Gidget 051422B

Gidget

Sanctuary Arrival Date

March 2014

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At around a year old, Gidget was abandoned at a vet hospital with a broken leg. The vet staff found her the next morning as she was left there overnight. For treatment, they put a heavy bandage around her leg and only provided crate rest to heal her leg. Once she was healed, Our Companions was contacted for assistance for continued rehabilitation and physical therapy and she arrived to us at a year old in 2014. After a short time with us of her settling in, it was quite clear how much her rough start in life had impacted her. Gidget was most likely given little to almost no socialization with people. She had a very difficult time coping with the world, especially to any new person in her life at that point. We moved her to a quieter cottage that had less visitors where no unknown person could walk in, and developed a consistent way of introducing her to new people. Gidget has thrived on the routine, and as long as she is managed properly and introduced to people with our now widely used “Gidget intro”, she’s made so many new friends that she has her own excel spreadsheet to keep track of them!

Gidget thrives on the consistency of her daily activities at the Sanctuary. Gidget has attended every type of training class that we give at our Valerie Friedman Program Center and also has a spreadsheet for all of the tricks she knows. If you sneeze near her, she can bring you a Kleenex! Her broken leg never healed properly and as she ages, she has been battling joint and neck pain. She is given daily physical therapy and massage, as well as regular chiropractic appointments that even include acupuncture! We have increased her medications and started doing heat packs on her neck. She is very tolerant of the extra attention—it must feel good! We do see an improvement and we’re grateful all of our efforts are helping her feel happy and pain-free!