Darth Vader's Story

I was on craigslist browsing the "Wants" section when I came across one that said "Help, Help, Help" figured it was someone needing furniture or something and I decided to look. It was an ad posting about 2 dogs. 1 Purebred boxer and the other was a mix (the purebreds "offspring", boxer/lab they think). Anyways, there were 3 photos, one of the white one, one of the boxer and one of the both of them together. The ad went on to say that the owner was in jail and these guys had no one taking care of them. If someone can help please call --------. So I showed Jarred told him what was going on and he said call. (Which I was totally shocked he actually gave me the go ahead!!!!) So I called the number, talked to the lady and asked her what the rehoming fee was. She said there is no re homing fee BUT he did have surgery and all we need to do is take him in to get the pin removed. I told her I would talk to Jarred and give her a call back. So we agreed to go meet him. We told her we would bringing our puppy and kids to see how everyone got along. We finally make it to the house (I got us lost like 3 times .. no wonder Jarred doesn't like me driving!!! lol) and we first bring Yoda out and leave the kids in the car. We go up the sidewalk and she brings him out. I remember seeing him and thinking "oh my word". I looked at Jarred and could tell he was thinking pretty much the same thing. Out came this beautiful beautiful dog but he was literally skin and bones. You can see his ribs, his spine, his hip bones. We are talking to the lady trying to get his background and Jarred asks her if he is healthy. She says yes and goes inside and brings out 3 papers. One of them being his shot record. Which to me I was thinking, sweet!!! He has all his shots, its documented this makes it easier. She opens it up and says, "yep, he had a healthy puppy check up in 2006." I kind of did a double take. 2006?! Hahaha. Yeah ok. Then come to find out this boy can jump a chain link fence. Ok no problem for us since we have the privacy fencing but thats why he had to have surgery. He jumped the fence and got hit by a car. I was thinking, "ok this dog has had a rough life." Then she goes on to the other two papers in her hands. One was from the surgery which he had in JANUARY. Yes January. And the pin is STILL in there. He has something, where he had surgery, sticking out of his leg, they think its the pin. When he walks, he barely puts pressure on it. Its so sad. Needless to say, Jarred and I decided even if we didn't like the dog (which we absolutely DO!!!!!) we would take him anyways just to get him out of the environment. And the whole time we were there about a good 30-40 minutes the dog was literally trying to jump into our car. You are looking at a PURE BRED boxer (this breed goes for around $2500) and they let him get down to skin and bones. We went to the store got a 40lb bag of food, puppy food, because they say that will help him beef up faster. Got him some dinner and the poor puppy wouldn't eat unless Jarred was there standing by him!! If Jarred left he would follow Jarred around. So Jarred sat there with him while he ate. We have only had one incident where him and Yoda didn't get along. And after his very stern warning we haven't had anymore. I am sure more are in our future but hey, no sense fretting about that right now!!! After he ate we let him chill out a little. We made him a bed from a sleeping bag in front of the fireplace and put a rawhide there and let him sleep. After that we gave him a bath. Oh my word .. the water was NASTY. He got out and left black paw prints on our rug. =( We had taken his collar off so we could wash it and oh my word that was nasty too. You could feel the grime coming off. He is now resting comfortably and we are so happy he is part of our family now!!! Jarred and I are worried about the surgery cost. We are thinking they might need to do more surgery to correct it. But we will see. We are determined to get him better though. Even if we have to go off our Dave Ramsey plan. We will.