I’d just get him neutered first, assuming your vet (or some other vet) would agree to doing it. It’s simple, quick, and inexpensive. Unless I misunderstood what you said, it sounds like he’ll be “adoptable” once he’s been neutered. At that point you can adopt him, fund raise for the oral surgery, and then find a forever home for him.
Sometimes it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
I have an update finally! I had a meeting with the director of animal control this morning. After trying for a week to go through the chain of command I decided to just go straight to the top and cut out the phone tag and emailing.
Basically at the meeting I convinced the director that he is heathy enough to be neutered (or I should say that notes from several vets convinced her of that), which means he can have a shot at adoption. She also let me know that she was unaware I had been given the option to hospice foster or euthanize, and that like me she was not happy about that. We were both on same page that hospice fostering shouldn’t mean keeping a dog for weeks, months, years, whatever in pain. I was relieved to hear that someone involved finally got the point I was trying to make all along.
She said they would pay to have his teeth cleaned but no extractions, and fully disclose to any interested adopter that his teeth will need to come out soon. She also decided that if he isn’t adopted in a month after his teeth cleaning that he would be euthanized or I would have to adopt him (at least no adoption fee though).
So the meeting definitely brought her up to speed and got us somewhat on the same page. I did ask her why she ever let the dog go in to foster care if he wasn’t very healthy. After all, their vet had to remove a bone from his mouth and should have informed them that the situation was probably financially too much for a shelter to handle. I was told that they didn’t realize how infected his mouth was until I took him to the vet school. Not sure how I feel about that.
I’m seriously considering telling them to go forward with a neuter but not the teeth cleaning, and I’ll just sign the papers to adopt him. I’ve already raised some money for his procedure that includes extractions and once I get the rest it can just be a one and done deal rather than putting him through a teeth cleaning just to have a lot of those teeth taken out soon after. My end goal would still be to place him with a good family, it would just be on my own and at my discretion.
[QUOTE=Montana1;7692307]
I have an update finally! I had a meeting with the director of animal control this morning. After trying for a week to go through the chain of command I decided to just go straight to the top and cut out the phone tag and emailing.
Basically at the meeting I convinced the director that he is heathy enough to be neutered (or I should say that notes from several vets convinced her of that), which means he can have a shot at adoption. She also let me know that she was unaware I had been given the option to hospice foster or euthanize, and that like me she was not happy about that. We were both on same page that hospice fostering shouldn’t mean keeping a dog for weeks, months, years, whatever in pain. I was relieved to hear that someone involved finally got the point I was trying to make all along.
She said they would pay to have his teeth cleaned but no extractions, and fully disclose to any interested adopter that his teeth will need to come out soon. She also decided that if he isn’t adopted in a month after his teeth cleaning that he would be euthanized or I would have to adopt him (at least no adoption fee though).
So the meeting definitely brought her up to speed and got us somewhat on the same page. I did ask her why she ever let the dog go in to foster care if he wasn’t very healthy. After all, their vet had to remove a bone from his mouth and should have informed them that the situation was probably financially too much for a shelter to handle. I was told that they didn’t realize how infected his mouth was until I took him to the vet school. Not sure how I feel about that.
I’m seriously considering telling them to go forward with a neuter but not the teeth cleaning, and I’ll just sign the papers to adopt him. I’ve already raised some money for his procedure that includes extractions and once I get the rest it can just be a one and done deal rather than putting him through a teeth cleaning just to have a lot of those teeth taken out soon after. My end goal would still be to place him with a good family, it would just be on my own and at my discretion.[/QUOTE]
that would be wonderful if you would do that. I agree on getting it done all at once, rather than going under sedation multiple times. What breed(s) is he? Pics?
After asking everyone on COTH I’ve been calling him a lab/hound mix 
Here are some pictures of him and his sad little nubs of teeth: http://s1174.photobucket.com/user/Montana250/library/
What’s that saying about no good deed? I’m no fan of the pit bulls, and he definitely looks like he has some of that in him, but he has a sweet face and a nice wag, and, well, old dogs rule. However - if you adopt him with the intention of rehoming him on your own, does the rescue/shelter have any rules about that? It could get sticky if you try to basically ‘flip’ the dog to a new home.
vacation, really? Pit bull? That goes to show how unlikely just looking at a dog and especially one just with pictures you could tell breed base in a mixed breed dog. Identifying dogs based on their looks is just not reliable in any way shape or form. Please read the point made about breed identification.
