Ruby-Sue is a approximately 9 week old special needs pit-bull mix puppy recently taken on by Eleven Eleven Animal Rescue after being dumped in a box somewhere and then taken to the Montreal SPCA by a good samaritan.

Ruby-Sue has ascending paralysis of her hind limbs, and muscle contraction/atrophy from the paralysis. She also has 'gnu recurvatum', basically back-wards knees, and cervical weakness. This causes her to not be able to bend her knees, while her hips and ankles for now are functioning almost normally. However, despite the above, she does not seem to be in pain and at this moment has a good quality of life.

We believe her ascending paralysis is due to Neosporosis, an infection of a intracellular protozoan parasite, Neospora caninumcalled, found most commonly in raw meat (her mother was probably fed a raw-meat diet) and passed to puppies transplacentally. We are currently sending out tests to quickly diagnose what we believe (Neosporosis), in order to be able to effectively start treatment as soon as possible. Treatment will not reverse the current damage done, but should prevent the infection from spreading to the rest of her body and infecting her skin, lungs, liver, heart or other tissues. She is strong now, and treatment should help put a stop to or slow down the progression, but death is still a possibility. As always, we are prepared to fight for her.

Ruby-Sue will be for adoption if / when she is able to recover. However if she is not able to recover and continues to deteriorate, she will remain in palliative care, where she will be loved and cared for until she no longer has a quality of life.

For more information on Neosporosis:
vin.com/proceedings/Proceedings.plx?CID=WSAVA2005&PID=10950&O=Generic

To follow Ruby-Sue's updates:
Website: elevenelevenanimalrescue.org/
Face book: facebook.com/pages/Eleven-Eleven-Animal-Rescue/112798479527
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/1111ARescue

Donations always needed; elevenelevenanimalrescue.org/donate.html

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