Ozzie

"You can't change a dog's past, but you can rewrite his future."

Ozzie was born in the Caribbean island of Aruba, a densely-populated country filled with up to 40,000 stray dogs at any given time. As puppies, Ozzie and his siblings were deserted on the barren shores of Aruba and left to fend for themselves. What happened next, though, was not a part of their survival plan.

Without human aid, the puppies struggled to find nourishment. They desperately ate and drank anything they could find, but it wasn't enough to fuel their decaying bodies and they ultimately become dangerously malnourished and dehydrated. 

In a last-ditch effort to feed their starving frames, the pups wandered onto a back road and approached a group of strangers to beg for food, but this proved to be a huge mistake. Instead of offering assistance, the humans chased the dogs away by pouring buckets of scolding hot water on their fragile bodies.

Ozzie and his siblings cried out in pain as the boiling water seared their skin and left them with life-threatening third-degree burns, which destroy the skin down to the subcutaneous layer. The skin becomes leathery, charred, and lacks sensation. Healing of full-thickness burns is slow and prolonged with permanent scarring and a high risk of infection. 

Rescuers captured poor Ozzie and rushed him to the emergency animal hospital for urgent treatment. His skin was ravaged by burn damage and he had localized wounds on his face, head, neck, and legs, with burns so severe that infection was a seriously concern.

After just two weeks of burn treatment, Ozzie's hair started growing back and his health improved immensely. Plus, his fearful siblings were finally trapped by rescuers and are safely in the care of a loving medical foster.

Great news! Ozzie's fur is continuing to grow back in and he is even learning to trust people again. His healing journey has been absolutely remarkable and he is now awaiting adoption into a loving forever home.

Of course, Ozzie's new life wouldn't have been possible without our generous supporters and awesome partners at CUDDLY who helped share Ozzie's remarkable story and made his lifesaving surgery possible. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for taking a chance on Ozzie and giving him the life he deserves.