Surgery for pup hit by a car

(Updates at the bottom!) Hi everyone, my name is Ruby and I am the director of the Amigos de los animales dog shelter in San Juan,PR. The mission of our shelter is to take in abused and neglected dogs, mostly from the streets of Puerto Rico where we then get them the medical care and support they need to heal and then assist them in finding a loving family to adopt them.

The work we do is draining to say the least, with calls and e-mails piling in every day notifying us of another dog that desperately needs our help. We are a small shelter with just a few staff members and we work tirelessly to take in as many of the dogs we possibly can, often focusing on the ones that are in the most dire state and would not survive without intervention.

This past week while I was driving, something caught my attention. I pulled over and saw a little tiny dog (who we named Juanita) just laying still, to which I soon realized she was completely unable to move. When she looked up at me I could tell that she had almost given up hope. Someone had left a bowl of water for her, one she couldn’t even move to drink out of. Many cars had passed right by her, as I’m sure she would lift her head at each one hoping that would be the one who would stop and save her. We believe she was sitting out there in the blistering heat for a significant amount of time before I pulled over and approached her.

As I reached down to pick her up I could tell immediately that she had broken bones and was in significant pain even just from the lightest touch. I made a bed out of a towel in my car and brought her straight to the emergency room. The ER staff determined that poor Juanita had likely been hit by a car, resulting in fractures to her pelvis, femur, and tailbone. She stayed in the ER under strong pain management medication until she could finally be seen by a specialist a week later. At that point it was determined that she needed surgery to mend her femur and pelvis, while her tail would require amputation to facilitate healing.

Between her emergency care costs and surgeries we estimate that the final cost for all of her medical bills will be over $7,000. We will be diligently updating this page once we have all of the final bills as well.

And this is where we absolutely need the help from our supporters. Our community, our friends and families, we are asking for even the smallest amount to help us afford to care for Juanita. Juanita has an extremely high likelihood of making a full recovery from all of these medical procedures. And our wish and goal is for her to get past what was the worst day of her life and have a chance at feeling what love and safety is on the other side of this. What sleeping in a warm bed feels like. What having human and doggy friends feels like. What closing your eyes to rest and knowing you are safe and loved feels like.

Our shelter is 100% run on donations, and without donations we are not able to say yes to these lifesaving surgeries. We passionately believe that every dog deserves that chance. Especially those that have endured such pain and disappointment from people. The only way we can continue helping is if we have the support to do so.

UPDATE 1/28: surgery was very successful and Juanita is already acting in much happier spirits. She is going to be recovering with Ruby in her home over these next few weeks. She is on quite a few different medications that will help her recover but she is moving around already!