Jax is Here

Vito's Mom making another guest appearance. I went to pick up Jax this morning an hour and a half from St. Louis. Pippa's mom rescued him last night and she called and recommended that he see a vet right away, so I took him straight there after picking him up. He is pitiful.

He walks like he's drunk, and falls to the side. He's tiny and his ribs are visible (16 pounds). His back end is much smaller than his front end. His breath is atrocious and Pippa's mom found an ear infection. He sheds like a beast, likely due to his poor diet.

The doctor found a lot of things. He thought at first after visual observation that his walking-problems might be neurological, but after doing a few manual tests on him, he decided to do x-rays. The results showed what the vet called "the worst hips I have ever seen." :( He has hip displaysia and secondary arthritis. He said the hips aren't even in the sockets - and he couldn't really see any sockets for them to be in. He's going to send the x-rays to an orthopedic surgeon to see if anything can be done surgically.

On top of that, he needs to be neutered (oh the marking!), have an infected tooth removed, and he has a yeast infection in his ears. I'm so curious to know the story of what happened to this little guy's eye, and who cared enough about him at one point in his short life to actually take him to a vet to get it repaired.

The good news is that he is absolutely precious. He is so sweet and loves to be held and snuggled, and just nuzzles in to your neck. We just hope something can be done for him.

Vito is alarmed.

He goes to his permanent foster Mom on Wednesday, so I'll just love on him until then. Vito & Vinny are being pretty good to him although Vinny is currently in time-out for barking at him too much. He's 3 years old so he's in for 3 minutes. Isn't that how it works?

We'll keep you updated on Jax's journey.