Vet Reveals The Truth About Foster Puppy & Everyone Learns What He Really Is
When Laurel Lingenfelter agreed to foster a puppy named Bruce, she thought she was getting a malnourished bully mix aged somewhere between four and six months. But after Lingenfelter got Bruce home, she started to suspect he was something different. A trip to the vet confirmed her hunch about the sickly but happy pup.
@mythologicaldogs Our VERY BIG Brucey boy 🥹
"Bruce is only 12 weeks old and he's definitely part Great Dane, made extremely obvious from his long legs, build, and tail that is the same length as the rest of him," she said in a TikTok video. "Big breeds like this need a special diet to grow correctly." But sweet little Bruce clearly hadn't been receiving the right type of food, or anywhere near enough of it. "He was found already emaciated, full of worms, and then not given the correct nutrients for his size," Lingenfelter said.
Fixing Bruce's dire health situation required Lingenfelter to respond swiftly, but cautiously. She gave Bruce another round of deworming medication and the vaccines he needed, and began feeding him an appropriate type of dog food for his breed. She also started Bruce on a slow refeeding plan. "[Y'all] are doing GREAT!!! There's gonna be some days where it's hard but in the end trust me it's so worth it ... I'm sure he's in very very great hands," commented a TikTok user.
What's the best way to help a malnourished dog?
"Bruce is a two out of nine on the Body Condition Score, which is heartbreaking," Laurel Lingenfelter said in the TikTok video. Two Body Condition Score scales are commonly used to express how thin or heavy a dog is. One of the scales assigns a numerical score out of five, while the other uses a nine-point system. Bruce's score indicates an extremely underweight animal.
Symptoms of malnutrition in dogs – lethargy, weakness, a dull coat, and visible ribs — can be frightening to witness, and it takes patience to treat a malnourished dog. The reality is that helping a skinny dog gain weight isn't as simple as drastically increasing the amount of food the animal receives. "If a dog this malnourished gets fed too much too quickly, they can die because their body isn't used to the amount of nutrients, so you have to slowly work them up to the correct amount of food," Lingenfelter explained.
A slow refeeding plan involves gradually introducing more food in small meals throughout the day and carefully monitoring the effects, to make sure the animal's body is metabolizing nutrients again and to prevent the potentially deadly refeeding syndrome. "It is so hard to foster a malnourished dog and not give them all the food. It's for the best, but it's so hard," a TikTok user commented on Lingenfelter's video. Fortunately for Bruce, he ended up with an experienced foster, and his perpetually wagging tail gives reassurance that he'll be just fine.