Charly’s Story

This sweet gentle soul was discovered in the small town of Coyula during the Snipsisters Dec 2012 Clinic. We were returning a family of dogs to their homes after they had all been sterilized, it was then that we discovered “Charly” limping out of the bushes that were shading him from the hot sun. As he tried his best to give us a warm welcome, we immediately saw the reason for his limp. His back paw was swollen to twice the normal size with a large open gash, where we could clearly see broken bone protruding. Charly’s family slowly emerged from their yard and meekly told the story of him getting hit by a car 8 days prior.

We took several photos of Charly’s injury and rushed back to our clinic site to show our vet team: Poly, Antonio and Hector. They all concurred that it was likely that the leg could not be saved. The surgery to amputate was scheduled for the next afternoon. (Keep in mind that the vets were scheduling this leg amputation after they would be working straight through from 9am-2pm completing 25 sterilization surgeries.) These men are nothing short of Heroic.

The surgical procedure took 2 hours, his post op recovery- another 2hrs. The care, the attention to detail, and the compassion shown by our entire team from Pre-op to Post Op care was heartwarming.

After a very long day, we knew without question or hesitation that Charly would stay in our care and travel with our clinic. His owners were very grateful that we were committed to ensuring Charly had everything he needed for a full recovery- so they agreed to letting us keep him until he was completely healed. We had one more clinic day schedule in his hometown of Coyula and then the Snipsister Team would be tearing down and setting up their second clinic in the town of Cuatanalco.

Throughout the entire recovery process, Charly stayed with us day and night, he warmed our hearts with his calm, gentle and accommodating nature. Each day antibiotics were administered to fight off infection and he was fed a protein rich diet. During our clinic days he was carefully transported in his kennel to/from our MASH style animal hospital. Every few hours he was taken for short walks to build up strength in his remaining 3 legs.

A week or so after his surgery, we decided to take Charly for a visit with his family. We drove the short journey to his home. We were met with words of gratitude and tears of joy! It was wonderful to see how much this family truly loved their dog. (BTW: Charly is one of 5 dogs that they own -one of which is 12 years old! It is rare to see a dog of that age in these rural regions)

Charly remained in our care for another week, he was a common site hopping on 3 legs to/from the beach and each day he was getting stronger and stronger. One day we finally let him off leash to run free on the beach . Without hesitation he started running back and forth and playing…It was truly a wonderful site watching him move so well on his 3 legs and seeing him so pleased and happy despite his situation! We knew then that it was time to bring him back to his family. It was a bittersweet day when we handed over Charly, we so enjoyed our time with him, but we knew he had a very good home that he was returning to….