I'm cross-posting this from my other little board simply because of the fact that this is a good friend of mine who does rescue. She lives up in the Carolinas in a really poor area -- she's one of those gals who finds boxes of kittens and pups under her carport in the mornings - and she's always the one to find a shattered dog on the road. "Alice" that she refers to in this post was a little, very OLD girl who was completely broken in pieces and Alice walked up to Ellie and simply laid her head in Ellie's hand.
Ellie is such an awesome animal person -- she's also a doctor (psychiatrist) who works in health-related facilities and skilled nursing facilities and has MANY therapy dogs who accompany her (literally they are on rotation) -- including one who is deaf/blind.
Daisy is the newest one Ellie has found. And I've seen the Alpha of all Alphas work thru this woman before but she needs prayer and good thots behind her. If anyone wants updates on Daisey - or they think they may have a lead on a good home to a special needs gal -- feel free to email me. But it broke my heart when I read her post and rather than 'link' to another message board, I figured I'd just put it right here.
"So I'm driving up the highway and obviously I am the ONLY person able to see the dog in the median, so I doubled back to see if I could get her to come to me...and she couldn't move. She obviously had a broken leg, but her color and breathing looked good. She let me pick her up, and laid her little head on my shoulder as I put her in the car. She's a hound mix, kind of nondescript but sweet, about 9-10 months old. As much pain as she must have been in, she still was looking out the window and nuzzling my hand in the car.
The vet said she had no internal injuries that he could see, no internal bleeding, but her right femur was shattered and her pelvis really badly broken. His initial take on it was that after $2K worth of surgery and 3 months of crate rest, she still wouldn't have a good outcome. I was heartbroken, but it seemed we would have to put her down. She was on lots of pain meds and was not uncomfortable, so I asked them to wait till I could be there with her.
So last night I showed up at the end of the day, with some chicken strips for Daisy and a huge lump of lead in my chest. Julie, the Chinese-medicine vet, was there looking teary-eyed. Absolutely no one wanted this pup put down. Julie said, "dang, I wish we were closer to the vet school where they have a {something or other, I can't recall what it's called} that would make reducing the fracture a lot simpler." The new vet they just hired was starting that day, and he is none other than...my old buddy Dr. Kennedy, who saved Alice! He looked at the x-rays, said, "you know, we just bought one of those gizmos at the night emergency clinic, we could reduce the fracture with that, and really, this is not so impossible or costly as all that..."
The upshot is that Julie kicked in a hundred bucks, the techs passed the hat, Maggie, the vet who does physical therapy and acupuncture, pledged a month of free rehab and Kennedy donated his time for the surgery. Now, folks, this doesn't often happen. Vets just cannot take on every charity case in the world. But this little girl has stolen every heart in the building. Even other clients in the waiting room put a few bills in the jar for Daisy.
They called me this morning to tell me that Daisy got through the surgery last night quite well. She's still knocked out from the anesthesia, but when one of the techs came past with the sausage biscuits for the staff's breakfast, Daisy's nose followed the food down the hall!
She'll still have a long road, some crate rest followed by rehab, and we still don't know for sure if there's nerve damage. She may have continence problems. but even last night as they gave her the anesthesia, she thumped her tail, so the spinal nerves are probably okay.
We will never know for sure how she got in the highway median. There are absolutely no dwellings anywhere near ther for her to have strayed from. She may have fallen out of the back of a pickup truck. The vets think she may well have been dumped; she's the right age to have been out for her first hunting season, and quite commonly, if a young dog does not perform well on its first hunt, the hunter will shoot the dog right there in the woods, or simply throw the dog out on the road en route home. Daisy may well have had the latter experience. In any case, she'll never have to "perform" again; when she is ready for adoption, I'll see she goes to a good home with lots of love and cuddles and frisbees to chase. Please send up a good thought or two for a good recovery! "