Meet Keeper ~ one amazing pup with a long history.

Keeper was brought to Northern Virginia as a puppy, where he was adopted, only to be returned to the adoption agency about a year later. After he was returned, he bounced around between fosters for months because he had so many behavioral issues. As a sucker for his adorable face, I decided to give fostering a try. I have two other rescue dogs and two cats -what could possibly go wrong?

The answer was everything! Everything was an instant disaster in my house. Dumpling (his name back then) was fear aggressive, a flight risk, had resource guarding, separation anxiety, he wasn't house, leash or crate trained, and he had these panic (schizophrenic) episodes that were heartbreaking. The rumor was that if he was returned to the rescue again, he would be labeled “unadoptable” and be put down. Oh my heart.

Needless to say, I couldn’t have that on my shoulders, and this is when he got his name “Keeper” - because I guess I had to keep him. So off we went to a lot behaviorist and training appointments. He’s been on almost every medication known to dogs for behavior issues. He had a lot of tests done for thyroid and other disorders, and in the middle of this chaos, I found out he was heartworm positive. Ugh. With his anxiety, it was almost a miracle that he survived heartworm treatment (for those unfamiliar – dogs must remain calm after injections so the dead or dying worms don’t cause a thrombus aka stroke).

Fast forward a bit, and here is this amazing (although sometimes still annoying) wonderful pup. I’ve weaned him off all his meds and proud to say he’s doing well …. with one exception. He has recurrent ear infections (every few months recurrent) and the vets have decided he has a food allergy.

And here comes the reason for the GoFund Me post …. both of Keeper's ears are currently infected (again). Since he has to be sedated for them to be cleaned and treated, the vet bills are large, and I need to have medical allergy testing done to prevent future infections. I won’t go into the story of why I’m currently broke, but so you know, between the behavior, training, vet visits and medications, I’ve already dropped over $8000 on this little boy. I’m too vested to quit now, right?! I just need a little help to cover this current treatment, allergy testing and to come up with a plan.

Keeper has been through a LOT in 2 years and deserves to have the best life ever. Thanks for any help you're able to give.