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| Name: |
Barkley
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Age: |
Five years old
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| Gender: |
Male |
Breed: |
Pekinese/Toy Poodle
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| Home: |
Nashville, Tennessee, USA |
Barkley is an incredible dog. He's a Peekapoo (Pekinese and Toy Poodle mix), extremely smart, loves to play fetch, and completely hinks he is a human, all the way to sleeping with his head on a pillow. But let me tell you why he is our Miracle Puppy and the TRUE reason why he is incredibly special to us:
My boyfriend and I actually found Barkley on Craigslist for sale. Little did we know, we saved his life. We got Barkley from a woman that had him living in an outdoor cage with three pitbulls. Don't get me wrong, I love all breeds of dogs, but when we got Barkley, he was all of five pounds, living in an outdoor cage with three very large (in comparison) dogs, one of which was pregnant and territorial/aggressive toward Barkley.
We had him for four days when he got very sick. We took him to the vet immediately and after a few tests, he was diagnosed with Parvo. For those of you who don't know what Parvo is, just know that it's one of the most aggressive and violent diseases a puppy can be diagnosed with, with a fatality rate of about 93%. We were devastated. We knew the treatment was going to be on the upside of three or four thousand dollars with no guarantee, but of course, we had no choice… we had to try. Honestly, we had no idea how we were going to afford such treatment, but we knew we had to do it, we had to save this pup's life and give him a second chance. We KNEW he deserved a happy home and we already had so much love for the little nugget, there was just no question.
Barkley had intestinal Parvo, which meant the complete interior lining of his intestines were gone, and his white blood cell count had almost completely bottomed out. Barkley went through very extreme treatment and was hospitalized in complete isolation in ICU for seven days and nights, went through two plasma transfusions and was on IVs for fluid and nutrition throughout the entire time. He was in complete isolation and only doctors were allowed in (fully covered with gloves) to go in and see/touch him.
On day four, after the first plasma transfusion failed, I begged them to let me in. I just wanted to hold our baby and hopefully give him an ounce of hope, to remember that we loved him and we needed him to fight (the nurse went against hospital policy to let me in.) After seven days of treatment, we got to pick him up, because our little miracle puppy had survived Parvo! The second transfusion was a success! Barkley was five pounds when we initially got him, during his treatment and while he had Parvo, he was down to 3.5 lbs, and then, three months later, our sweet, happy, and full of life pup was up to eleven pounds! He is now, years later, one healthy and happy boy!
Not to mention, he's probably the cutest puppy on the entire planet! (and I don't even think I'm being a biased mom- ha!) Trust me, he knows he is one special dog!
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