Goodbye Dexter

I finally got news about Dexter, the Boston Terrier we've been looking into adopting. Unfortunately he has continued to deteriorate after a bad reaction to some medication.

The medication was an anti-anxiety drug, and although I don't think it was fair or entirely appropriate to put him on it, it was the best option for him in an imperfect world. Dexter is young, high energy, and previously untrained and undisciplined. His foster parent, who took him in because there was nowhere else for him to go, seems not to have had the greatest relationship with him. My interpretation was that she tolerated him (he was not her type of dog) and tried to help train him. She tried her best.

She has two other dogs of her own who both recently experienced pretty major medical issues. She lives alone and works full time. Dexter is in a crate nine hours a day, and when she gets home the foster mum must divide her time between him and her two other needy dogs. She has been, understandably, pretty stressed out and was made more so by Dexter's energy levels. The solution that they tried was to mellow Dexter out by putting him on anti-anxiety drugs. Yes, exercising him would have been better, but like I said the world isn't perfect. Nobody had the time to do this, least of all his overburdened foster mother.

He reacted very badly to the medication. He became anxious, afraid, and aggressive. They stopped the medication but his skitzy behaviour has continued and recently he bit one of his foster family's dogs badly enough that stitches were required.

The rescue group has told me that Dexter is no longer a safe or workable dog. I would argue, but I can't expose my own dogs to harm. I am devastated. I've never met this dog, but here I sit, crying, thinking of what could have been.

The world never gave him a chance.