This poor animal may have been abandoned by a person in terrible circumstances. Fortunately, kind people have come forward to assure his survival and perhaps a better future in his final years.
By Rebecca Fishbein, The Gothamist, in News on Feb 12, 2014 10:21 AM
FACILITATED BY SARAH EDGAR
Here’s a sad story with a (hopefully) happy ending: an old, emaciated dog was tied up in the cold outside an Upper West Side animal hospital on Sunday and abandoned. Luckily, though, he was rescued by the hospital’s veterinarians, and so many donations have poured in since that the little guy will be spared euthanasia.
The dog, a chow chow who is about 12 years old, was left outside the Riverside Animal Hospital on West 108th Street on Sunday; the man who left him was caught on security tape making the sign of the cross as he walked away. Clinic vets said the animal was in very poor condition when they found him: trembling, dehydrated and covered in fur so matted that it took technicians hours to shave it off.
“Then he was sitting crying in a cage here on Sunday just with me, not knowing where he was, not knowing what had happened to him,” veterinarian Georgia Weber told CBS News. “What he does know is he’s been abandoned.”
The chow chow has not been microchipped and veterinarians say they probably won’t be able to locate his owner, who they believed had been with the dog for a long time. But there’s good news for the nameless canine: “The phones have been ringing off the hook with people making donations,” clinic head Dr. Philip Raclyn told us. “It appears now that he’s not going to be euthanized.” The clinic is looking for a permanent home for the animal, and hopes to start a name contest for him on their Facebook page; interested parties can also make a donation to help care for the chow chow by calling the clinic directly.
