Mobius - Part 2

Over the next 4 months, Mobius continued to get bigger, stronger, and more feisty with each passing day. Once he got to about 5 weeks old, the torch was passed along to Alison. For as long as I have known Alison, she has always wanted a French bulldog. Being so heavily involved in the rescue world, she always called it a pipe dream, because she wouldn’t be the type to buy one and it didn’t seem likely that one would come into the rescue. So, as you can imagine, she was delighted. From the moment we took him into the rescue she knew that if he made it, he would have a home with her. Once he was old enough to be taking the feedings with ease and started to eat some gruel on his own, Kira gladly handed him off to Alison to take over his care.

As he grew, he overall did great but had a few scares. His cleft palate grew right along with him, so he still had a pretty large hole in his poor mouth, which several times proved problematic for this tiny terror. My favorite is probably the most notable – the time we had to sedate him to remove grass from his sinuses. He had a pretty foul odor to his breath and some nasal discharge for a few days, and after examining him, I started him on antibiotics hoping that he just had a mild upper respiratory infection going on. When that didn’t work, I decided to sedate him to get a better look in there. There was NO looking in that mouth with him awake. For being one so small, he fights you with the passion of the flaming sun when you are trying to do something that he did not sign up for. Once he was fully sedated and I could get a better look, I was able to fish out a long piece of grass that had gotten stuck up there, and was hanging out, being disgusting, and causing an infection. This whole procedure repeated 2 additional times as he liked to eat things he shouldn’t, and they liked to get stuck in his giant palate.

Once he was big enough for surgery, we consulted with Dr DeNardo to see what could be done about his palate. He felt pretty confident that he could close it, or very nearly close it, so we headed to his repair surgery when he was about 4 months old. The way he repaired it was really cool – he created incisions in either side of his palate to free up some tissue, and then was able to gently pull it in the center to pull the two sides together and close up the hole. It looked beautiful after surgery, and over the next 3-4 weeks healed up really nice! As it fully healed, there is a small area in the very center that opened up, but he has been managing wonderfully – eating regular food – and so for now we are just going to watch it and consider another repair only if he is struggling!

This tiny terror is now not to so tiny – as of writing this, he turned 6 months old on Friday and has grown to a whopping 17 lbs. He definitely has a Napoleon complex, and keeps Alison and her family on their toes with his saucy personality but he really is an awesome pup! He has had a very long road, with a lot of sleepless nights for the three of us who were most involved in his care, and also at least a few tears. But at the end of the day, it was definitely worth it to see him living his best life, and to know that we gave him that chance. Happy life Mighty Mobius – I’m sure I will have to patch you up at least a few more times over the next 12+ years 😉 #mightyMobius