MILAGROS - AN UNBELIEVABLE STORY
Nothing can prepare you for this harrowing story, but please read. Without SARA's dedication and love for animals, this little doggy would be dead. Told by SARA
You would think that at SARAs we were used to a lot of things, thinking about all the animals that came through our doors, often in very poor conditions. But last Thursday taught a new lesson in cruely. I would like to tell you the story of “Milagros”.
Everyday we have our volunteers at the animal shelter to walk our dogs - so urgently need to be taken out of their kennels and burn off their energy. One our ladies had just been given a dog to walk when she suddenly came runnning back to the shelter, hammering against the door, screaming for help, tearsrolling down her face. She told us that she had found a dog in the field dying.
We reacted straight away and asked her to take us there. When we arrived we met a little poodlemixed dog, lying next to a carton box in between the volcanic rocks. The dog's conditions were absolutely horrific and he had been abandoned there in the most cruel way possible.
We picked her up and took her to our animal shelter. She was a total Bob Marley, covered in Rastas. Yes, of course, we are used to see dogs with rastas, there are many people that do not look properly after their long haired dogs…. But this was different! Her legs were that covered in dirty hair, it felt like a plaster… not to talk about the smell of this poor little dog!!
When we looked closer we knew where this horrible smell must come from: the poor animal was covered with worms that were crawling all over its body.
We placed the dog on the floor to see if it could walk, realise there was something wrong with one of its legs. But it was impossible to tell, since we could not see anything. We guessed that the paw might be missing. Have a look yourself: (see photos)
What to do now? Well, we decided to just start the work. Three of us with scissors and a shaving mashine tried to cut our way through that fur. But it seemed absolutely pointless. When we finally reached some skin on her belly, we found the skin all red and bloody from the worms that have been eating her alive. There was thousands of white worms white crawling all over the body. The smell got worse and worse with every cut we made.
Then we started to cut the hair off her leg, but it was very difficult without professional tools. We came to some skin, there was holes everywhere, the blood streamed out and with it some more worms. The paw of which we thought was damaged, well it didn’t really exist. It was just her leg with some claws at the end.
When we cut some hanging rastas out of her face we could then see her eyes and found out that she was blind. Her age we guessed at about 15 years.
Here are some pictures that we took whilst cutting her hair. The white points you can see are the famous worms of which we nearly saw more than of the dog:
After one hour we had to give up. We could not do it, we needed professional help. We took her to a veterinary clinic in Arrecife. They would see what they could do.
There they checked her over, cut her hair and rastas off, cleaned her properly, removed all the worms from her body and decided that her leg has to be removed. They now called us with that new information and informed us that the price for the surgery would be 150€uros. What should we do? How big was her chance? Could SARA afford this?
But we could not say no. We had to give that little dog the chance to live a proper life, the chance to find out how it felt to be loved and cared for, the chance of living a decent life with no pain. This was our hope!!
Later in the afternoon we finally got the much expected phonecall. “Milagros”, that is what we called her, translated means “wonder” she had survived the surgery and was already getting better. It was wonderful to hear this news.
The day after, we could not wait any more, we just had to drive down to visit her. We wanted to stroke her, cuddle her, prove to her that not all human beeings were bad, we wanted her to feel what love meant, we just wanted to be there for her. She was lying in her box, still in pain from the operation, but already eating and drinking on her own. She looked a completey different dog, she was so tiny, so clean! This is her in the clinic when I visited:
But here the story doesn’t end yet! You remember the volunteer that found her and in tears came to get us? The same lady has decided that a dog like Milagros should not go back to the shelter, she deserved something better. She had sufferd so much in her life, and this suffering will now end. She went on Friday afternoon to the clinic in Arrecife to pick her up. She took her home to give her a new caring and loving family.
What ever is was that made that lady go that direction and find Milagros.. what ever it was that made us take it to a vet clinic and give it a chance… what ever it was, it was worth it!! This dog will now live a happy life and will learn what it means to have a home, a family and safety!
This is the last pictures. Milagros in her new home:
SARA not only need help homing their huge family of dogs, but donations to help keep them in good health, fed and sheltered. If you can help in any way, please contact SARA or myself. http://saraprohttp://saraprotectora.org/index.phptectora.org/index.php
