"That dog breaks just breaks my heart"I could barely make out the dark form of a medium sized dog in the back of the kennel as I asked why. She explained that the dog had been picked up on the west side of town the day after Christmas with a pickle jar jammed over her head and duct taped into place around her neck. She'd had to be sedated to have the jar removed after she was brought in on the animal control truck. She was still in pain recovering from her injuries and was terrified of everyone. She was scheduled to be euthanized and Claire had been able to get her a twenty four hour stay, but her time was running out.
I sat down cross legged on the concrete floor outside the kennel, held my closed hand up to the wires and began talking softly to the dog as the tears came. The dog finally approached me slowly, warily. I looked up at Claire and asked through my tears,
"Is there anything I can do?"
"You can get her out of here."
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| Gypsy at the shelter, scheduled to be put down the next day |
After a call to Rick, I signed some paperwork with Claire, who gave me the dog's antibiotics and pain meds. She advised me to feed her soft food since the inside of her mouth was injured. One ear was held together with surgical staples. The agreement was that I would foster her to buy her time. After ten days I would bring her back to be spayed and have the staples removed from her ear. Then if the fostering was going well, I would bring her to public adoption events to try to find her a home. The shelter hadn't named her because she was going to be put down, not put up for adoption. Claire said I could pick a name for her, and Gypsy just seemed to fit.
When we opened her kennel, Gypsy trembled and was too frightened to take a step forward, so a kind man who was also visiting the shelter picked her up and carried her out for me. She was completely subdued, passive on the car ride home. I had no idea how the introduction with Penny and Zoe would go. I knew nothing about Gypsy's background and wondered if she would react aggressively when faced with the inevitable excited barking and jumping.
It took a lot of coaxing to get the poor thing out of the car and into the house. I led her into a large crate that Rick had left near the inside of the front door before he'd had to leave the house after my phone call. She was quiet as Penny and Zoe barked and sniffed at her in the crate. When they calmed down, I sat down and read from the paperwork Claire had sent home with me.
Some excerpts from the veterinarian's transcribed report from the day Gypsy was brought in:
"...this pet is actively hemorrhaging from head and face...frantically resists handling during attempt to remove pickle jar by cutting the tape and jar from around the pet's head and neck...pet is fractious and requires gas induction to explore other injuries...presumptive evidence of mistreatment of pet by a person--evidence of pet's struggle to escape whomever mishandled her or otherwise to remove pickle jar from her own head to the point of possible self-induced injuries to ear, inside mouth, inside nose and all paws...This appears to be a case of animal cruelty...Pet's age est 1 yr...weight est 35 lbs..."
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| Gypsy her first day home wearing an old collar of Penny's |
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| She seemed to view me as her savior in the beginning and followed me everywhere. |
Ten days later, when I met that veterinarian, she was overjoyed to learn that we had decided to adopt Gypsy. What a bighearted lady she was! She said that the vet clinic staff was tempted to go out on a "vigilante run" the night Gypsy was brought in, if they only knew who they were looking for. She said several times of Gypsy,
"She's just a baby."She thought Gypsy was not even a year old. I was happy to know that she approved of the name I had chosen. The vet told me that her mother and niece had been visiting her for Christmas when Gypsy was brought in and had texted and called a few times since then wondering what had happened to "that dog." She was going to be happy to tell them Gypsy had been spared and had found a home.
A few weeks later when I took Gypsy for her first checkup with our own vet, she too was delighted to learn that we had adopted "that dog," the one they called the "pickle jar dog" on Facebook. Dr. Williams said that the "rescue community" had been all abuzz about Gypsy on Facebook after she had been brought into ACS. Apparently a volunteer who had been there that day had posted her story...
...but not the rest of the story...
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