Chain of Hope has taken care of a dog named Chubbs for a few yrs. now. We neutered and vaccinated him years ago. He was in a bad situation when we first met him. The people had 2 dogs at the time and one of them ended up getting hit by a car. They relinquished her to us at that time and she eventually had to have her leg amputated. Chubbs remained at the house. We took a dog run over there and set it up for him so that he didn’t have to be on his chain anymore. The people did feed him well and they took him in when the weather was extreme.
The house next door was a rental house and we had seen several people come and go. We went over to check on Chubbs one day and there was a new black dog in the back yard of the house next door. She was adorable and looked like a French Bulldog mix mixed with pit bull. We met the people and talked to them about getting her spayed. They said they wanted to and we got their information. When we would try and call and set up the spay, either their phone wasn’t on or we left a message and they would never call back. When we would come to visit Chubbs, they would always run out and ask for food and treats for their dog, Tilly. We told them that we only helped people who wanted to have their animals spayed or neutered. We also told them about the mandatory spay/neuter for pits and pit mixes. We told her she had a pit mix and that legally, she had to be spayed. They said that they did want her done, so we played the game all over again for the next 2 weeks with the same results-no calls returned or the phone was off a lot.
After that, when they’d ask for things while we were visiting Chubbs, we’d tell them no because Tilly wasn’t spayed. They tried to continue with the game playing, but we stood firm because we knew by now that they had no intention of spaying their dog. I gave them a couple of numbers to call for lower cost spays and told them that we had offered it for free with free transportation many times and they had not responded. I told them that it was up to them to go get her spayed and once they had that proof for us, we could possibly help them out with food. Of course, they did nothing.
They were keeping Tilly in a black wire crate in the back yard in the heat of the summer. They would put a butter tub or something in there with some water and of course, she’d knock it over. Sometimes she would stay in there all day, sometimes they let her out, but we never saw her in the house-she was always outside! Finally, we called animal control and they did nothing. Now we had no recourse and this dog was never going to get spayed. There would probably be a litter next door to Chubbs in no time. We were so upset!
One day when we pulled up to see Chubbs, we noticed right away that the house where Tilly had lived was all boarded up. Oh no! Now we’d lost track of Tilly. Erica and Carol walked around back to see Chubbs and I headed to the front door. The woman at the house, Chubbs’ owner, came out on the porch. She put her hands up in the air and started telling me that there was another dog in her back yard. She knew our rule that you can’t get another animal when you are receiving services from us. She told me that the neighbors had brought the dog over there when they moved. They had not asked or anything-they had just put her over the fence, chained her to a tree and left her. When the owner of Chubbs realized what they had done, she called them. This was on a Sunday when we were there. Tilly had already been there for several days. Chubbs’s owner told me that she had given them until Wednesday to come back and get her.
I headed around back to see what was going on and I was disgusted by what I saw. There was poor, poor Tilly in terrible circumstances! She had a chain wrapped around her neck and then was chained to a tree. There was trash everywhere. She had plastic bags and trash all caught up in her chain. She had no food, no water and no shelter. It had rained the last couple of nights. This poor dog had been through hell. The kids told me that she laid up against the fence when it rained. She had to get out of here.
We fixed up Chubbs and then Erica and Carol went to the van. I went back up to the porch to talk to the woman. I told her that it was terrible how Tilly was living and she couldn’t stay here like that. I asked her if she would go ahead and let us take her that day. She thought about it for a minute and then said yes. I was ecstatic! I motioned to Erica and Carol that we were taking her right now and we loaded her up. Tilly was going away from here forever. I asked the woman where Tilly’s owners had moved to, but she said she didn’t know. Here’s Tilly, so happy to be free and already getting her sloppy kisses from Erica and Carol.
We got Tilly back to Chain of Hope. She was so glad to be here! We got her a bath, fed and down for the night in a comfy bed. I’m sure it was the best night’s sleep she’d had in a long time!
We renamed Tilly to Lilly and she settled in. A few days after getting to Chain of Hope, cherry eye popped out in Lilly’s right eye. Donna offered to foster her, so Lilly went home with Donna after a few days. We scheduled her spay and cherry eye correction for the next week.
After her surgeries-good as new! Her eye is repaired and she is spayed!
Lilly went to lots of places with Donna. She went to the little dog park, to an adoption event, she was around small kids, she was around cats and she was good with everything! What a great girl!
We have several apps on Lilly and she will be adopted in no time. I would love to get cruelty charges against her former owner, but I’ve been down that road so many times only to get a ridiculously low fine, if the people even show up in court at all. We concentrated on getting Lilly healthy, happy and into a loving, forever home. Thank you for keeping us out in the community!