We brought Tubbie into our home as a foster in early September 2006, about 2 weeks after moving back to San Antonio from Nashville. He came from Texas City, TX (near Galveston), and he was overweight and very sick with pneumonia. The vet's first evaluation was not good, and they said due to his age (11-13 yrs), his health, and how depressed he was, he was a "candidate for euthanasia." We decided to try everything before going that route, and after a couple months of meds, X-rays, etc..., we started to see an improvement! Tubbie was eating well, losing weight, and coughing less! We were still just "fostering" him, but I was totally in love with him... and poor Taylor was slowly realizing that this guy may not be a temporary houseguest after all. Then, on October 31, 2006, I took Tubbs to the vet because he hadn't been walking on his left leg since our walk earlier that day. The vet took one look at it and said it was a torn ACL. He scheduled X-rays for the next day and warned me that if both ACL's were badly torn (which is what he expected), he would need surgery-- and at his age, this was not a good prognosis. I called Taylor on the way home, sobbing, and he was so sweet. He just said, "Don't worry, if the X-rays come back with bad news, then Tubbs will officially be a Childress, and we'll do the surgeries." The next day, we found out that both ACL's were badly torn-- and so we had 3 dogs!
After 2 surgeries and lots of rehab (and carrying 100lbs of Tubbie up and down the stairs all day long), he is doing great! And still going strong over 2 years later!
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