When puppy neglect goes terribly wrong

I don't think there is a "right" way to neglect an animal but this certainly isn't it.

Like a lot of homeless dogs, this one who has been with us for over a month was such a bad case of infection and parasite infestation that we didn't think she was going to make it. We have no idea how she was initially wounded, but the infestation was so bad that I am not going to post some of the worst pictures because they are really gross. She had a really large open wound on her underside that was so infested with parasites that you could see the crawling around on her skin and when she would approach you some of the little critters could be seen fallout out of her as she walked. It was actually pretty amazing that she hadn't died already and we were at an all-too-familiar crossroads of trying to decide if it was even worth our time and limited resources to even try to save her.

But as is often the case we ended up doing our best even though she seemed like a lost cause. To make matters worse, after our first rounds of topical care a blood test came back positive for septicemia. Septicemia is an immuno-response that animal (including human) bodies have where in an effort to save the life of the organism there is an immune response so strong that the animal's own blood becomes toxic even to the host. This will lead to painful inflammation, organ damage and failure, and almost certain death.

This is about as gruesome an image as I am willing to post of the original infestation but believe me, there are far worse and stomach-turning images. The resilience of dogs is always so amazing to me because this puppy who was slowly dying in front of our eyes was willing to use what little strength that she had left to show us affection when we took her into our care.

We don't like to separate pups from their mothers but in this case we had no choice. This is a real gamble because once separated, if the pup is gone for too long, the mother is likely to not accept the animal should it ever return. The idea here is that we either are able to slowly return the pup to the mum, but if that isn't possible then the only way forward will be adoption. At the moment this pup has been staying with us for over a month.

With this sort of thing the dog needs continual treatment and a lot of time. In that time, the dog who is yet to be named, has become completely dependent upon us. In the early stages of a puppy's life, it is actually quite crucial that they NOT become dependent upon humans unless the guaranteed end result is that humans will ALWAYS be looking out for it. This is why it is always so terrible when people take on puppies as a "gift" for a holiday of some sort only to be "released" later on. When people do this to a dog, the dog has never learned how to survive on its own and is very confused, very sad, and completely incapable of knowing where to go, what to do, how to get food, or how to do anything really.

We have already decided that if the pup's mum will not accept her back after treatment is complete that this dog will have to remain in our care and hopefully in the care of some adopting family for the rest of her life. We would never simply dump a dog back into the wild and wish her (or him) the best.

She spends a lot of her day crying for attention, and while we are there she gets plenty of it. But the rest of the time such as when we are not there in the evenings, I think she is probably very confused and sad. Our kennels are extremely over-crowded and while I know that this is a broken-record situation from me, it is likely to always be this way. Also, almost all of our volunteers have already taken on as many dogs as they can at their own homes. Most of us have 3 or more dogs and cats in our residences already.

Thankfully, there has been a bit of an uptick in the amount of interested people for adoption and a dog as lovely as this little affectionate cutie is pretty likely to find a home pretty fast. We still do background checks on anyone that comes in though, we don't just hand out dogs to the first person that walks in the door. Some of our potential adopters find this insulting, but most of the time we are able to convince them that this is not meant as an insult but we simply cannot have dogs be adopted and then re-abandoned in the future.

In the case of "unnamed cutie" the personality couldn't be any better. She is gentle, ready for belly rubs (even though that is where the wound is), is ready for cuddles, and is gentle as can be. Obviously she is not house-trained but is showing the beginning signs of understanding the difference between places where it is ok to poop, and places that it is not. She is also very easily socialized with other dogs and shows no signs of aggression.

With any luck, she will be completely healed by the end of the month and then someone will take her into their lives. I would absolutely love to have another dog but my landlord has already informed me that I am not to get any additional animals lol. Since I rent we had to leave a large deposit for the animals and I take great care to ensure that they are not a nuisance for the neighbors but for the most part, houses around this area are mostly "no pets." This gets in the way of a lot of our potential adopters.

At the moment her blood tests are still coming back positive for Septicemia, but the levels are lower and lower each time and this is the best case scenario. We expect her to have normal blood in a few weeks and at that point, we have our fingers crossed that people are going to hear about this story and be lining up to make her a permanent part of their own lives.

If you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at

http://krabianimalwelfare.org