Posted on 04/08/2011 7:26:04 AM PDT by traumer
NEWARK, N.J. – When an emaciated pit bull found at the bottom of a trash chute in New Jersey was rushed to a veterinary emergency room last month, doctors there thought he would be dead within the hour. Instead, the scrappy pup, nicknamed Patrick, has defied the odds and is getting stronger by the day.
"He is a tremendous fighter," said Dr. Thomas Scavelli, the director and founder of the Garden State Veterinary Specialists, the pet hospital in Tinton Falls where Patrick is being treated. "There are very few animals, or any life form, that could have gone through and survived what he has, and really never looked back."
Hospital staffers, who named the dog for his reddish fur and because he was found the day before St. Patrick's Day, have been chronicling his progress on their website and a Facebook page that has garnered fans from around the world. He's received hundreds of emails, donations, gifts and letters from those inspired by his tale of survival.
When Patrick was brought to the hospital after being rescued by officials at the Associated Humane Societies, he was so starved, emaciated and dehydrated he was curled into a ball, unable to walk or stand. His ribcage protruded, he weighed about 20 pounds — roughly 30 pounds less than average — and was covered in sores with parts of skin hanging off him, according to Patricia Smillie-Scavelli, Thomas Scavelli's wife and the administrator of the hospital.
"Everyone thought that, you bring in an animal like that, that looks like it's really just a corpse, you put it to sleep," Smillie-Scavelli said. "But of course, he looked up at you with those eyes, and you say: How can you give up on this dog? How can you, when he's not giving up on life?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Nobody is advocating any kind of abuse of these animals, and you can’t prove that I ever implied this.
I don’t need to prove it.
I cannot understand the mentality that will torture an animal rather than just drop it off at an animal shelter or pound. I pray she doesn’t have kids.
My Lab bitch is half blue heeler/border collie. She was in a cage at the feed store with the 7 siblings all golden lab color. Pepper was the only blue heeler color from head to tail. So she looks like a blue tick hound with small ears. Gets a lot of comments.
Thank you. I guess I'm doubly blessed then, because these 2 puppies make me feel like the luckiest guy alive. The white one looks like an ENORMOUS lab, and he is gonna be huge; he is 5 months old and still growing into his gigantic feet; yesterday he weighed in at 35 lbs, and his paws are now longer than my hands. He has an extra dew claw (thus 2 dew claws per foot) that is indicative of Pyrenees. He is mellow and a protector of the family even at his young age.
The other dog is pure evil; I mean that in a good way. She actually bit off and ate a part of the exterior of my house!
This story is exempalary of the bone-deep sickness resident in today’s American society. First, because it happened. Second, because so much resource was/is being expended on a damn dog when human children are in worse conditions in the “Land of the Free”..... >PS
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