OP, sounds like you have a plan and I bet because it is a shelter and not a rescue there will not be a problem re-homing your good boy once you get him all fixed up. Is he HW-? That is what I have had to deal with quite a few times here in the south with my adult foster dogs. Good for you for giving your guy a chance, one he probably has not had in his entire life.
Yea a lot of people mentioned pit bull too but his personality just doesn’t remind of a pit, though I don’t mind them. Most of the ones I’ve played with have been so high energy and he’s as laid back as my golden retriever who passed away several years ago. As far as the other goes, they don’t have any clause like that.
khall, amazingly he isn’t heartworm positive! I thought for sure he would be since I’m in a high heartworm prevalence area and he was found living out in the woods with probably tons of mosquitos, but he got lucky!
Great news. Glad you have a good resolution.
If you can afford it, let them pay for the dental and you can pay for the rest and have it done at the same time. Then once he has recovered you can either adopt him or let someone else adopt him.
summerhorse, the vet they want to use doesn’t have the ability to do dental radiographs and has said he cannot do the extractions the dog needs because he can’t see anything below the gumline. So that’s why if I decide to sign the adoption papers, I’m probably going to tell them to go forward with the neuter at their cost like they already agreed, but to not waste the money on a teeth cleaning when I’m still planning to get him the full dental with radiographs and necessary extractions. The quote the vet school gave me included polishing and scaling any teeth they can save (probably none though) so it just doesn’t make much sense for them to waste $200 on a cleaning when I can get everything done to actually relieve his pain for $565.
What a lovely looking dog! Those teeth look like he was fond of playing with rocks in his youth - I’ve known a couple of rock-hounds with teeth like that.
I think your idea of they neuter, you adopt & do teeth and then rehome is the best one for him. Personally I’d have a hard time parting with that face, but that’s why I can’t foster - I’d keep them all.
He is remarkably similar to a big old dog we got from a rescue group. He, too, had pretty bad teeth, not as bad as your dog’s, though. They didn’t cause him any discomfort until he was attacked by the neighbour’s fat grumpy husky, which snapped an incisor in half.
We took him to the vet to have the tooth removed. Cocky b!tch of a vet didn’t bother to X-ray first. Turned out the tooth had a kind of hook at the end (almost like a fish hook), common in some breeds apparently, which meant there was NO WAY she could have extracted the tooth just by yanking on it. Fortunately the dog was out cold, and some tech had to go zipping across the street to the human dentist to borrow the right tools to do a proper extraction. The dog was fine afterwards, just very very sore, for days. 
So - moral of the story - given his similarity to our dear dog, may I suggest you find a vet who can take decent x-rays of your dog BEFORE they start ripping teeth out!
How about you get a price for all that is entailed in a good cleaning, and get the shelter to put that towards good dentistry for him, with you (or your private fund-raising) making up the difference?
I’ll bet he’s so darn quiet because he’s in a lot of pain and discomfort in his jaw - hopefully he’ll be all bright and jolly post-op!
[QUOTE=khall;7692755]
vacation, really? Pit bull? That goes to show how unlikely just looking at a dog and especially one just with pictures you could tell breed base in a mixed breed dog. Identifying dogs based on their looks is just not reliable in any way shape or form. Please read the point made about breed identification.[/QUOTE]
khall, seriously? You had to start whining about pit bulls again? And if you did, couldn’t you have stuck to a more intelligent argument, like, oh, anything other than that nitwittery about how domesticated dog breeds are utterly impossible to visually ID unless they’re NOT pit bulls and they’ve just bitten someone. Because you pit owners seem able to ID a Chihuahua or a Lab-that-some-mean-media-organization-falsely-ID’d-as-a-pittie!!! pretty easily. And every time a Malamute eats a kid, the pit owners go into fullscale orgasm about how MALAMUTES KILL TOO!!! without mentioning their theory about how dogs are all a TOTAL mystery unless you have a DNA test done.
OP- you asked about the dog’s comfort after the teeth are removed… our 10.5 year old dog (~ 10yrs at the time) had ALL her big back molars removed due to badly infected roots. She was 100% fine and eating (soaked squishy kibbles with soft food made into gravy) the night of the extractions. It took her a few days to figure out eating biscuits and carrots, she just had to realized she had to move the food further forward in her mouth. She is even back to chewing antlers with the teeth she has left! Based on our dog’s reaction, I think having the short term pain of extractions is nothing compared to the pain of eating with infected/painful teeth.
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