Harrigan was about 7 years old and was found abandoned by an owner that the authorities have never been able to find. Harrigan spent 9 days in “lock down” on a concrete floor in the area of the shelter that is reserved for dogs that have to be isolated due to having been reported as aggressive. The law required that the owner be notified he was in their custody. After that period of time and still unclaimed we were asked to rescue him. The barking and growling from dogs in nearby kennels was deafening and Harrigan was terrified and lying as far back in his run as he could get. He seemed unable to stand and had to be carried to the car. Again, at the vet he had to be carried inside. His toe nails were so long they were curled under, into the pads on his feet. This seemed to be the reason that he could not walk but the vet discovered that his back legs were fused in at the knees so that he could not straighten them. His front legs were also fused at the joints and he was unable to fully straighten them as well. It was assumed,then, that Harrigan had spent most of his life confined to a space where he was unable to stand upright. He must have either been lying down or sitting all of the time. When he had to use the bathroom he would get in the best position he could and afterwards drag himself forward to a clean area by using his front legs.
The vet tried, under anesthesia to straighten his legs in hopes we could work with him to correct this problem but they could not be moved. During all of the handling he never objected or caused any difficulty. He just accepted everything. The only thing we could do for him was to make him comfortable with a bath and to have his nails trimmed and then we had to tell him good-bye.