This lady entered the world on Dec 7, 2022 at a whole 6 ounces. Her littermates were all born around 2 pounds. Her first foster mom knew something wasn’t right and started to bottle feed her. Unfortunately things were not going well and she found out she had a cleft palate. Know that Morsel needed to be tube fed, she reached out to us right away. We had the Nascar litter already so what is one more right

She arrive at just 12 days old and we would have never known what journey she would take us on!

Liz tube fed her round the clock every 2 hours for the first 2 weeks. She hardly gained at all. after 2 weeks she was up to 9 ounces. Her litter mates were up to 4 and 5 pounds. We thought she may have dwarfism which is a growth hormone deficiency but she was too small to take any amount of blood from. Liz just focused hard on getting her 1 pound. When she finally did we took our first blood sample to see if she did indeed have dwarfism or a liver shunt among other things. We also noticed her head getting larger so we scheduled an appointment with neurology to have CT scan to rule out hydrocephalus. While they did the scan they ruled out a liver shunt and hydrocephalus. The growth hormone labs came back abnormal so we made an appointment with the Internal Medicine specialists to see if she needed hormone supplementation. While waiting for this specialist she did start to grow, not substantially but noticeable. By the time we got to IM they decided that she did not have pituitary dwarfism but she was indeed stunted for some reason. We would likely never know why. We proceeded to do testing to rule out Addison’s disease as well.

Months when by and we just focused on getting her to grow and get her large enough to address her cleft palate which left a giant hole in the roof of her mouth from the front to the back. Once she was large enough for that surgery, we had to make sure her heart was ini good condition and didn’t have a defects so she could go under anesthesia. She met with the Cardiology specialists and had and echocardiogram. Thankfully she was cleared by them and went through with her first palate repair. As she has grown up she has turned into somewhat of a diva, especially at thee vet

She was a very poor recovery patient after her first surgery and she would only keep her feeding tube in for about a week after surgery instead of the ideal 6 weeks. We did what we could to make sure she healed properly. 8 weeks later she was cleared for spay and while under we had them take a good look at her pallet repair. She did unfortunately have 2 small holes that needed to be addressed. So back to the Dentistry specialists she went and they repaired those.

Over the past 10 months, we have loved watching Morsel grow and develop into the one in a million pup she is! We did a DNA test and she is said to be Shepherd, Husky, Pit Bull, Akita. She is all of 8#. Morsel will never be “all there” she has some neurological deficits and they are hard to describe but easy to see if you spend any amount of time with her. She is a wild woman at times and then she is a snuggle bug at other times. She loves playing with her doggie friends of all sizes but she would do best without cats. They just seem to get her too riled up and she “loses herself” haha. She does a fairly good job at house training but will likely always have the occasional accident. She has been kennel trained but she would rather be with you all the time. She loves going for walks and all the neighbors love seeing her.

Her journey has been long in the little time she has been with us but her spirit and personality are larger than life and we hope to find her a home that understands what she has gone through and that she will always be a little ‘special’.

If you think that your family would be a good fit for Morsel, please fill out an application on rpaw.org

Adoption fee is $350