The conditions we got him from were far from acceptable.  The lady must have had at least fifteen cats in her house which was covered in filth.  She also had three adult dogs that we saw, and the litter of pups that Frodo came from.  Had I been buying a puppy from a breeder I would have turned the dog down, left and reported the conditions.  But since she was giving the puppy away we took it so we good give him a good home, and get him the veterinary care he needed.

 

On the way home we noticed that Frodo had some large bald spots on his neck and his front leg. I supected mange so I isolated him from my kids and my other dog, since some forms of mange are contagous to both kids and dogs.

 

The next day I made an appointment to have him looked over at my vet.  When I called the vet I told them where I got the puppy, and they weren't suprised that he was sick. In fact when I got to the clinic they informed me that the lady had called them for medicine for Frodo's litter mates who had the same problems. They were glad that I had come in so they could diagnose my puppy and then tell her what she needed for the rest because she was a difficult client to deal with according to them.

 

Frodo was diagnosed with ringworm, for somehow this was better than mange, although it can take six weeks or more of treatment.  I guess in my mind a fungus was better than little mites.

 

After the exam I took Frodo home and prepared my large pet crate in the porch where Frodo would have to be isolated during his treatment. During his isolation I played with him several times a day and began simple obedience commands and taught him a couple tricks.  Even if he couldn't be with the family it wasn't fair to him if just sat in the crate all the time, so I tried to make the best out of a frustrating situation.  We all had to cope with it. Frodo wanted to be with us and we wanted to be able to include him in  the household.  My four year old took it surprisingly well, we explained to her that he was sick and that she couldn't play with him because then she might get sick too. 

 

After Frodo was diagnosed I reported the situation to the local police since there is no humane society in the area that I got Frodo from.  They went out to the lady's home and saw the conditions, but all they did was report her to human services so that maybe they could help her clean the place up or something.  A couple days later I did find out that the organization that ran the old shelter in the area was still active and reported the situation to them. They informed that they had been trying to get something done about her for some time, but that no one in the area was willing to do anything about it.  They said they were trying to get someone down from the cities to see what they could do.  I haven't heard anything more from them about her so I am assuming little to nothing has been done about the situation.

 

At the very least we took home a puppy that was to sick to want to move and turned him into a loving well trained family pet.

And much to the vet's surpise none of us caught ringworm from Frodo thanks to constant cage cleaning and changing clothes after handling him.

 

I just hope that the other puppies turned out as good as he did.