Gilligan (Cody) (Pomeranian Mix)....

Gilligan is one dog that will forever be in my mind.  He came to the rescue after being found by an oil rig in the middle of nowhere.  I got a call about a dog that had been found by an oil field worker when he was on duty.  This skinny little matted dog (who looked very similar to a fox with a matted coat) showed up around lunch break and begged for food and some water.  Well the oil field worker couldn’t leave this guy there and decided to call his wife to meet him in town to take the dog when he headed back to the shop.  Later that evening they decided that he needed to go to someone who could get him some help and TLC.  They called me, after hearing about how I have helped another family they knew, and I went to go get the dog after I got off work that night.  Gilligan, who I had decided to name Cody at the time, was a mess.  I got home and immediately started shaving the poor guy until I came across the first tick.  He had about 30 on him some engorged with blood others just starting their feast, most inhabiting the ears and between the toes of this poor guy.  Feeling like I could not chance hurting him I got the ticks off his body and out between his toes but called the vet to help me with the ones in his ears. 

Ticks were not the only thing that Gilligan had problems with.  He had burrs and stickers throughout his hair and some in his skin.  It also took me almost 4 hrs to get his body to the point that there was no matting left.  Poor guy ended up at the groomer after the vet to get shaved to the point that he looked like he was groomed by a professional rather than leaving him with the patch job I did.  He shined up beautifully and we started the task of finding him a home.  That year we decided to put on a garage sale to raise money and an adoption event.  Gilligan showed off his affection and caught the eye of my neighbor who decided that she was going to adopt the guy.  She had battled cancer and wanted a companion to love on after her battle.  Cody (his name at the time) had finally found a forever home that he could live the rest of his days in and because he was found stranded out in the middle of nowhere she decided to name him Gilligan.  I wish the story ended there but it didn’t problems once again arose for poor Gilligan.

A month and a half after Gilligan came to live with my neighbor he started having seizures.  At first we thought it was just the heat and played it off as nothing since he had a long coat once again.  However, after a couple of weeks they started getting worse.  I got a phone call one night while at work.  Gilligan’s owner knew when I was at work so to get a phone call from her I knew something was wrong.  She told me that he was having convulsive seizures then he would twitch.  After resting awhile he would again go into convulsions and then twitch.  He had about 4 of these seizure sets, which are known as cluster seizures, before she called me.  She said that he couldn’t stand and she thought he was dying.  I rushed over to find poor Gilligan on a blanket on the floor extremely sick.  I told her that he needed medical attention however, since she was on a fixed income she couldn’t afford the medical he needed.  She signed Gilligan back to me and I rushed him into the emergency vet an hour later.  The vet thought it might be distemper (a bad disease that ultimately messes with the nervous system) but ruled it out with a blood test.  We decided that because of his lack of ability to stand and the suffering he was going through that it was best to put the poor guy down humanely instead of letting him suffer further.

 
See Gilligan never asked to be left out on the oil field roads.  He never asked to be born into a cruel world.  He was however loved for the last 2 months of his life.  My neighbor and I still talk about the guy like he is still here.  She misses him immensely and so do I (I think I cried just as much as she did when we had him euthanized).  He taught me that people sometimes throw these guys out like trash.  They are just items to some people but never have they been that way to me.  I treat all the animals that come through my rescue like they are my children.  I love each one of them and when I have to put one down, I will always be there to let them lay their heads on my lap while they go to sleep.  I know each and everyone of these animals will see me in Heaven again and I hope I can help many more animals to come not only find their homes but be a bridge to them from this life into the next.  It never gets any easier to put these animals down but I tell you what I will not let them spend their last minutes with someone they don’t know.  They will always pass with someone who loves them by their side in their last minutes.