The things we get ourselves into!

When we first heard about Izzy, the 6-month-old, brindle, female mastiff being rescued by the Great Plains Mastiff Rescue, we were immediately drawn to her story.  In September, the good folks at GPMR rescued her from a breeder in Louisiana who neglected to care for an injury to her rear left leg.  All it took was one look at her face and we knew we were in trouble.   We were in love.

In July, Izzy managed to get her leg tangled up in some sort of metal cord, something like a lawnmower cord, which ultimately resulted in a gash to her lower left rear leg.   In July, Izzy had four legs.  When GPMR retrieved Izzy from the breeder in September, they found that the breeder never bothered to care for her injury.  Instead of taking Izzy in for what likely would have been a simple treatment within days of her incident, her leg was bandaged and left to heal on its own (or, rather, her injury was left to fester until her breeder surrendered her to rescue  TWO MONTHS LATER).  As fluid leaked from Izzy’s bandage, not only did her leg swell to a size three times the size of her good leg, but her injury had become so infected that she was becoming septic.  Once Izzy was hospitalized, and her bandaged unwrapped, among other things, the vet discovered that two of her toes had basically rotted off and that her left rear leg was determined to be unsalvageable.  In order to save Izzy’s life, they had to amputate her leg.  And so began Izzy’s life as a tripawd.

As we followed Izzy’s story, it was clear that we needed to make her a member of our family. We had experience with big dogs, having owned three mastiffs before Izzy.  We had experience with the challenges that big dogs face (our first mastiff, Harley, had knee surgeries on both knees, among other issues).  We did not have experience with a tripawd, nor the challenges that tripawds face.  Yet, because we knew that we could give Izzy a good home, we put in an application to adopt her – after all, what were the odds that we would actually have the opportunity to have our lives graced by her presence?!   Apparently, the odds were pretty good – we submitted the first application on her.   In October, we were thrilled to learn that Izzy was going to become a member of our family, joining us, our mastiff, Chase, and our cat, Ocho.

Miss Izzy arrived in Denver by transport on November 3, 2012, after traveling from Louisiana, where she was rescued, to Oklahoma City, where she was treated and where she was allowed to heal thanks to her two different foster families, and from Oklahoma City to our home in Denver.  We never thought we would go through such extensive measures to adopt a dog, but it was clear that Izzy wasn’t, and isn’t, just any dog.  She is as much of a doll as we thought she would be.  She is happy, resilient and forgiving.  She gets around relatively well in spite of her missing leg.  Little hop by little hop, she rises and struggles to stand tall.  She runs like a bullet.  It is not until she slows down to walk or when she tries to stand up that it becomes clear that she is a newly-born tripawd. We have no regrets, but we know that we have a lot of work ahead of us in order to ensure that she lives a good life.

And so begins our journey with Miss Izzy.