Adopt a Senior Dog – Chicken’s Story

My dear, tiny, little Chicken was one of my senior rescue dog pack for many years. She is one of the main reasons I am passionate about senior dog rescue, and foster them often. Supposedly, a dog hits their senior years when they are 7 years old, but from my experience, that milestone is just the beginning. 

Caring for Chicken’s special needs really allowed me to learn what I was capable of figuring out on behalf of someone I loved, and each dog I’ve fostered since I lost Chicken has benefitted from my belief that it’s always worth it to try. If we can make another being’s life a little kinder and gentler, it’s never a waste of effort.

Chicken found her way into my heart and life in 2010 and we had almost 10 years together. At 15, her little body that had faced so many challenges gave up on March 6, 2020. At just over two pounds, she was beloved in our community and on her Instagram account.

In the years Chicken and I got to spend together, so much happened:

• She gained and lost and gained almost a full pound over and over again.
• She was always the bossiest and most vocal dog in my home.
• Chicken became a companion therapy dog, and for three years we visited an adolescent support group, nursing homes and a university library to spread love, smiles and Snapchat stories.
• She gained over 5,400 instagram followers by sharing her adventures, and that account continues in her legacy in my continued rescue of the frail, old, high-needs pups.
• She swallowed one of my sewing needles and had surgery and a long, scary recovery in 2015, but she came back better than ever.
• While she was the perfect size of a purse dog, she preferred to walk on a leash almost always. And she could really strut her stuff.
• I once almost gave her to a retired veteran she met at our local bar while he was there all alone and they stared at each other lovingly for 20 minutes and it almost broke my heart. [While I didn’t give her to him, they became dear friends and visited often.]
• Chicken retired from therapy work after her second seizure in 2018.
• That second seizure has forever changed her and that was the acceleration of her toughest health issues, including acid reflux and her inability to keep many calories in her little body.
  • My solution to her high nutritional needs: each week, I put a can of her canned food in my food processor with equal amounts of water (it was also tough for her to swallow much water, so keeping her hydrated was a concern also and this plan helped). The result was kind of a jello consistency. I kept that mixture in the fridge and each meal time, heated her serving in the microwave 8-10 seconds, which made it more of a soup and she ate it from her bowl on top of an upside-down bowl so she didn’t have to strain her little neck. Towards the end, I fed her more than twice a day like the other dogs because she wasn’t keeping much food in her stomach.
  • Moral of the story: we get creative when we need to.
• I tried CBD oil for her reflux, seizures and anxiety and I feel like it truly sustained her health and comfort (which was always most important to me) as well as possible.
• She was such a fierce fighter – she had many setbacks: her jaw dissolved about five years before she passed after all of her teeth had fallen out, seizures, difficulty keeping food in her tiny body. Finally at 15, her little body gave up the long-fought battle.
• She was capable of so much love and loyalty in her teensy body. She was one of the few dogs in my house who had any amount of judgment toward the people around her and she was always, ALWAYS willing to speak her mind.
• She was – and always will be – one of my very best friends. She will never be far from my memory.

I will never try to convince you that it is easy to care for senior dogs, but I will tell you that they are special and so filled with love and gratitude for their second chance. It really and makes every single moment and pill administration so worth it.