March was a big month at CSDRH! We officially pulled our first dogs as an organization, and one of them is already adopted! Let’s look at what happened this month at Colorado Senior Dog Rescue and Hospice.

We pulled our first dogs.

On March 12th, our Director, Chaucee Stillman, drove to Colorado Springs to pick up three dogs from the Humane Society. She ended up taking 4 (oops! someone must have sneaked onto the transport) back to Denver.

Meet the dogs:

Cooper: 9-year-old Cooper was surrendered to the Humane Society for “house soiling.” However, we could find no medical reasons that were causing this, and once he was in his foster home and given ample opportunities to pee outside, they discovered that he was house-trained; he just needed more frequent access to the outdoors. Cooper headed to our vet and got the full workup! He had a few teeth removed during his dental surgery, and after recuperating in his foster home, Cooper found his forever home! More on that later in this post…

Gaston: This handsome 8-year-old chihuahua was found as a stray and taken to a shelter. Even though he had a microchip and several attempts were made to contact his previous owners, no one ever showed up to claim him. Luckily he caught our Director’s eye as she walked through the kennels at the Humane Society, and he somehow snuck onto the transport. He recently had dental surgery, where they removed 26 teeth from his mouth.

Chewy: 13-year-old Chewy was found as a stray and brought to the Humane Society in Colorado Springs. He was skin and bones, and you could smell his breath a mile away. Chewy headed straight to our vet to get a care plan in place. We discovered he has a grade 3 heart murmur that must be checked out via an echocardiogram before he goes under sedation for any procedures. Once he’s cleared for surgery, he’ll likely need a complete mouth extraction of all those nasty rotting teeth in his mouth. Chewy’s bloodwork also came back recently, and found that his kidney levels were high. So we started him on a prescription kidney diet to help regulate those levels. Despite his medical issues, Chewy is a fantastic dog. He loves to lounge under the sun and steal his foster brother’s big dog bed.

Lucas: Lucas, the 12-year-old mini poodle, has had multiple homes throughout his life but somehow kept ending up at the Humane Society, abandoned. Being constantly in and out of the shelter is destabilizing and stressful for senior dogs, so we knew we had to get him out of there and find him a permanent forever home. Lucas’s bloodwork showed that he has hyperthyroidism. So we started him on meds to get that under control before he has his dental. Lucas also has rear-end weakness from the arthritis in his back legs, so we got him started on pain meds and anti-inflammatory meds to help him walk pain-free. Once his thyroid levels come back better, we’ll schedule him for a dental and then work on finding him a forever home!

Our first dog was adopted!

Cooper, the 9-year-old Yorkie, was adopted by a kind couple who said it was “love at first sight” when they saw Cooper. This is the first official adoption we processed as a rescue organization, and it felt incredible to see the direct impact we’re all making on these dogs’ lives.

We saved two more seniors from the shelter.

We get rescue requests every single day from our shelter transfer partners, and we couldn’t say no to Winston and Copper! (Not to be confused with Cooper…ha!)

Meet Winston!

Winston (aka Winnie) is a 12ish-year-old Pekingese who was found as a stray and taken to Denver Animal Shelter, one of our transfer partners. He was severely matted (painfully so) and appeared to be completely blind and mostly deaf. Just our type After his stray hold was up and no one came forward to claim him, one of our amazing fosters stepped up and sprung him from the shelter in the nick of time. Winston headed to our vet for the full workup, and we just got the news that his bloodwork came back clear, which means he’s cleared for his dental and neuter surgery and will be ready for adoption soon!

Here he is in his foster home. Isn’t it amazing the transformation that happens when dogs leave the shelter and land in a warm, loving home?

Meet Copper!

Copper was surrendered to the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region in pretty bad shape. With so many medical issues, it was unlikely that she’d find an adopter and was slated for humane euthanasia if a rescue didn’t step in. We couldn’t bear to see her last days sitting in a shelter, confused and in pain. So we scooped her up, and she headed to our vet right away.

Copper is severely underweight, has significant hair loss, and has a badly damaged eye that needs removal. She also recently had a spay at the shelter, and a mammary mass was removed. We’re still waiting on those biopsy results to see if the mass is cancerous.

Copper needs both eye removal surgery and dental surgery. However, since she is so underweight and just had a spay and mass removal done, we will give her a couple of weeks to recover from that surgery and hopefully fatten up some before she goes under anesthesia again. A total estimate for both of these procedures is $1948.49. Please consider donating to her care here.

Cooper’s bloodwork also came back normal and showed no medical reason why she’s having hair loss and weight loss. So Copper and her foster mama headed to PetSmart right away to pick up some high-protein food to hopefully pack some meat on her bones in the coming weeks as she awaits her surgery.

We were featured in our local newspaper!

Some of our seniors were featured in The Mountain-Ear newspaper this week! As a small rescue, any amount of exposure helps to get the word out about what we do. The more support we have, the more dogs we can save together! We’re thankful to have the support of our mountain newspaper and community. It truly takes a village to #SaveSeniorSnouts. 💚

A Heartfelt Thank You

That wraps up our first official month of operating as a nonprofit senior dog rescue! Without your support and donations, we quite literally could NOT do what we do. So thank you for making this possible.

Your donations make a DIRECT impact on the dogs in our car. We are 100% volunteer-run, meaning 100% of your donations go towards paying vet bills, purchasing supplies like food and pee pads, and grooming costs.

Please consider donating here so we can plan to take on more dogs and #SaveSeniorSnouts.

Follow Along

• We post regular updates about our Senior Snouts on our Facebook page and Instagram. Follow along for more cute dog photos in your feed!
• Joining our email list is another great way to stay updated on what we’re doing. We also send emails with information and resources for owners of senior dogs!