Snickers came running up to me
and when I bent down and picked him up I immediately
knew something was very wrong. He was pulling his head
sharply to one side and making the most ghastly noise. I
raced to get dressed as I knew the vet's office was opening
in 45 minutes and I wanted to be there when they did. I
thought he was having seizures or a stroke and the whole
way there was worried that this was the end for him and he
would not be coming back home. We got to the vets just
after they opened and was taken off to be seen by the first
vet to walk throught the door. After examinations and
x-rays it was revealed that in fact what had happened was
that his fragile lower jaw, which had no teeth to give it
strength or stability, had been broken in two places.
I was very upset and worried but wanted to give Snickers
as long of a life of freedom as possible. After discussing it
with Dr. Richards I decided to let another vet at the clinic,
Dr. Miller, try surgery to try and fix the jaw. The problem
here was that since he had no teeth there was nothing for
them to wire the jaw to in order to stabilize it so it could
heal properly. So Dr. Miller had to get creative and devise
a contraption on the outside of his jaw.
The initial surgery went fine but the next day I called to find
out that Snickers had somehow managed to pull out one of
the pins and they were going to have to go in and do it
again. This time they added a second metal bar on the
outside of jaw and the had him safely in a cone before he
woke up. Pictures of Snickers after the surgery can be seen
below.
They had some problems during surgery getting a tube to
go down Snicker's throat. You see in his life in the
puppymill they had 'debarked' him. They do this to keep
the dogs quiet as they have so many there. As I understand
it, the way they do this is to shove a thin metal rod down
the dog throat and cut or damage the vocal cords. You can
be sure that this, as well as the pulling of every tooth in his
in his mouth was done without anesthetic or pain killers
afterward. I have even heard of the doing ceserean sections
on the dogs with not anesthetic. I am at a loss as to how
anyone claiming to be a human being can be so cold
hearted and evil to do such a barbaric thing to a poor
helpless animal. I hope there is a special place in hell
waiting for the people who do such things!
One of the vet techs remarked to me that they could not
believe how stoic Snickers was and how he stood all they
did to him without complaint and still wagged his tail and
danced with happiness to see them. But when you think of
the harsh treatment he received before, these kind people
who spoke softly to him, carried him around the clinic and
gave him medication for the pain must have seemed like
angels to him!
I cannot say enough good things about the wonderful
people at the Gladstone Animal Clinic! Snickers was there
for 12 days, had 2 surgeries and was on intravenous
antibiotics, not to mention being taken care of by thier
expertise and the entire bill only came to $185 which is
phenomenal! If you are in the Kansas City, MO area and
are in the market for a new vet, this is the place to go!
These are the same people who took such wonderful care
of the "Frozen Puppies" earlier this year.
Snickers is home now and doing very well. He is eating and
drinking well and doing the "doodlebug" dance just as
before. Amazingly, the surgery seems to have helped heal
his vocal cords and no instead of a raspy wheezing sound
he actually has a real bark, very soft and quiet but quite
distinct as it never was before and he seems to delight in
using it. I have high hopes for a complete recovery and
many more years with him.
So what is the moral to this long story?
I hope that the next time someone who has read Snickers'
story goes into a petstore and is tempted by those cute
puppies that the image of Snickers and all the metal coming
out of his jaw will come to thier mind. Snickers is just one
tiny representative of the millions of dogs suffering in
puppymill hell all over this country producing the puppy you
are looking at and and contemplating buying. The ones that
end up in the petstore are the lucky ones by far. The ones
that truly are suffering from this national disgrace are the
ones like poor Snickers, spending thier lives in cages
walking on wire until thier feet splay out and become flat,
never running free or being loved. Having thier vocal cords
damaged so they cannot bark and voice their pain and
anguish. Being kept in filthy conditions and being fed food
so bad and nutritionally deficient that thier teeth rot and are
yanked out one by one until none are left. These are the
voiceless victims of puppymill abuse.
When you buy that cute puppy you are signing the warrant
and sentencing the parents of that puppy to a life sentence
of in the hell of a puppymill churning out another puppy to
fill that empty cage.
Please remember Snickers and pass it on.If even one
person does not purchase a petstore puppy after reading
his story then his pain will have some meaning!
UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 2001
Snickers' once again managed to pull one of his pins out.
Fortunately he did a nice job and pulled it out cleanly
without doing any damage and after x-rays it was decided
that he was sufficiently healed and all the metal was
removed as well as the cone he hated so much! Let me tell
you that it was a VERY happy boy I took home that
afternoon! He is doing wonderfully although we still have to
be extremely careful as his jaw is still fragile and another
break is a very distinct possibility. He is a very happy and
loving boy and we intend to make his senior years
wonderful enough to wipe out the horrors he was forced to
endure in his younger years. He is a much loved and
cherished member of our family and we look forward to
spending a lot of time with him.
Snickers and his face of metal soon
after the surgery.
after the surgery.
| After Photos |
| Rest in Peace Sweet Snickers Our beloved Snickers left us on June 16, 2002. Although his time with us was so very short, we know that he learned love and happiness in his time here and we learned much about how big a heart and soul such a tiny little dog can hold. We cannot wait to see him again at the Rainbow Bridge. Just a few days after Snickers left us the most vivid rainbow I have ever seen popped out just as I walked outside. People around literally gasped at the way it appeared and at how beautiful it was. I knew instantly and without a doubt that it was Snickers letting us know he was fine in the next world He was much loved and is sorely missed! |