Meet Charlie

As you know, we had to put our beloved Chimera down on the 20th.  It was a rough time and we all missed her.  Everyone grieved in their own way.  Cheryl and Gregory are still the hardest hit.

But, last Saturday, Cheryl and Clair went to Town Lake Animal Center and found Charlie.

Charlie is a Tibetan Spaniel/Chow mix.  He's about 30 lbs and as far as anyone knows will be 3 this Halloween.  He's very sweet, gentle and friendly.  So far he likes sleeping most of all.  He doesn't bark and the only sounds we've ever heard him make are when we started crate training him (which took all of a day.)  He has an under-bite and a snaggle-tooth.  He loves being pet and will roll over and let you pet his belly at the drop of a hat.  He pounces like a puppy and knows how to sit and lay down when commanded.

He was at TLAC because the previous owner had a dog already.  The two got into a fight and the other dog tore up Charlie's legs pretty bad.  The medical care was more than the owners could shoulder, so they turned him over for adoption.  He'd been there 90 days and was on the at-risk list.  He had another week before being put down.  We were shocked, he's such a nice dog.

Yesterday he was alone with Cheryl and he had a seizure.

It lasted about 5 minutes and was very severe.  For the rest of the evening he was scared and unsure of where he was.  He shied away from everyone and then slept all night.  Except for at 1 am when he had another one.  This one wasn't as bad, but he paced afterwards, didn't anyone petting him and just generally seemed like he didn't know where he was.  It was heartbreaking.

As of this writing he hasn't come out of his crate, nor has he eaten.  He drank some water after his last fit.

We're all understandably concerned.  The shelter didn't tell us he had seizures, but after contacting the previous owner, they told us they had seen them frequently.  They also said this was something they told the shelter, which makes me think Town Lake conveniently lost that piece of information to make him more adoption worthy.

But just like in humans, seizures (unless caused by outside stimuli) aren't really anything you can cure.  I believe there are meds you can give people (and dogs) to limit them, but they don't really ever 100% go away.  Hopefully his seizures aren't common.

In the end, it's good he got this home.  It's full of people that love him (I mean look at that face) and he'll get all the care possible.  Whatever life he lives now will definitely be a happy one.