My name is Eggs Benedict!

Eggs Benedict is a quirky six year old terrier mix just itching to back his 36 pound fanny up to you for a butt scratch while he shows you the day's favorite toy. Eggy came into the shelter this August from the sunny shores of Toccoa. We knew he had some dental disease but found during his neuter surgery that Eggs has a very significant cleft palate, or abnormal connection between the mouth and the nasal cavity. The medical team was frankly astounded that he was doing so well with this issue—many young and some adult animals can have very serious complications from this defect, chiefly that food or liquid can bypass the normal swallowing anatomy and cause very significant pneumonias! To be thorough, we did perform x-rays on Eggs; he has some chronic changes in his lungs that look like he's probably fought off infections before. We also took some pictures of his front legs since he has that elbow varus, or "linebacker stance" that makes Eggs look like he wants to scrap with everyone. There do appear to be some arthritic changes in both elbows that seem to be making him a little achy, so we're trying to take the edge off with NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) therapy. While an adopter might choose to pursue surgery to have the cleft palate closed, we understand that this cost might be a little much for some families; for now, we're managing EB by cleaning out the defect as needed when we see anything getting stuck up there and providing antibiotics to help heal any associated infection from the chunky stuff we got out when he first came in. Eggs Benedict will need pet parents willing to do some routine bloodwork on him to make sure his NSAIDs are being tolerated and who are able to have his cleft palate managed if/when complications arise.