Sugar - Adopted 8/03

Sugar is an eight year old sable female who is about 55 lbs. that was in the care of an older couple. For the past two years Sugar was confined to a 20 x 30 foot caged area where she had only brief human contact once a day when food was brought to her. She became so bored that she began chasing her own tail.  MWCR was contacted by the caretakers' daughter and asked if we would find Sugar a good home. Sugar is spayed and is current on all her shots. Her coat is a bit chopped up from a grooming she had to remove matted and tangled hair but it is starting to fill in nicely.

Since coming to her foster family, she has quickly taken to being with humans again.....and loves it! She is really sweet natured and loves to please. Her foster family says they find it hard to believe she's

been an outside dog since she has had no accidents in the house even when left free in the house while the foster family has been away. She has shown no bad habits; is very well behaved; walks well on a

leash; does well riding in the car; and seems to get along with anyone - dog, cat, child, or grownup.

While outside Sugar will stay close by, but will trot over to visit neighbors who are outside. She will return after she's received the petting she was after or when called back. She is really comfortable

around Andre, a four and a half year old male collie adopted last year from MWCR. She lets him be the alpha dog and affords him the respect that he feels comes with the title. However, after just one week, she was the one who initiated play with Andre while in the yard and they had a great time!

Because of the lack of companionship she's had for most of her life, it would be great to see her adopted by a family where there is someone home a good deal of the time or that has another canine companion for her.

7/17/03 Update on Sugar

Here is the latest on Sugar.   Sorry, it's taken so long but I'm in the middle of a big personal project and it is eating up my time.

She and Andre are doing fine.  He gets a little jealous now and he also gets irritated with her when she's encroaches on his space sometimes. 
He'll let her know by growling at her.  He's even snapped at her a couple of times but I think it's more to tell her he's serious because
he never actually bites her.   She's has never answered him back with any type of challenge.  She'll just walk away and leave him alone. 
When they go outside in the morning they sometimes chase each other and even wrestle a bit.  She's actually more playful than Andre.

She is afraid to go up stairs with anymore than two or three steps. Quite frankly, we haven't tried to teach her because it works out well
for us to not have her learn to climb more.  Our bedroom is upstairs and so is Andre's bed.  She finds a comfortable rug to sleep on and
waits for us to come down in the morning.  She really is a sweetheart. 

I suppose there are other collies that prance like her but, boy, does she prance when she walks.  We've had several people say to us that we
should call her Prancer because of her pronounced gait.The only thing we've noticed about her is her propensity to go over to
anyone she sees.  Because we do not have a fenced yard, I only let her and Andre out when I am outside too.  She will generally come back to
me when I call her.  The only time she may not listen and come back right away is if the person she is visiting is a female.  She seems to
really like women.  Not that she doesn't like males.  It's just that if given the choice of going to a female or a male, she prefers to go to
the female first;  and when called back from a female, she is a little more reluctant to come back.  Her previous owner was a female so that
probably explains that.
Her coat is coming in nicely and she is looking better every day.  Her teeth and breath are much better now.  She's been chewing on rawhide
and eating some large Milkbones and the two seems to be clearing up her yellow teeth and bad breath.   We had thought of taking her to the
vet's office to have her teeth cleaned; but we think that if the non-yellowing process continues like it has, she won't need it.

We are feeding her the special IVD dog food that we feed Andre.  It's much simpler to do that then try and separate them when they eat. 
Andre eats later in the evening and won't eat at one sitting.  She seems to have the same eating habits so it was virtually impossible to
feed them separate foods.  I checked with our vet's office and they said that it was not a problem;  just a bit more expensive......but
they are worth it.    I suppose each dog has to undergo a diet change when they get adopted out.  She previously ate a real cheap dog food so
I'm sure she can adjust to something else when she gets adopted.

Well, I close for now.  Again, I can't say anything bad about this little lady.  She is a jewel.  If we didn't have Andre, we'd keep her.

****Sugar was adopted and then returned to MWCR because of a unique health issue.  She has infrequent incontinence - not squatting - literally leaking about once every 4-5 days.  After closely monitoring her situation under veterinary supervision, it has been determined that Sugar may have a pouch or abnormality in her urinary tract where urine pools and then seeps out when she turns or lies a certain way.  X-rays, blood tests and urinalysis have been done and everything is normal.  Several different medications have only exacerbated the leaking and have caused her to begin squatting in the house.

From her foster family:

The vet did say that we should talk about next steps - a $400 investigative procedure (Ouch!)  or just live with her condition.   Now that we've
stopped giving her the Proin, she appears to be going back to her old cycle of leaking a bit on her bed (or where she's lying down) about
every 4-5 days.   We're not sure yet - it's only been 1 1/2 days since she had her last pill but she hasn't leaked or squatted since noon that
same day.  

It was weird that Sugar actually got worse when she was on the medicine.  She gradually got worse to the point of actually squatting
wherever she was.   Most of the time nothing came out but she kept having the urge.   We stopped giving her the Proin after her Weds.
morning pill and she's not had an incident since that same day around noon.   Prior to the Proin. she'd been having a leaking incident every
4-5 days.  Today was the fifth day with no incident so we'll have to wait and see.   Except when she was on the medicine, she generally
would leak when she was lying down in her bed   A couple of times she leaked while lying on a runner rug in the hallway because Andre was in her bed.  It's usually wasn't much, generally a 4-6 inch circle or less.

We believe that Sugar would be better off with a family that has someone home a lot and has another friendly dog that could
interact with Sugar during the day.   She really craves companionship and doesn't seem to have an aggressive bone in her body.  She accepts
and trusts any person or any dog.  She loves to play and has more energy than our dog does.  Even though she's so much smaller than Andre
is, she can easily wrestle a tug-o-war toy away from him and she'll keep wanting to play long after he's pooped out!

Sugar still doesn't know how to climb stairs of more than three or four steps.  Also, she still is reluctant to enter through doorways but
after some time and work, she's now comfortable coming through our door.

Sugar is a very special girl who deserves a loving family who will understand her periodic incontinence situation.  Sugar deserves a better life than her previous one as an outdoor dog.  She is a beautiful and happy dog who LOVES people, playing and going on walks.

Sugar is being fostered near the Twin Cities in MN

Sugar is being fostered in Forest Lake, MN.