Let's Get Irma Back On Her (Remaining) Feet

On Christmas Eve, Anjeliqa was driving home from work when she spotted a dog limping on the side of the road, so she decided to pull over and investigate. What she found was one very scared, very emaciated and very hurt pooch. The poor thing didn't have a collar, and her paw was terribly injured (to the point where it looked crushed), so we took her to an animal hospital. There, we were told that the injury had occurred weeks prior and had partially healed, but x-rays showed that it was so severe that she was actually missing bones in her paw (our best guess is that maybe she got it caught in a trap of some kind and then ripped it out). In any case, the vets were now concerned about infection, and they said the leg would have to go.

She's not chipped, and all of our efforts to try to find her owners have proven fruitless. Our assumption at this point is that she got injured and then was dumped on the streets by her prior owner, who just didn't want to deal with the injury. Considering the trauma she's already been through, starving and hurt and abandoned in the cold, we decided that we didn't want to put her through the shock of a shelter, and opted to foster her ourselves. At the time we were very much enjoying Tracey Ullman's turn on the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, so in the absence of a name, we took to calling the dog City Councilwoman Irma Kostroski (Irma for short).

Irma has since had her leg removed, and we've treated her for parasites (hookworms and roundworms). She also has heartworms, which we're told will take months to treat. Fortunately she's quite young (vet guesses 10 months old), so she can't have had those for too long and the prognosis looks good.

Unfortunately, though, the bills are piling up. The amputation alone cost just shy of $1500, and we're told the heartworm treatments will be similarly pricey. Add to that the numerous doctor visits, x-rays, medications, dog food, and on and on, and we're getting pretty overwhelmed.

I attempted early on to try to get in contact with a shelter that would sponsor us as fosters, but I ran into nothing but dead ends on that front -- all the shelters said we'd have to turn over the dog, and we didn't want to do that. So I am coming to you, friends! Please give what you can to help get this very sweet pooch back on her (remaining) feet. Any little bit helps!

*City Councilwoman Irma Kostroski approves this message*