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| Rescue is supposed to make dogs feel better but for Cody, it keeps getting worse (from left to right, he gets sadder as the days go by) |
His past :
Cody 1
We rescued him in early September because he had a huge wound in his anus. After seeing the vet, they could not ward him and so Cody went to a commercial boarding kennel. After 2 weeks, his wound did not heal and we took him to another vet. This time, he was warded for about 3 weeks as his wound was taking forever to heal. We reckoned his slow healing was due to severe stress, anxiety and because he had a bad skin condition, it hindered his healing. When the vet bills started piling up, we took him out of the vet and SOSD kindly offered to let Cody stay for a month till his wound was almost 100% recovered.
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| Wound not better after 2 months |
We have not been able to clear our vet bills as each week, we have almost two dogs going to the vet and so we never considered keeping Cody but when we announced our plans to release him, we had many keyboard warriors on Facebook asking us not to release him. This is very common and we are almost used to that by now, but after some internal discussions, we decided we would keep Cody as he is very timid and may be attacked again. Furthermore, he came from a high culling area where strays were cleared together with rubbish and shrubs when they were clearing the land for redevelopment.
Fortunately for us, and Cody, angels appeared and offered to pay for his boarding. And so we sent him to the vet to be microchipped and vaccinated before sending him to commercial boarding. However, the vet said they could not vaccinate him as he was not up to it. As for his microchipping, his skin was hard like leather that they took 3 times before they poked through, causing some bleeding and distress for Cody.
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| Microchip attempts |
From Day One till now, it has been 3 months. In these 3 short months, we have watched Cody lose weight, despite eating regular meals and is now a shadow of what he used to be. What little sparkle he had in his eyes when we rescued him, is totally gone. He spends his days holed up in a corner, not wanting to even come out of it. Should you attempt to leash him and bring him out of his safe corner, he will draw blood. And he has injured the owner of the boarding place, leaving him with 4 deep puncture holes, of which we offered to pay his medical bills as well.
Last week we had to take poor Cody to the vet as he was scratching non-stop and his skin was cracking and starting to bleed. He had lost most of his fur and was beginning to resemble Elmo. This vet also reckoned that his pathetic condition was due to stress as he was not used to being caged up. A blood sample was also taken and results showed that Cody had severe heartworm. Was this the reason why he was losing weight so rapidly?
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| This is how he spends his days, sad isn't it? And we thought we saved him |
Today we take him to yet another vet, for treatment of his severe skin issues and heartworm. Hopefully will be able to start his heartworm treatment. If left untreated, Cody might not survive. However, we don’t think his dry skin will recover soon as it is caused by his severe stress, stress of being in a confined area, stress of being in a place he doesn’t like. Poor Cody, he has had one pitfall after another.
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| His wound in anus is still not recovering |
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| His skin is dry, itchy and bleeding |
We honestly don’t know what’s next for Cody. Of all the dogs we have rescued, this is the first time we have a dog that we can’t really help, simply because we can’t find a foster for him. Finding a foster home sounds simple enough and if finding a foster home means saving a life, why then has no one come forth to save Cody’s life?
To foster / adopt / help with vet bills, please email hopedogrescue@singnet.com.sg
*We thank kind angels for helping with Cody's boarding.
