An APA! Holiday Miracle

Dec 05, 2011

As you may remember from early September of this year, the night the Bastrop Animal Shelter was evacuated we took in 60+ dogs into our program. As one of the volunteers who drove out to Bastrop to help transport the evacuated animals, there was one dog that stuck out in my mind.

The geriatric dog (gender unidentifiable at first glance) was picked up as a stray by Bastrop Animal Control the day the fires broke out. He was old with a very bad limp and seemed to be in pain. He was on the table to be euthanized at the shelter when the sheriff called to tell them they had to evacuate.

Instead of being euthanized, the dog was loaded into a crate and brought to the park where temporary shelter was set up until the rescues could come to take the animals. He was the very last dog that we saw that night, and despite the fact that he had been scheduled to die, we decided to take him into our program and see if we could give him a second chance.

We named him Teddy Bear for his adorable looks, and once back at APA!, our vet team determined that he was heartworm negative (indicated he had probably been owned), but had a terrible back leg limp. Since his three-day stray hold was not up, we placed him in a foster home and sent him to Lake Austin Boulevard Animal Hospital for x-rays (which they kindly performed for free), which is how we learned that Teddy Bear had hip dysplasia and old injuries that were causing his limp. Due to his age, we did not perform orthopedic surgery, but did do some dental work to help get him as healthy as possible.

Since then, Teddy has spent his time with his loving foster family and was placed in our adoption program (and on our website). However, Teddy Bear's story does not end there ...

We received a phone call from someone claiming to be Teddy Bear's family. The person's father (and Teddy Bear's owner) had recently died, and the family was moving his elderly mother from the family home which was sold on Friday, September 2nd. A neighbor was taking in the dog while the family took care of moving, but the neighbor's house was destroyed by fire, dog was lost.

They have had folks looking for him. Friend called him this morning and told him to look at our web site. This big tough guy was crying over this dog. He now lives in Indiana.

It wandered on to their property 14 years ago as an adult dog. He gave me a lot of the dogs history, was shot at as a pup and was hit by car that is how his tail was lost.

.she put Casey on the phone and when he called his name out Casey/Teddy Bear began whimpering and he and Amy started crying.  He has offered Amy a monthly stipend to keep him and if she cannot he will come down here and reclaim him...he also will donated every Christmas to APA for all we have done to keep Casey alive.  ...