MONTICELLO, GA....Sweet, loving 9 year old Great Dane was abandoned by Owners that moved into a place that did not allow dogs. The dogs were left outside without enough food to sustain them. DANA is almost starved to death, has a massive TUMOR on her rear leg and is blind in one eye from trauma. How she is still alive is amazing. The Owners agreed to turn over Dana and her companion (that is also a Great Dane) in exchange for Animal Abuse charges not being filed. Until the authorities stop bartering with these irresponsible people, our beloved companions are going to keep being abused and neglected. Why should people change when NO ONE makes them accountable. I know I am a broken record but it has to STOP. We have had Dana for a week in Critical Care being thoroughly evaluated. She is one of the sweetest dogs. She loves people and has not given us one problem. She is nervous being in the hospital but that is to be expected. We had to get Dana stabile before we could do any surgery. Her blood count was low but not so low that she required a blood transfusion. Our dear girl is given lots of small meals to allow her body to adopt to having food again. She has horrible skin infections from living outside on the underside of her body. Along with the massive tumor on her leg she has another large tumor on her mammary glad that we cannot surgically remove until her skin infections are healed. Along with the surgeons, we decided to remove the tumor and do everything we can to save her rear leg. Dana will be a very big dog once she has all of her weight back on. Being a big dog with three legs is not the best case scenario because it puts too much strain on the remaining legs. The tumor has been removed and the biopsy came back that she does have cancer. She has a low grade Mast Cell Tumor. Her other tumor will also have to be biopsied to see what we are dealing with there. She has a 50% chance of her cancer coming back. We are in a holding pattern while she is recovering and closely monitoring for any new bumps that might crop up. Right now she has lots of edema around the incision site which is to be expected. That should start to go down over the next 5 days. We got a Dermatologist involved to help us with her skin issues. As soon as the skin issues are resolved, we will be removing the mammary glad tumor and spaying her at the same time. There is a lot going on with this wonderful dog medically. She is taking it all in stride and is so glad to have people that love and adore her. Each day she gets more comfortable with everyone and is learning to trust that we are here to help her and that she will never have to go without food again. Great Danes do not live long lives. A lot was taken out of this girl by the conditions she was kept in. We think she has several more wonderful years ahead and are so glad we stepped up so she could see all the love that is being showered on her. Six months from now she will be a majestic beauty that we hope will have a loving home where she will be cherished and love.
