Liebchen - Staying With Owner

Name: Liebchen

Age: Estimated 8 years

Sex: Female (altered)

Breed: Poodle

Location: Anaheim, CA area

Vet Info: Liebchen is confirmed spayed and heartworm negative.  She is up to date on vaccines and is next due for her rabies vaccine in June, 2016.  Her owner's daughter writes that Liebchen needs daily eye drops for the rest of her life to prevent glaucoma, and that funding may be made available to support her eye care needs.  Liebchen weighs 10 pounds.

Owner Info: Liebchen is a beautiful little girl whose 90-year-old owner just passed away.  His daughter is unable to keep Liebchen as she has three very large dogs, two of which may injure Liebchen.  She is desperately hoping for rescue or a new home for Liebchen as soon as possible.  No other family members are able to help.

Liebchen is an indoor dog with run of the house, and her owner's daughter gave us details about her being housebroken:  "My Father was in the hospital for 7 weeks, during which time we had to keep his animals at his apartment. Although we have had numerous people going into the apartment multiple times per day to potty and play with dog and cat, Liebchen started urinating on the living room carpet. I believe it was her way of expressing her frustration at the situation. Thus, whomever adopts Liebchen will need to start off with reminder potty training to get her back on track."

Liebchen is good with both men and women, but small children will likely frighten her.  Her owner's daughter writes that she can be possessive of toys, treats, or food, and she gave us more details:  "My Father was very frail and did not make Liebchen mind. As a result, she would "protect" him by standing on his lap, and would try to bite me if I tried to pick her up (while she was on his lap)....When Liebchen still had her vision, sometimes she would go into protection mode (for Dad) and would launch herself at me. She has bitten my finger once (and broken the skin), as well as biting my shoe (while my foot was in it). This behavior appears to have stopped once her vision went away."  

She also tells us that Liebchen will bark at other dogs, but she has not put her in the situation where she has been with other dogs.  Her suspicion is that Liebchen would do better in a household where she is the only dog.

Liebchen has made progress with her socialization!  Liebchen's owner's daughter writes, "Overall, Liebchen is a very healthy little dog who loves to play and enjoy life. She is in need of a home where someone will establish rules/expectations and not let her dictate who is in charge. I believe the vet also indicated she has had a heart murmur for years, but this has not seemed to cause her any problems...I hope you can help us find her a great home. She has become a very nice little dog as her socialization has progressed."  

Liebchen's owner's daughter gave us more details about her vision:  "We believe that Liebchen is almost completely blind. One eye has had a full cataract for years. The second eye developed into a full cataract in December 2014. I took her to an opthamologist on 1/7/15 to see if we could have cataract surgery done. The Dr. conducted an exam of her retinal function too and said that she has Progressive Retinal Atrophy. One eye has zero retinal function. The other eye measured at 47. The Dr. explained that he does not like to do cataract surgery on dogs with retinal function less than 50. Apparently, some dogs have as high as 900 for this test. He went on to say that we could do the surgery but it would be a matter of months before she was completely blind again. We discussed it and felt that subjecting her to the trauma of surgery, etc. was not a good idea."

Update 4/23/15:  We've heard from Liebchen's owner and she's settling down but is quite frightened around other people.  At this point, they're hoping for a permanent home for sweet Liebchen.

"Liebchen is settling down a bit over here with us. Am working with her on crate training, taking her for lots of short walks each day to ensure she gets enough exercise and teaching her commands like "step up"  and "step down" to get her used to her new environment. She is really frightened around other people, I suspect she knows I am trying to place her. At this point I am not looking for a foster home for her.....but rather a permanent home with someone who has experience with frightened blind dogs. She really needs a lot of support right now (is really fragile emotionally) and bouncing her around foster homes would be a really bad idea right now."