Rusty was a liver-colored spaniel mix and weighed about 20 pounds. He had golden eyes and a liver-colored nose.
He was just a puppy when I found him in May 1981 on my way home from a college night class. When I turned a corner, my car headlights panned across him. He hid in a drainage culvert, probably where he had lived since someone dumped him at that corner. I had to crawl into the culvert to get him. He was nearly starved to death and too weak to resist my efforts to grab him. My husband and I didn't think he would live through the night, but he did.
Rusty was one of the few dogs I've ever known who had brief periods of insanity. I don't if these spells were caused by something physical going on in his body, or was psychological and a result of his traumatic early puppyhood. We learned to recognize when he was about to have one of these spells because the look in his eyes would change completely, and then he would go absolutely beserk and try to bite us or our other dogs. We had to grab him around his midsection where he couldn't reach our hands, gently toss him into a bedroom far enough to shut the door, and leave him there until the spell passed and his normal personality was back. He was his regular happy, affectionate self about 98 percent of the time, though we sensed he always had fear lurking in the background.
At the end of his life Rusty developed cancer, and we knew it had spread throughout his body. He suddenly started having almost constant seizures and we had to let him go immediately; there was no time to wait for anti-seizure medication to take effect. It was an awful, stressful time for him and for us.
I'll never understand how anyone can toss out a helpless baby animal to fend for itself.
He was just a puppy when I found him in May 1981 on my way home from a college night class. When I turned a corner, my car headlights panned across him. He hid in a drainage culvert, probably where he had lived since someone dumped him at that corner. I had to crawl into the culvert to get him. He was nearly starved to death and too weak to resist my efforts to grab him. My husband and I didn't think he would live through the night, but he did.
Rusty was one of the few dogs I've ever known who had brief periods of insanity. I don't if these spells were caused by something physical going on in his body, or was psychological and a result of his traumatic early puppyhood. We learned to recognize when he was about to have one of these spells because the look in his eyes would change completely, and then he would go absolutely beserk and try to bite us or our other dogs. We had to grab him around his midsection where he couldn't reach our hands, gently toss him into a bedroom far enough to shut the door, and leave him there until the spell passed and his normal personality was back. He was his regular happy, affectionate self about 98 percent of the time, though we sensed he always had fear lurking in the background.
At the end of his life Rusty developed cancer, and we knew it had spread throughout his body. He suddenly started having almost constant seizures and we had to let him go immediately; there was no time to wait for anti-seizure medication to take effect. It was an awful, stressful time for him and for us.
I'll never understand how anyone can toss out a helpless baby animal to fend for itself.
Rusty was a liver-colored spaniel mix and weighed about 20 pounds. He had golden eyes and a liver-colored nose.
He was just a puppy when I found him in May 1981 on my way home from a college night class. When I turned a corner, my car headlights panned across him. He hid in a drainage culvert, probably where he had lived since someone dumped him at that corner. I had to crawl into the culvert to get him. He was nearly starved to death and too weak to resist my efforts to grab him. My husband and I didn't think he would live through the night, but he did.
Rusty was one of the few dogs I've ever known who had brief periods of insanity. I don't if these spells were caused by something physical going on in his body, or was psychological and a result of his traumatic early puppyhood. We learned to recognize when he was about to have one of these spells because the look in his eyes would change completely, and then he would go absolutely beserk and try to bite us or our other dogs. We had to grab him around his midsection where he couldn't reach our hands, gently toss him into a bedroom far enough to shut the door, and leave him there until the spell passed and his normal personality was back. He was his regular happy, affectionate self about 98 percent of the time, though we sensed he always had fear lurking in the background.
At the end of his life Rusty developed cancer, and we knew it had spread throughout his body. He suddenly started having almost constant seizures and we had to let him go immediately; there was no time to wait for anti-seizure medication to take effect. It was an awful, stressful time for him and for us.
I'll never understand how anyone can toss out a helpless baby animal to fend for itself.
He was just a puppy when I found him in May 1981 on my way home from a college night class. When I turned a corner, my car headlights panned across him. He hid in a drainage culvert, probably where he had lived since someone dumped him at that corner. I had to crawl into the culvert to get him. He was nearly starved to death and too weak to resist my efforts to grab him. My husband and I didn't think he would live through the night, but he did.
Rusty was one of the few dogs I've ever known who had brief periods of insanity. I don't if these spells were caused by something physical going on in his body, or was psychological and a result of his traumatic early puppyhood. We learned to recognize when he was about to have one of these spells because the look in his eyes would change completely, and then he would go absolutely beserk and try to bite us or our other dogs. We had to grab him around his midsection where he couldn't reach our hands, gently toss him into a bedroom far enough to shut the door, and leave him there until the spell passed and his normal personality was back. He was his regular happy, affectionate self about 98 percent of the time, though we sensed he always had fear lurking in the background.
At the end of his life Rusty developed cancer, and we knew it had spread throughout his body. He suddenly started having almost constant seizures and we had to let him go immediately; there was no time to wait for anti-seizure medication to take effect. It was an awful, stressful time for him and for us.
I'll never understand how anyone can toss out a helpless baby animal to fend for itself.
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