Critter Profile: Max!
Overview!
Name: Max
Species: Canis lupus familiaris (Golden Retriever)
Primary Caretaker: Terrestial Team, Simon Miller
Diet: Dog food (While Max isn't very picky, he's a big fan of chicken and you can always give him salmon as a treat, he's earned it!)
Housed: Wilson's Wildlife Centre, Enclosure 59
Creature Features!
Max is what we call our lovely golden retriever and the nicest one you'll ever meet! Even though he's very friendly and enjoys playing with all of us on the team, Max can't express his playful nature fully to all our other canine friends. Not many of the other dogs here are very happy to see Max anymore and that's due to his very unfortunate little quirk.
You see, any dog that gets too close to poor old Max starts to feel very unwell. For no apparent reason other than the company of Max they'll start to be sick. It tears up our hearts to see our friends get so under the weather, but the good thing is that nothing about this sickness is permanent and it doesn't look like any serious harm comes to the dogs that get too close to him, thank God! But they are usually a little shaken up by the whole ordeal, and I can't blame them!
Mind you, it's not just those dogs that get shaken up it. Max is quite aware of the effect he has on his fellow pooches and gets very distressed. It's heartbreaking to see his face when it happens and how sad he can get because of it. Seeing his smiling face go away like that is hard so when times like that come along, the team take it upon themselves to play with Max to his heart's content, but even then he can still be quite weighed down by his situation. We're all trying our best to make sure he's ok. Poor guy.
History!
We recently found Max as a stray. His fur was all matted and scuffed up, he was in quite the state! I'll be the first to say Max wasn't exactly who we expected to find when we heard some talk about an awful smell somewhere around town, but we're glad we did! We went to have a look and found Max hiding away, surrounded by vomit and a pile of toys that we have to assume he'd stolen from somewhere. The vomit got us really worried so we took him to our centre as soon as possible to help our poor friend out. The vets were thankfully able to give him the all-clear but not before we saw his effect first hand on some of our fellow puppy pals and we realised we had to separate him from the others. Max wasn't very happy from all that and we had to try our best to calm him down.
Thankfully, Max has settled in nicely since his arrival and has made some great friends with me and the rest of the caretakers. But despite all this, Max still has his moments where he's feeling down. He loves making friends with every one and this includes our other cute puppers. Even though he knows he can't, he's always a little hopeful when he meets a new potential buddy. We're all trying our best to keep him happy and playing.
Special Needs and Accommodations!
Max has to be kept away from the other canine enclosures and (while this should probably go without saying) it is heavily discouraged to bring other dogs anywhere near Max. But what we can encourage is Max visiting all the non-canine critters that we have! Max needs daily walks and lots of one on one time for play, but when you feel like you need an extra helping hand you can always go and let Max enjoy the company of our superb sheep or some feline friends! Even if it doesn't lift his spirits completely, I think he at least appreciates the company.
Notes about Max!
Max has been especially down in the dumps recently and none of our team could quite figure out why. Nothing we've done has been able to change his mood. We've taken him for walks, played with him for days on end and tried our darn hardest to cheer our poor paw pal but nothing had been working. Then Natalie came up with a brilliant idea. She said that maybe getting some of the old toys from where we first found Max might cheer him up a little. He's been loving the toys we've got him before, so maybe a little familiarity might do him some good!
So some of us headed down to where we first picked him up and when we did we found a big surprise. Not only were there more toys there than before, but we found a stray Bernese mountain dog with a new toy in her mouth. Our best guess is this little lady had been the one stealing all those toys for our Max and was still coming along to leave them for him! We all agreed that since she didn't seem to have an owner either we'd take her into the shelter and take good care of her. We call her Sophie and thought it'd be a good idea to see if she knew Max at all with an appropriately distant visit.
But once Sophie and Max saw each other we instantly knew they had a history. Max's face lit up as he caught sight of her and I don't know if he's ever been that happy since he's arrived here. And to our surprise Sophie ran straight at him without any problem!
We were all shocked to see them playing together. But it wasn't only Sophie that stopped throwing up near Max, as long as he's near her he can't make any of our doggy residents sick. The Supervisors are calling her some sort of "sink" for him but I'm not very interested in all that fancy mumbo jumbo. All that matters is Max and Sophie are the cutest darn couple we have here at Wilson's, they're practically joined at the hip!
Sophie will spend almost every hour of the day with Max. We like to make sure that she has new toys and other gifts to give her special friend from time to time, which Max always seems to appreciate. There are some people around who're calling them the official couple of Wilson's Wildlife and I find it hard to argue with them on that one.
Even though these little lovebirds are both neutered, we're considering the possibility of letting them adopt an abandoned litter that's recently come into our care. We're hoping it'll give them a lovely new experience and will make our dynamic duo happier than ever!
Sophie on her way to visit Max with a lovely gift for him.
