BOCA RATON, Fla. — A dog is recovering after the abandoned animal was discovered stuck to a sidewalk in a South Florida city.
According to a Facebook post from Tri-County Humane, the dog, who officials have named Trooper, was found covered in his waste on a sidewalk in Boca Raton.
“He was cemented to the ground,” the animal services organization wrote. “You read that right. Completely stuck to the sidewalk off Yamato Road for what seemed like days. He was left to die.”
The dog, a Pekingese mix estimated to be 10 years old, was brought to the animal clinic by a resident.
“It took them, they say, about an hour to pick him up off the sidewalk,” Julia Sheehan, the veterinarian who has been treating Trooper, told WPBF-TV. “He was stuck.”
Staff members at the clinic determined that the dog had 22 medical conditions, WSVN-TV reported.
The most critical conditions Trooper was suffering from included paralysis, heart murmur, corneal ulcers, an enlarged prostate, worms, ear infections, severe periodontal disease and a urinary tract infection, Tri-County Humane wrote on Facebook.
“He was covered in fecal material, burrs, even maggots,” Sheehan told WBPF. “He had a lot of wounds on his skin, long nails that when we cut them, basically pus came out.”
Trooper’s hair was so matted that it had to be shaved off, Sheehan said.
Medical costs to treat the dog have exceeded $2,500, “but our real need is to get him to a specialist to see if we can get him to walk,” Tri-County wrote.
Sheehan said Trooper has been responding well to the treatments and the attention he has been receiving from the Tri-County Humane staff. Sheehan believes the dog’s prognosis for recovery is good.
“I think it’s good. I think he’s a trooper,” she told WPBF. “That’s why we named him that.”
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