In the Community
Bodie's Second Chance: This resilient Great Dane shows that every dog deserves another shot at life.
By
Wendy Bedwell-Wilson
Last November, Mary Hord answered a phone call from a friend who worked at a local animal shelter. A newly relinquished Great Dane named Bodie, frightened and aggressive, was sequestered inside one of the shelter's intake rooms, and workers were close ot putting him down. Hord, who operates Almost Home Animal Rescue of Rutherford County, rushed there to help.
"He was 150 pounds of mess," recalls Hord from her office. "He panicked when his owners left. He was barking at [shelter workers], and because of his size, they were scared to death of him."
Hord wrangled Bodie into her vehicle and drove him to her veterinarian, who examined him, neutered him and declared him healthy. The next step was to work on behavior and obedience training.
However, three months into his training, Bodie suffered a grand mal seizure. It was the first of a series of medical complications.
Diagnosing Bodie
To determine what caused the seizure, veterinarians injected dye into his spinal column and examined it through an imaging machine, but the dog began convulsing.
"The contrast that they used caused him to go into seizures for nine hours," she says. "We had a team of vets who were expecting a one- to two-hour procedure, but they hung with him until midnight. Atm midnight, he was transferred to an emergency facility and was not expected to make it."
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