Frederick County Animal Control: Emergency Medical Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Funding was used to supplement our medical-care budget.
It helped pay for the cost of enucleation for one of our shelter dogs.
How many pets did this grant help?
1
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Karma was surrendered to the Frederick County Division of Animal Control and Pet Adoption Center by her owners, who could no longer care for her. Karma, like many surrendered pets, was overwhelmed by the shelter environment. For about four days, she lay flat on the floor of her kennel, visibly shaking and clearly frightened by the unfamiliar surroundings and caretakers. Adding to the challenge of earning her trust was the limited vision she arrived with as a result of glaucoma. Her left eye was enlarged and painful. Despite the compounded issues, we recognized the potential beneath them and chose to place her on a pathway of adoption.
The first step in transforming Karma from a scared, shaking dog was to remedy the glaucoma and make her comfortable. The only option was to perform surgery to remove her left eye completely — a procedure called enucleation. We know that pain affects the behavior of all animals, but we are never certain how they will respond to surgery, treatment, and any associated care. Karma was a perfect patient and healed remarkably well and remarkably fast, mainly because she left the surgery site alone so we had little need to restrict her access to it.
Many of us who work with animals often witness an animal who “gets it.” Those animals seem to understand that we are doing things for their benefit and, in their own way, work with us to accomplish our goal. For Karma, removing her eye also removed the pressure and pain it had been causing her.
Karma is now healed from her surgery and was adopted last week. We had restrictions on her adoption for her benefit, but also for her adoptive family’s. Her lack of vision on her left side meant she would do best in a home without small children. Even adult family members will have to learn not to sneak up on that side, as she is still acclimating to having only one eye and can be startled easily.
The Frederick County Division of Animal Control and Pet Adoption Center is an open-admission, municipal shelter with a limited budget. We are grateful to have a compassionate community and supporters like our auxiliary group, the Frederick Friends of our County Animal Shelter (FFOCAS), that provide resources beyond our given budget to help animals like Karma. We appreciate financial support from national organizations like the Petfinder Foundation, whose donors also supplement our budget and help us help animals like Karma.
