Areias
Areias arrived at the shelter back in 2012 as a puppy, along with his sisters Margarida, Tulipa & Papoila.
As he got older, he got more and more handsome!
But early in 2016, Areias developed a skin condition which went from bad to worse – it made him itch almost uncontrollably, he lost most of his hair, scratched himself raw and was generally miserable. We and our vet tried everything – tested everything, samples sent to a major laboratory in Spain, tried lots of different medications – but nothing seemed to help. He had daily therapeutic baths to try and soothe his skin, at least temporarily, but nothing was making any real difference.
We were running out of options and worried that we weren’t going to be able to save him – he had no quality of life and the risk of serious infection from the wounds on his skin was high. Our shelter manager Natasha & her husband Cedi decided to take him home in a last ditch effort to help him – and an amazing thing happened.
Away from the stress of the shelter, he started to recover. He relaxed in his new home, enjoyed long walks and freedom with the rest of the pack and, slowly but surely, his skin started to improve. The inflammation has settled down and the hair is growing back. He still has his daily baths in pure alcohol, rinsed with warm water & herbal oils and will probably continue to need them, but for the first time in a long time, he no longer needs antibiotics. In fact, our vet is so amazed by the improvement that he is going to try gradually taking Areias off the other medications he is on too.
This is a photo the vet took in the summer of 2016 –
And this is Areias in the spring of 2017!
It is clear that life away from the shelter has helped Areias considerably so Natasha & Cedi made the arrangement permanent and adopted him! We wish him all the very best and hope he continues to improve.
