Jimmy is a 15-year-old male brindle greyhound who was found by Animal Control wandering the streets of Corvallis early in March, 2004. He was extremely dehydrated, malnourished, arthritic and mostly deaf, but Jimmy loved to walk. After a veterinary exam and results of blood work were in, it appeared that Jimmy had kidney disease. He was hospitalized for five days to see if IV fluids would confirm whether the elevated values were due to dehydration or to kidney disease. Jimmy showed a lot of spunk – when he was taken out for walks at the veterinary hospital, he always managed to get to a trash can to try to sniff out food. Jimmy’s values came down over that time period and he was moved into a foster home.

Upon arriving in his foster home, Jimmy wandered outside – came back inside and found the biggest, softest dog bed in the house. He climbed into the bed, curled up, heaved a huge sigh of relief and went to sleep. Having survived out of garbage cans, Jimmy wasn’t initially interested in dog food and because of his ongoing diarrhea, it was important to get him to eat food that was acceptable to his GI tract. His foster family was successful in getting him to eat for a few days, but the day after being seen by an internist, Jimmy took a downhill turn. After a couple of days of very poor eating, Jimmy was given subcutaneous fluids for two days. An ultrasound revealed intestinal problems that, alone might be manageable, but combined with his kidney disease, malnutrition which caused him to have very little strength and his low reserves, were too much for him to recover from.

Sadly, despite our best efforts, Jimmy did not survive. Jimmy touched the hearts of every one who met him and was able to spend his last days on a nice soft dog bed – he liked to be covered completely with a blanket – and with a foster family who loved him and gave him their undivided attention.