Buster

as told by Sally Tackley

Two weeks before Christmas, 2000, I was contacted by a Corgi-L member that there was a possible corgi at one of the local shelters. There wasn’t a picture posted on the website, but the list member’s niece said she had seen the dog there. I went that day to check, and sure enough, there was a young (about 9 months old) male Pem with a terrible skin condition. I paid his “bail” and before I brought him home, I took him to my vet’s office. The shelter had been treating the dog for “hot spots”, but the vet said no, the dog was suffering from chemical burns. We’ll never know if the burns were from an accident or if they were intentional, but the poor little guy was just dropped off at the shelter.

The vet cleaned him up, and got a lot of the dead skin off before sending him home with me. I had to bathe him twice a week in a special shampoo, then stand him in a tub of water with an oatmeal rinse in it. The poor little guy took it all in stride. He wasn’t fond of it, but he realized that it made him feel better. I kept an ointment on the worst places and he wore an E-collar for a couple of weeks. I also had to keep him separated from my other dogs while he was healing, for fear that they would injure that tender skin. Once Buster had healed enough that he could have some supervised playtime with the other dogs, I made a little coat for him to protect his skin.

Buster’s vet bills weren’t outrageous, but coming so close to Christmas, it was hard to come up with any extra money. Fortunately, Corgi Aid approved my application and reimbursed me for Buster’s bill. The end of January, 2001, I put Buster on a plane to go to his forever home in Washington state. He has since been renamed Teddy. His new mom is crazy about him and he seems to be very happy there. He has other corgis as well as various farm animals to play with, and a huge fenced yard to run in. Many, many thanks to Corgi Aid for helping me give Teddy the home he deserved.