Kentucky pet rescue asking for help after saving neglected dog from eastern Kentucky
By Jennifer Baileys
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CRESTWOOD, Kentucky (WLKY) — Adopt Me Bluegrass Pet Rescue in Crestwood is partnering with Hopewell Animal Hospital in Louisville to save a 5-year-old German Shepherd found starved, injured and near death in eastern Kentucky.
Like many pet rescues, they are stretched thin and can’t do it alone, so they’re asking for help from the community.
“Even when you think you’re full, how can you say no to this?” said Lisanne Mikan with Adopt Me Bluegrass.
Her name is Beam, and she was found in rough shape, nearly dead, in eastern Kentucky.
“They know that we’ll take in these emergencies. So through a connection with the rescue, they called and we went,” Mikan said. “We drove two hours down south to get her. We had her by the next day.”
Mikan rushed Beam back to Louisville and to Dr. Amanda Brown at Hopewell Animal Hospital.
“Obviously very neglected. She’s emaciated, underweight, significant skin issues. She’s also anemic,” Brown said. “Probably. She has several parasites, but she also hasn’t been cared for. So they get a chronic anemia just from poor care parasites. Her body can’t fight back.”
Brown and her staff immediately started treating Beam.
Now, a week later, she’s walking around, eating, and even wagging her tail for treats. The sores covering her body are healing and her hair is starting to grow back.
“I don’t think she feels real good yet, but clearly a dog that I think appreciates what we’re trying to do for her,” Mikan said.
Beam still has a long road ahead, and Brown says she has some extensive health issues, like tumors, that will need to be treated once she’s strong enough.
“It’ll take two or three months to get her weight up. Her skin better, and then we’ll start addressing the tumors and spaying her and the other things that need to be addressed,” Brown said.
All of that treatment will cost thousands of dollars, a bill the nonprofit Adopt Me Bluegrass will have to pay.
“It takes a lot of time and effort and money to help a dog like this. She’s absolutely worth it,” Mikan said. “And we hope in time that she will be up and be just beautiful and then make somebody a wonderful, loving companion.”
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