Sassafras went to her foster home with terrible skin and fur loss, blind with one enlarged and one shrunken eye, ears that needed medical attention and growths on her body the largest of which is on her front leg. She has seen a veterinarian who started her on ear meds and medicated baths along with giving her a geriatric exam. She also has seen a canine eye doctor. Sassy was diagnosed with dry eye and glaucoma so she now has eye meds to help make her more comfortable. This was all within the first 2 weeks in her new ODH home.

From her foster mom: Cute as a button Sassafras (Sassy to us) is an absolute love bug. She has made fast friends with her two Old Dog Haven foster brothers, and our resident dog and all 4 resident cats loved her from the minute they encountered her (which has never happened before). She is a joy to take to vet appointments and never makes a peep while riding in her crate in the car. She gets regular medicated baths for her skin condition and eye drops and ointment 2 times a day plus ear drops and she is patient and never complains. Sassy sleeps through the night right next to my pillow and does not ask to get up until I do. It has taken a while for her to learn the layout of the house and how to go up and down the two stairs but she is doing really well with only an occasional encounter with a wall or piece of furniture. On one of her first trips down the hallway to go outside she was following ODH foster Harvey, I had to stop and laugh – you see Harvey is also blind so we had a case of the blind leading the blind.

We hope to have many years to love this special little girl and we will be forever grateful to Old Dog Haven for letting this little charmer grace our home.

Update:  Sassafras was doing really well, her skin had improved dramatically and she was learning what it meant to be loved, fed and bathed weekly.   She developed a mammary tumor (as she’d not been spayed until coming to the shelter)  and given her age and health she was not a good candidate for surgery, the risk of anesthesia was too great.  The tumor proved to be a rapidly growing type and after a couple of months had grown to a point where it was causing Sassafras pain.  We knew it was time to let her go peacefully.  Although she was only with them 5 months she left a gigantic hole in their hearts.