Some of you probably helped me figure out what kind of mix my sweet foster dog is 
Now 3 weeks after picking him up from the shelter, things have gone really down hill and I need to vent. I’m also open to advice or ideas about how to work with this situation if anyone wants.
Here’s the rundown. This dog spent 30 days at animal control before I picked him up as a foster with the shelter’s new fostering program. I’ve been told that during his time at the shelter everyone thought he had really bad breath, but no one thought to check his mouth until week 3. Well he had a deer bone lodged in the roof of his mouth…vet removed it suspecting that it had been there for probably 6 months or so. He had a course of antibiotics and all of the animal control workers thought that would be the end of it. I met this dog during his 4th week at the shelter while I was volunteering there. I decided to foster him because he looked to be a little older and absolutely miserable and arthritic laying on concrete 24/7.
After picking him up from the shelter I took him to my local vet school’s small animal clinic (I take my own dogs there and really appreciate the thorough exams and enthusiasm for animals). I chose to pay out of pocket for this extra care for him so that he could get the serious deworming he needed, be put on heartworm and flea preventative, have an ear infection taken care of, and most importantly have his mouth evaluated. In my mind he would be more appealing to adopters if some of the more unpleasant things had been taken care of ahead of time and that was just my gift to him and his future adopter. After examining him, a 4th vet student and full DVM came in to discuss what they found…basically he still has serious infection, fistulas, resorption, and advanced periodontal disease. They recommended having a dental procedure done that includes bloodwork, radiographs, anesthesia, cleaning, likely what will be many extractions, pain meds, and antibiotics for $565. This is all based on pain levels and usefulness of his teeth which are pretty much just nubs anyway (and to prevent infection from spreading to his kidneys and heart). They gave me the cheapest quote possible because he is in foster and I feel really confident with their findings.
So I take this information back to animal control’s foster organization and I’m shot down and told I can’t raise money to have this done. I thought it would be helpful to be the type of foster parent that would fundraise for their foster dog but I guess not? I get a call later on saying that they don’t think anyone will ever want him and that the choice is for me to either hospice foster him or take him back to the shelter to be euthanized. That was a quick way to make me mad. I will NOT whatsoever take this dog back to that shelter. I think he’ll make a great pet for someone once he’s clear of all this infection.
I’m not the type of person who wants to keep a dog alive through extensive pain. I’ve made the decision to put 2 of my dogs to sleep when it became that time. But this dog isn’t at that point. There’s an option to alleviate his pain and I really feel like he has plenty of good years left once we get rid of the infection.
That was really long, so if anyone actually reads through it thanks
He felt so much better after having 5 teeth removed.