
Anyone who has volunteered or worked in dog rescue knows what we
mean when we say that the resiliency of rescue dogs is truly
amazing.
hart volunteers witnessed a horrible event last week when Rambo,
a pup they were trying to rescue, was hit by a truck right in front
of their eyes. The helplessness they felt when they saw Rambo
under the path of two tires was matched with the heart wrenching
time they spent listening to his cries. Our quick thinking
volunteers put their compassion into action and scooped a bleeding
and limp Rambo up and sped him as quickly and safely as possible to
the emergency clinic.
It has been less than one week since Rambo's tussle with a motor
vehicle and remarkably, he is up and about.
Certainly the quick thinking of hart volunteers contributed to
his recovery…as did the dental surgery he underwent to fix the
fractures in his jaw. The good news is that there was only
soft tissue damage sustained by the weight of the vehicle as
opposed to the spinal fracture that was initially suspected.
Even so…how many of us could say that within one week of being
hit by a truck that dwarfed us so much in size that we were up and
about, eating (soft food), giving kisses and wagging our
tails.
Through the rescue work that we do, we have come to understand
that dogs have a higher pain tolerance than most humans. What
some dogs endure daily is more than some of us could endure in a
lifetime. Still, is it their physical capacity to handle pain
that makes them so resilient or is it their mental capacity?
We are sure there are numerous veterinary based studies on this
topic, but we just wanted to bring it to the top of your
mind.
While we have witnessed depression in dogs, we do not see this
regularly. Most dogs we have rescued have been like Rambo -
incredibly able to embrace recovery. This is a lesson
that our rescue dogs have taught all of us.
