Stone is a 1 year old pit bull that we're fostering through Odessa Rescue and Rehabilitation based in Richmond, VA. His mom (Diamond) came into the rescue via a shelter in VA...and was pregnant at the time of her rescue. She gave birth in foster care, and all of the puppies were adopted. Stone went to a home in Ellicott City, MD...and everything was great. Suddenly our rescue got a phone call from Howard County Animal Control...Stone was turned in there by his owner. The owner had gotten an injury, and Stone was left at home in a crate 18+ hours per day...but istead of contacting the rescue, the owner dropped him at AC...luckily his paperwork came along with him. Odessa rescue was contacted and was told that Stone was due to be euthanized for aggression. We rushed to pull him from HoCo AC, so we could evaluate the situation. He ended up in my care (supposedly short-term) so I could evaluate him. He's turned out to be a big goofball puppy...with some noisy tendencies. ;) I call him a lab in a pit bull suit.
Long story short (sorry!)...he has been here for a few months...and we thought he was very, very clumsy. He would run into things all of the time, including other dogs. But the day he ran headfirst, full speed into a closed wooden door, I started to wonder. Then I noticed that he ran into things directly in front of him...all of the time. He also can't track a ball thrown in the yard, and has trouble locating the dogs to play with them...unless they have jingly tags to follow.
He and his sister have been diagnosed with Juvenile cataracts...she didn't have it so bad, and already has a loving family. She had surgery recently and her eyesight is near perfect. Stone's eyes are much worse, he sees very little. While it doesn't affect him much at home, he has a very hard time when he's out in an unfamiliar environment (he almost fell down some steps recently at a new place). The surgery has a good success rate (they remove the cataracts), but is very expensive...and the rescue does not have the funds for such a big undertaking. Stone also has less of a chance of finding a good home because of his blindness...it's a big challenge to take on!
So we're doing some fundraising to get the funds together to 1. see the opthamologist to see whether surgery is a good option for Stone, and to get a total estimate, and 2. to eventually get the surgery so Stone can see!
Stone
