"Harley"

Jun 2009

   After two short years and many numerous adventures, some good and some not so good, our precious Harley encountered one last adventure that she just couldn't recover from. In true "Harley fashion" she fought the good fight all the way to the very end, and now she will be greatly missed by everyone who ever knew her or the story of how her life began so tragically with a horrible situation of irresponsible pet owners until she was rescued by her new, loving and caring family who were there with her up until her final dying breath. We thank God for the two short years we were all so richly blessed with being able to share our lives with this very special canine!

   This puppy is one tough cookie of a puppy! This puppy has possibly survived more in her first nine months than most dogs have to endure their entire lives! Her story got off to a very bad start when she was originally adopted by a very young and immature couple, Brandi & Phillip. I am currently working on a separate site which describes the whole entire ordeal in complete detail regarding "Poor Marley's" bad experience with irresponsible pet owners. When we finally got her back in our care on December 12th she was severely malnourished and had developed a severe case of Rickets which had started in just one of her front legs and had already progressed to both front legs and she was literally "walking" on her elbows. We feared the worst that she would not recover, but our oldest daughter agreed to care for her as she was able to care for "Poor Marley" 24/7 and care for Marley she did! With the simple advice from our vet, Dr. Link at North Stanly Animal Clinic, which we had also given the very same advice to her original owners, within just 24 hours Marley was on the road to recovery and able to somewhat stand on at least one of her front paws again for short periods of time, rather than walking on both elbows all the time. The other leg took a while longer to recover, we believe that is the foot the Rickets had started in, but she began to grow little by little and put some weight back on over the following days. All the while she never lost her spirit! Marley loved to run and play with our grandsons in their back yard and they loved playing with her. We finally decided that Marley had found her forever home with our daughter and her family, and they renamed her, Harley. Our daughter decided that "Poor Marley" needed a new name to go along with her new life! Finally, on day 8 of her recovery, she was able to stand on both front paws for short periods of time and we knew everything would be ok. As she has grown over the past months it's evident that she will be a very petite boxer, the malnourishment and rickets had stunted her growth and development a bit at a crucial stage of development, but it has still not harmed her lively spirit!

   Recently Harley also had an incident with eating or chewing on something sharp which had tore up the inside of her mouth a bit causing a lot of bleeding. After another visit to Dr. Link she's back on the road to recovery from that incident as well. She's definitely a spunky little girl!