Sofie at the vet (1st visit right after rescue)

 Sofie's ordeal has not ended yet.

After her dramatic capture, she was brought to the vet. We had thought that her leg would be the most serious of her conditions but we could not have been more wrong.

A tired soul 

Sofie tested positive for heartworms and a chest x-ray showed that she was severely infected by them. Her lungs are enlarged due to the presence of heartworms. She will need to undergo an ultrasound scan to get a better view of the heartworms. She needs to get started on her heartworm treatment immediately but even that is tricky as she is also severely anemic, making her condition very precarious at the moment. The heartworm treatment is expected to take around 2 months to complete. First, she will be started on Doxycycline which will kill the baby worms, but not the adult worms. Once the baby worms are dead, they usually float around in the blood vessels until the body can get rid of them. However, because she is so anemic, the concern is that her body may not have what it takes to dispose of the dead heartworms and they will start clogging up her arteries which can kill her.

All she wanted to do was to disappear  . . . . 

If the results of the ultrasound reveal the presence of a lot of adult heartworms, we will need to look for a vet who can extract the worms from her heart surgically. This was common practice in the old days but no longer done now as the usual treatment for heartworms is using medicine to kill the worms and have the body dispose of them naturally. However, her current condition may make it difficult for her body to get rid of the dead adult worms, yet neither is she stable enough to undergo surgery. We can only hope that she gets better once the baby heartworms have been killed and the ultrasound does not show the presence of too many adult heartworms.

Poor Sofie - look at the angle of her legs - it was so wrong

The cause of her anemia is still unknown but a sample of her blood will be sent to be tested for Babesia. We have also requested a fecal test to test for hookworms. Hookworms can also cause anemia and the presence of hookworms would explain why she is always hungry and eating so much yet still losing weight at the same time.

Exhausted after years on the streets. As a stray, they could never get proper sleep; always alert, always looking for danger, traffic, attacks . . . .

Sofie's leg, which we had initially thought would be the worst of her worries, turned out to be of the least concern, at least at this time. Her left hip is totally displaced and out of the socket. The knee of the same leg is also out of its socket, which explains why her knee seemed to be turned at an awkward 90 degree angle in her rescue video (re-watch Sofie's dramatic rescue here). Interestingly, they did not find any signs of broken bones or fractures, but will do more x-rays to make sure. Both her hip and knee injuries are old ones and because of that, they will be hard to treat and the success of surgery is not high.

Looking so old and tired but often they are a lot older than they look because of the tough life they have had on the streets 

In any case, the most immediate concern is her heartworm condition, and all others are secondary so she will start her heartworm treatment immediately.

Sofie's road to recovery will be a long and tedious one. A road we foresee to be fraught with challenges. But we know she can get through this with your support and help. To help Sofie on her road to good health, please email hopedogrescue@singnet.com.sg.