Our little "special needs" child is THE BEST. She first came to us as a foster in really bad shape. She weighed only 69 lbs. She is now a whopping 89.2 lbs. She has filled out nicely. She has built up a lot of muscle. When we first got her she was thin, and had big open sores on her body, and half of her fur was missing. The poor thing also would not stop itching. She was in desperate need of some love and attention. But with her sweet personality we all made it through some very hard times that lay ahead.

Kira continued to get worse while in our home, and we couldn't figure out why. We gave her antibiotics upon antibiotics, and skin medications, and treatments, and worming this and that. My medicine cabinet was full of her medications, more than it was for my three children.

We finally asked the vet to do some skin puncture biopsies to look even further into what may be causing all these issues and for all her hair to have fallen out. She looked worse than when we had gotten her and she was not in good shape then either. The results came back. Even though we were feeding her the highest protein possible food, and giving her big amounts of vitamins on top of all her other medications, we found out that she was truly a "special needs" pup. She is allergic to everything and then some. Severely allergic to Fleas, Grains, Beef, Pork, Chicken, Dairy, Nylon, Sweet Potatoes....and the list goes on. That is why the itching, and the massive hair loss. So we started giving her a small dose of steroids daily, and put her on a limited ingredient Vet prescribed dog food, and some other vitamins, and voila you see the results. Her hair is growing back just beautifully, she is happy, and running around wagging her tail, initiating play with us as well as her best friend Lilly (our beagle coonhound mix) and acting like a normal happy healthy dog.

She is the sweetest dog you would ever meet, and you would never know anything is wrong with her if you were to have met her. She wears her "chain" collar proudly, and loves to shake a little to hear it rattle with her tags...she is funny like that. (She is allergic to nylon, so we have a chain instead) She teases the cat with Lilly, and loves to look out the window and howl at the squirrels and raccoons in our yard. Her favorite thing to do at night, is crawl up next to our daughter Vanessa and sleep with her (it helps that Vanessa has a heating blanket on her bed). Kira is such a great dog, and I would like to personally thank those who helped save her. She was an expensive dog to save, but SO WORTH IT!! We will be moving to Yuma AZ in less than two months, and our new home has a swimming pool in the backyard. We will definitely send more photos and updates when we get there. Hopefully, she won't be allergic to chlorine and she can swim in the pool with the rest of the family.

Again many thanks and love to all who helped Kira with her second chance at life. We will definitely be back to adopt another coonie!!

Warmest Regards,
Amber Weigt