12 Days of Happy Tails: Meet Minnie!
As the year winds down, we're taking a look back at all of the lives that we’ve saved thanks to your support. It’s another year of 12 Days of Happy Tails — stories that touched the hearts of our staff and volunteers. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we’ve loved all of these special pups.
Today’s story is about mighty Minnie, a snuggly, affectionate 2-year-old pup who arrived in NY in March 2021. We quickly noticed that Minnie was severely underweight and had some hair loss and after a few days in her foster’s care, they reported that she’d vomit right after eating. Unsure of what was wrong, we made an appointment for her at one of our veterinary partners to have bloodwork and x-rays done to get to the bottom of it.
After multiple vet visits and tests, our little girl was diagnosed with megaesophagus - a disorder that causes food and liquid to accumulate in the esophagus, making it difficult for the food to travel to the stomach. This made it clear why Minnie couldn’t gain the weight she so desperately needed. Dogs with megaesophagus need to eat sitting up, in a special chair that’s designed to keep their head and body upright until all the food is able to make its way into the stomach.
While this news was a bit daunting, and meant that Minnie would require a bit of extra time and care, we were undeterred and determined to do everything we could to help Minnie get healthy. Minnie’s fosters, MPR staff and volunteers worked closely with the vets office to design a plan that would enable this lady to gain some weight and keep her food down, and after many months we finally found a routine that worked! Minnie got a cool chair so she could eat her meals in style, and she would jump right into it when she heard the food hit the bowl. Luckily, she was so easy-going that this adjustment that may have rattled many pups was an effortless adjustment. Given her condition, we knew it could be a while until an adopter was willing to take on a pup with her special needs. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long!
In June 2021, Minnie was finally healthy enough to be made available for adoption, and we shared her story in as many places as we could, including the brand-new Muddy Paws TikTok account! Minnie’s adopter Alan says he first set his eyes on Minne on the adoptable dogs page, and while he knew she was special needs, what stood out for him were her big sweet eyes and that she had so much love to give. Alan says, “It's so weird to be able to see that from just a picture and it ends up being true. I was super nervous about adopting Minnie at first but once I met her, I knew it was meant to be.”
“Having a dog like Minnie greet you with so much love and excitement is honestly one of the highlights of my day. She's gotten so comfortable in her forever home, even howling whenever she hears a siren passing by, showing me she too can sound like a siren. This may sound cliche but one of the best decisions I ever made was adopting Minnie and I'm so grateful to have her in my life.”
