When Antonio the Golden Retriever was spotted cowering behind a building in Los Angeles all animal rescuers could see was a pair of scared eyes.
The trembling dog didn’t make a sound as Loreta Frankonyte from Hope for Paws, and her colleague tried to get near him.
He wasn’t interested in the food they laid out for him, and when they tried to touch him he pulled away.
Little did they realize the suffering this dog was experiencing and how close he was to death.
The Golden Retriever was unresponsive, and it took a while to get a leash around him and into a cage as he was too sick to move.
“Of course, there was no way for us to know how badly he was injured (nothing was visible), but we could tell that something was wrong internally,” Eldad Hagar, founder of Hope for Paws said.
The animal heroes noted how hard it was carrying animals in this cage every day as it was heavy work but despite a herniated disc, they still do all they can to save these desperate hounds.
The veterinary clinic was notified of the emergency situation as they rushed to save Antonio. Tests showed that he was bleeding internally, probably from a hard kick in the stomach, and if left another day he would have died.
“He (Dr Pedraza) didn’t believe that the dog was hit by a car because there were no signs of that – no road rash, no broken bones, no visible trauma that is always present in cases where dogs are hit by cars… it was a hit that injured his liver and spleen,” Eldad wrote on YouTube.
He received life-saving surgery to remove his spleen and spent his recovery time with The Little Red Dog, an organization committed to saving dogs from high-kill shelters.
“Antonio made an incredible recovery thanks to our amazing team,” Eldad said. And they were able to find him a new home.
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