The Journey to Bring Amos Home With Us

After we returned from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary I convinced Rick that we needed to adopt Amos (It wasn't really too diffucult) and now I was set on bringing him home with us. Well, that was not an easy thing to do since Amos is not the ordinary dog that Best Friends tries to place in a home. Amos has horrible hip dysplasia and is in dire need of two total hip replacements in order for him to be more comfortable. The staff at Best Friends was working with Amos' Vet, Dr. Mike, and trying to determine if Amos was a candidate for the hip replacements or not. Over the course of the next two months (November to December) we waited for word from Best Friends as to Amos' final prognosis and if he would have the hip surgeries. While we waited we went ahead with our home visit to make sure that when the time came for Amos to come home with us that we were through the final approval process for the adoption.

In the meantime, in early November our oldest Golden, Sunny, became increasingly ill and after several visits to the vet it was determined that she had an inoperable spinal tumor. Since Sunny was in incredible pain and her quality of life was diminshed greatly with no hope of recovery, Rick and I made the ultimate decision to let her go to the Rainbow Bridge. This was the hardest decision that I have ever had to make in my adult life. I've had dogs my entire life, but I have never had to make that decision before. Rick and I decided to have her cremated and we plan to place her ashes at Angel Canyon at Best Friends Animal Sancutary in the spring. It now became even more dire for us to bring Amos home with us, not only for ourselves, but for our other Golden, Casey, who was crushed by the loss of his faithful companion.

Well, shortly after Thanksgiving, we were contacted by Marti, our adoption coordinator at Best Friends, who has been working tirelessly through the process with us on our adoption of Amos. She informed us that Dr. Mike had approved Amos for surgery and that he was sending Amos to Las Vegas, NV (2 hour drive from Kanab, UT) to the Las Vegas Veterinary Referral Center for evaluation for surgery. Sarah Kubacki, a vet tech with Best Friends took Amos to LVVRC on December 11, 2009 for evaluation. Dr. Geels at LVVRC approved Amos for surgery for the first of his hip surgeries to take place on Thursday January 14, 2010. He will be having a total hip replacement followed by evaluation in 12 weeks for another total hip replacement. Once we were notified of the confirmed surgery date we made arrangements with Marti at Best Friends for us to pick Amos up in Las Vegas after his surgery to finally bring him home with us. We have been in contact with LVVRC and Best Firends to coordinate his pick-up from LVVRC after his surgery and are traveling to Las Vegas on Friday January 15 to bring him home on Saturday January 16.

Once we bring him home we will have the task of rehabilitating him and going through all of the follow-up appointments for his care. After approximately 12 weeks we will have to return him to LVVRC for evaluation to determine if he is still a candidate for the additional total hip replacement. If he is still a candidate, he will have the additional surgery and we will then bring him home permanently.