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had a friend who I used to work with who was in recovery for alcoholism
and a bad coke habit. She used to buy drugs at a very frightening
house in a really bad area of Detroit. The people who ran the
house rescued Petey when she was about 3-1/2 months old from another
set of drug dealers who were going to use her for bait (yes, apparently
I ran across the kinder, gentler breed of drug dealer...). However,
they had absolutely no idea what to do with her, so they kept
her locked in a very small bathroom, with nothing much to eat
but fast food remnants, and a big old bathtub of dirty water.
So, once my friend was in recovery, she started having serious
bouts of guilt about leaving Petey behind, so I went with her
and we snuck her out under my coat. I took her home, briefly thought
about adopting her out, but then fell head over heels in love
with her!
She was
suffering from hypernitrition. Basically, the bones in her legs
were growing faster than the muscles could keep up, causing
her front paws to curl under severely, so she basically walked
on her front knees. If you tried to straighten them out by hand,
they just wouldn't do it. It was so sad! So we had to pull almost
all of the protein out of her diet, feed her from an elevated
bowl, strategically play with her with toys and ropes she had
to jump up for, and she had big old purple casts on her front
legs for about 6 weeks. That never really slowed her down much
either, she used to run around throughout the house - thump,
thump, thump, thump. It was amazing, once the casts were removed,
her legs were quite straight. In fact, she now stands with her
front feet facing slightly away from each other, like first
position in ballet, she looks quite graceful.
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