Aslan

The dog who just walked out of our doors to his forever home is not the same dog we picked up off the roadside. When we found Aslan, he was crying out in a place where no one was coming for him, his body covered in sores, puncture wounds, and a maggot infestation so severe it ranked among the worst cases our team had ever seen. Today he is healed, whole, and heading home with a family who chose him.

Aslan was abandoned in the middle of nowhere, a young dog with painful skin lesions and open wounds, left in a place where cars passed and no one stopped. We never learned what happened to him before that day. We do not know whether he was dumped, whether he got lost, or whether he was attacked and left where he fell. What we did know when we reached him was that his condition had not developed overnight. Somewhere along the way, someone had seen this dog suffering and had walked past anyway.

His first hours in our care were spent under sedation while our veterinary team carefully removed the larvae buried deep in his neck. He had severe pyoderma across his body, thick crusts, pustules, intense inflammation, and a mass in the same area of his neck with lymph nodes already reacting. He made it through that first procedure, but it was only the opening move in a fight none of us could predict the length of.

What followed was months of unglamorous, painstaking work. Daily wound care. Bloodwork and diagnostics to understand the full scope of what was happening in his body. Treatment for his skin condition and treatment for the anemia that had left him so debilitated. Continuous monitoring, because his condition could shift in a day and cases like his are never cut and dry. There was no timeline anyone could promise. There was only showing up for him again the next morning, and the morning after that.

And Aslan showed up too. Through every bandage change, every medication, every procedure that must have been frightening and uncomfortable, he stayed a young dog who wanted to be near people. He never held any of it against us. That gentleness through pain is the thing our team will remember longest about him, and it is what made everyone certain he was going to be somebody's whole world one day.

Eventually he was healed. Then neutered, vaccinated, and cleared for the only thing left on his list. Today Aslan is home with a family who will give him love, affection, playtime, and every ordinary good thing a young dog deserves. 

None of this happened because of us alone. Every stage of Aslan's recovery, every diagnostic, every day of care, was funded by people through CUDDLY who read about a dog they had never met and decided he was worth saving. You are the reason he had a chance at all. Thank you for being the ones who showed up for him.