We just adopted our sweet boy Ivan, a black lab/hound mix who is approximately 9 months old.  Ivan was spotted in a ditch in North Carolina and assumed dead. A local resident called the DPW to get them to come remove the "body."  After almost a week, no DPW, so the resident figured the right thing to do was to get the body and bring it somewhere for proper disposal.  When they went to get him, they found out he was alive.  He was in such bad shape that they put him in the TRUNK of their car in 90+ degree weather to take him to the vet to be put down. 

Our hero, Nic – a 16-year old kid who worked at the vet's office – lifted him out of the trunk and realized he was just a puppy.  Nic was emotional and angry and immediately started campaigning for the vet to save the dog. His femur was snapped and the bone was sticking out of his leg, so the vet amputated the leg up to the hip.  In the vet's notes, it stated that it was a "very difficult surgery."  With Nic's help, Ivan recuperated in the vet's office and received lots of love and rehab.  Even when he couldn't walk, he would drag himself over to try and get into people's laps.

Even though Nic wanted to adopt Ivan, he realized that Ivan needed a family and he just knew there was one out there for him.  Once he was up on petfinder and up for adoption, my 8-year-old daughter, who wanted to adopt a special needs dog, fell in love with him, along with me, my husband and my 5-year-old son. He was shipped from North Carolina with 30 other dogs to Pennsylvania, so we drove from Boston down to Philly to pick him up.

When we met Ivan, he was an absolute love.  He snuzzled us and then went and checked in with every other crated dog, then went over and sat next to a litter of puppies and licked at them through the gate. He adjusted to our family quickly, and is learning to get around better.  He follows us from room to room like our little shadow. He gets tired and has to sit down a lot on walks, but we just ordered the Ruff wear Harness that we found on Tripawds (thank you!) to help with his rehab.

We are forever grateful to Nic and to the vets down in North Carolina for taking a chance on this sweet, sweet boy.  We are sending them pictures on a regular basis so they can see that what they did for this boy truly paid off.

We were so glad to find this site, as we need all the advice, resources and encouragement we can get raising our special boy. Thanks Tripawds!

What a wonderful story! Thanks to Nic & your family, Ivan is now in a loving home – where he should be! Congrats to you, and please keep us posted on how he is doing.

Sending you many golden hugs!

Cathy

Nic is a hero here, as is the person who found Ivan in the ditch. Even though they put him in the trunk, they still took him to a vet. My tripawd is also a survivor from an appalling beginning, and I firmly believe dogs like this spend the rest of their lives saying thank you. The interesting thing is that they end up giving us so much to be thankful for, too. It's a big ol' warm and fuzzy circle!

Keep us posted on how Ivan's doing. Have you thought of starting a blog for his story? His life so far surely seems worthy of one. And a blog will give you lots of space for all the pictures that we demand around here. We are pretty demanding in that respect.

Shari and Dakota