This is the story of our dog, Cat. This is also the story of Cat, our dog.
Cat is a 2-year old female Chowchow. It's almost been three months since we adopted her. When we got her, she didn't look like a Chowchow at all, she didn't even look like a normal askal. You'll know when you look at the pics.
I knew from the very beginning that there was a lot of work to do if I adopted her and if I did, it would have to be me who'd do everything from feeding her to bathing her and everything in between. Since I was the one who wanted to adopt her, it became our responsibility to take care of her 24/7. It was pretty difficult. She bit me a few times. Haha.
When I got Cat, she weighed 8 kilos, was emaciated, and had very long nails that would curl and make her bleed when she scratched herself. She had little to no hair and she had inflammation all throughout her legs. She also had mange and/or scabies. She had to be quarantined for the first few days to make sure that she didn't give Koko and Kala scabies. I couldn't even touch her that time because she might bite me so I had to lasso her leash around her neck to give her walks. When I first brought her to the vet, she needed a lot of shots and was given a lot of multivitamins and meds to make sure she got better.
Cat is super picky when it comes to food but in the first few days, she would eat the whole bowl of dog food. After a week or two, she started to only eat dog food if it's mixed with canned dog food.
Cat also hates baths, she won't even go in the general direction of the faucet I gave her baths with. One day, it was raining really hard so I decided to keep her in my room. Surprisingly, she didn't pee so I started keeping her in my room all the time. Just recently, she started peeing in my room so I had to train her to pee in the shower. Before this, I made the mistake of giving her a bath in there so she associated the bathroom with water. It took a lot of treats to make her forget that. So yeah, I'd leave the bathroom door open every time I'd go out. One day, I came home to see that she peed in the bathroom, but on the drying mat though. I still considered it a success so I got happy and tried to make her feel happy about her accomplishment. Cat started getting excited but she got too excited and ended up peeing all over my room.
It took me at least two weeks to gain her trust and even after almost three months, she still only trusted me. She knew a few tricks off the bat, like sit, stay, and jump. Some tricks I was trying to teach her were lay down and roll over.
All the while these things were happening, Cat was slowly getting better and better. Her physical conditions started improving yet one thing I could not do yet was socialize her with other people and dogs. I couldn't let her meet other dogs becase she was not yet fully recovered and she might get sick again. Her aggressive nature also made people stay away from her.
If there is any silver lining to this, it is that Cat can grow more sociable and she might have kids with their Chowchow. (HOPING ANG PRAYING)
Thank you Caminade Hospital and Doc Tan for making sure that Cat would get better. Also, thanks to my parents for allowing me to save a dog's life and Cat got better so thats all that matters in the end.
In the three months I spent with Cat, I gave her my all and that's Cat. She's been through a lot, she's a fighter.
