Quest’s Happy Tail by Misty Clayton
My name is Misty Clayton and this is my new deaf dog’s Happy Tail. On April 19, 2012, I had surgery early in the morning. When I got home after my surgery, I went to sleep and woke up around midnight. When I woke up, I was bored and wide awake so I got online. After surfing the web for awhile, I ran across a deaf dog shared on a Deaf Dogs Rock FB post with a deaf white boxer needing a new home. When I saw his photo my heart skipped a beat! His name was George and he was one of the most adorable white Boxers that I had seen in some time. After spotting George on line, I called my husband and sent him photos and the dog’s bio information. My husband said he sounded perfect for us and for me to go and adopt him.
The next morning a family member drove me 2 hours south to see him and we took my 1 yo Boxer, Baby Kane with us to meet the handsome boy by the name of George.
When I first got a look at George, I thought he was a handsome boy but his face, neck, and ears had a lot of scars and scabs from recently being picked on by the other boxers in his current home. So much so, George actually looked like a bait dog! When I read the paper work the lady gave me and found he had been at AC and impounded on a cruelty case by animal services, the lady who had adopted George tried to explain to me how two of her five Boxers bullied this poor deaf boxer and that was the reason she was trying to rehome this poor deaf pup. She had adopted George from a rescue just one month prior.
When I read the paperwork the lady gave me I noticed the Animal Services who had originally impounded this dog was my home town of San Jose. George got along very well with my Baby Kane and so we made a commitment to George and we changed his name to Quest. We totally adore this boy and we can’t imagine what it was like being in a home with 5 other boxers dogs and several children. He must have been totally lost in the chaos but no more. Now we have Quest and we will always have his back.
Once we got Quest home and settled we called our Vet and also lined up a trainer to help us so he could learn to communicate and understand hand commands through ASL signs. Quest gets along awesome with our fur-kids. There is absolutely no fighting. With Quest being in our home now there is just a lot of playing, sleeping and training days. My husband and I even called a friends of ours who knows sign language to help us communicate better with Quest.
After Quest’s first Vet visit, we got good news and bad news. The Vet said Quest was a little thin (probably from stress) but he had a strong heart beat and his lungs sounded healthy. The bad news was he has five to six Mast Cell Tumors in his neck. We are NOT giving up on this handsome boy Quest. We are all learning so much & he is such a smart boy. He loves to go for car rides and spends time snuggling with us daily.
Thanks to the love and support our many new friends on Facebook (Boxer Butt Moms, Save the White Boxer and Deaf Dogs Rock and Melissa York) we are at 90% of Quest’s ChipIn for his surgery. We have a wonderful Vet and Quest will be having his surgery soon. We are looking forward to many years of spoiling Quest. We love our new deafie and we think Deaf Dogs totally Rock!
Update from From Misty Clayton:
