Photos courtesy of Kim Armstrong.
Neighbor Kim Amstrong believes that the recent pandemic saved foster dog Pippy’s life.
“I tell my girls, and the family, and my friends that COVID saved this dog’s life because nobody would have pulled her out of the shelter in the condition that she was in,” Armstrong said.
While the Armstrong family was familiar with the foster process, having just fostered a dog for seven days before it found its forever home, they turned sights to adopting a dog.
After looking through the Dallas Animal Service’s website, they picked out a seemingly normal dog.
“The shutdown happened, so I decided well, it’s probably really important that we do it now,” Armstrong said. “We had a younger dog at the time, and I said, ‘You know, the older dogs are probably goning to get overlooked, so why don’t we do an older dog this go around?’ So there was this one dog and she caught our eye, she had a real cute face, and they just had a face shot of her [on the website].”
Due to the dog’s serious health issues, the DAS could only release the elderly dog to a foster rescue group, so Armstrong received sponsorship from Dallas Pets Alive. After a ton of back and forth, she was finally registered with the rescue group and DAS could release the dog into her care.
Due to the coronavirus, DAS’s new procedure requires that foster or adoptions take place at the car.
“You basically schedule your appointment, Dallas Animal Shelter will bring the dog, put them in your car, you’re never allowed to get out of your car,” she said.
Unfortunately, Pippy the foster dog was not what the Armstrong family had expected from her photo on the DAS website.
“When they brought this dog into my car, they put her in, she was covered from head to toe in mange, she had no hair anywhere on her body except for her head,” Kim said. “She smelled so bad, it was so crazy. She shut the door, and I had my two girls in the car with me, and we just sat there for the longest time. I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t even know if she’s going to make it overnight.’”
The family, genuinely concerned for Pippy’s life, had to wait until the following Monday to take her to the vet to get her checked out. All the while, Armstrong was just hoping she would make it to that appointment because her condition was far worse than she had imagined.
Two and a half weeks later, Pippy is doing better than ever. She’s currently on medicine for her mange and her heart condition.
“She had a really deep inner ear infection, so she couldn’t hear which was really apparent. But she has a lot of her hearing back because we’ve been managing her ear infection,” Armstrong said.
They’ve also been caring for her dry eyes, putting in drops twice a day which clears any debris since she was oozing gunk for her eyes when they first picked her up.
“She is doing so amazing, and we kind of joke about it now in the family because I said, ‘We would never would have pulled this dog out of the shelter.’ She was destined to be euthanized on Sunday,” Armstrong said.
The Armstrong family is now happy to report that Pippy is doing well, growing back her hair back, playing and even learned how to do the doggy happy dance.
“We had gotten into the routine, I was giving her two walks a day, really long walks and feeding her,” Armstrong said. “So, I remember one morning, I woke up and I grabbed the leash, and she knew, she had learned now what the leash means is that she gets to get out and walk around, and so she did her first doggy happy dance.”
After receiving the care she needed, Pippy turned out to be a gentle, well-behaved family dog.
“She’s just the greatest little dog and COVID gave her a life.”
The Communities Foundation of Texas has launched North Texas Giving Tuesday Now, an 18-hour online day of giving encouraging metroplex citizens to come together and give to COVID-19 relief and recovery.
North Texas Giving Tuesday Now will take place on Tuesday, May 5, but early gifts can be made now. They are matching all gifts up to $6,000.Here’s how far your donations can go:
$10 – Microchip
$25 – Heartworm test
$50 – Puppy vaccinations
$75 – Spay/neuter one pet
$100 – One day of parvovirus treatment
$300 – Heartworm treatment
$500 – One month of behavioral training
