22-021 Nubbs was surrendered after 10 days of being alone when his owner was incarcerated. The High County Humane Society had taken possession of the dog after the owner did not claim him after 5 days. Our transporter went to Flagstaff to pick him up and observed that he had the softest fur with a Golden head and a Poodle coat and body and beautiful, piercing golden eyes. He also had a stunted right front leg. He exhibited signs of a prostate infection and had bloody diarrhea. We had him evaluated at VetMed and then neutered at one of our partner veterinarians. Connie and Nick fostered him for a while and noted that he exhibited possession aggression whenever food or toys were around, but he was playful and friendly otherwise, although he kept trying to hump Jackson. So, we decided he would be best off in a home without other dogs, which is what our wonderful Placement Team found with an adoptive couple. They renamed him Trooper, which he really is! The adopter has a home-based business where people are coming in and going out of the house frequently. At first, Trooper was very wary of the strangers, and let them know with low growls to keep their distance, but this behavior is diminishing as time passes and he gets more relaxed. His intestinal issues continued, though, and after he had a hemorrhage, we had an ultrasound done at VetMed. It showed a single mass in the intestine, so surgery was done and, great news!, the mass turned out to be benign – probably a polyp that had never stopped growing. The poop issues continued, though the stool became more solid and the frequency did diminish with time. Trooper finally seems like he is on the mend, so his adoption was finalized. The adopter wrote:

On April 21, 2022, our lives got turned upside down. A few weeks earlier we had filled out an application and explained to Connie that what we really wanted was a Goldendoodle because I wanted a dog that didn’t shed and one that had no medical problems. Well, 4 PM on that Thursday afternoon, Connie shows up at our house with a long-haired, 3 ½-legged dog with just about every medical malady known to man, which we didn’t know at the time. We tried to remind her that this dog was everything we didn’t want. Well, we committed to fostering the dog, signed papers and Connie left and left the dog behind. He was absolutely crestfallen that yet another person (Connie) whom he had gotten close to left him. After we had heard everything he had been through, we sure didn’t blame him. It took no time at all for Nubbs, now Trooper, to worm his way into our hearts. We hadn’t realized how much until a major visit to the emergency vet where we found out it was very likely we were going to lose him. My husband and I were both hysterical as the vet explained if she couldn’t get the tumor out of him without breaking his pelvic bone, she would have to put him down while he was still knocked out. If he didn’t have the surgery, he didn’t have long to live. Liz was with us and said they would do the surgery if that is what we wanted to do. The next 2½ hours were some of the longest in our lives. Dr. Owen called, said the surgery went great but now we had to see if the tumor was malignant or not. She warned us that 95% of the time they are, but we had faith that God would see to it that Trooper pulled through this, too. The following week we found out the tumor was benign and we were going to have our boy around for quite some time. He had some issues to clear up before adoption could happen but today was that day. Even though I have dog hair all over my house, this little creature has brought us so much joy. He seemed to know he was official today, because he had a serious case of the zoomies this afternoon. So, he was absolutely everything we thought we did NOT want, but he turned out to be exactly everything we needed. It is a love affair all the way around. Thank you, Connie and Liz, for helping make this happen.