We had a 17 hour drive ahead of us, and an impending spring blizzard. Most importantly, I was worried that Jessie was thinking she would be abandoned yet again. Another new place. We had just left one that she had been in for only two weeks with me. How many places had she been? Nobody seemed to know. Her paper trail was long lost. What did tell the story was the legion of scars on her body, primarily her face--deep wounds, puncture wounds, a split lip scarred over. And of course there was her raw neck from the barbed wire, still inflamed, still not healed. She had an open wound from a bite on her hip. She had a raging ear infection. Her face, paws, ears were so red that they were purple from allergies. Patches of fur were missing. She was hurting.
We had a lot to overcome. In her favor though was that she was incredibly smart--the kind of smart that calculates three-steps-ahead, smart. That was probably the saving grace she used to keep herself alive. I knew that was indeed a positive, but would need to be channeled for good. I put it on the list of "To-Do's", which was growing longer by the mile.
I was handled a bottle of 'doggy Prozac' when she was turned over to me. She had been drugged for quite a while. She was out of it, yet constantly nervous and anxious at the same time. It's as if her brain was in a state of stress but her body couldn't always match it. Then, erratically she would have out of control outbursts. It's not an exaggeration to say she could (and wanted to) break the car window.....in a blizzard, in the middle of nowhere-Nebraska. Her eyes were a haze. A side effect of the drug was decreased urination. She hadn't peed in three days ( I suppose some humans would think that was a good thing for them). I knew the first order of business was to get her to a good vet and off the drugs so I knew what I was dealing with. Where was the sweet soul underneath all the trauma? Could she ever be revealed?
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