An adorable disabled pup that was left in a dumpster has been rehomed in time for Christmas after being rescued and nursed back to health.
After being discovered abandoned in South Oxfordshire, England, the tiny six-week-old, which is deaf and half-blind, was rushed to a veterinarian.
The terrier named Dennis weighed just 1.75 kg (under 4 pounds) and was growing weaker by the minute when he was admitted to the Blue Cross’s rescue center in Burford, where it underwent treatment, including antiseptic ointment for his wounds, and intravenous nutrition to build up his strength.
“I didn’t expect him to be so small,” said Anouska, the admissions coordinator at Blue Cross Burford. “He was absolutely tiny.”
“I’ve never seen a dog of his age quite so little and thin, and with so many injuries, as well.”
The animal charity said the injuries may have been caused by coming into contact with sharp objects in the bin or he may have sustained them beforehand.
Dennis was so scared upon arrival, he couldn’t even cope with a bath, so the team used damp towels to clean him up, as he was “really, really worried by the water”.
“His eyes couldn’t focus on you very well, and he couldn’t really hear what you were saying, or work out where he was.”
“He would sort of go to the corner of the room or try to nestle into you in order to feel safe.
“For those first couple of days, he was so shut down and so nervous, and obviously, poor Dennis didn’t really have great eyesight and couldn’t hear.
“We weren’t able to do the normal things that you would do with a puppy. We had to teach him different cues.
“If we came into the room, we’d sort of tap our feet on the floor so he would get the vibrations to let him know we were approaching—and when we’d go to pick him up, we’d tap him gently so that he knew what these things started to mean.
“It was a whole different thing for us to learn. We’ve dealt with deaf puppies and we’ve dealt with blind puppies, but putting the two together was such a different experience for us and something that we had to learn along the way.”
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He was placed into foster care where he continued to make a remarkable recovery before finding a loving home in Derbyshire in time for his first Christmas with new owners.
Anouska said Dennis learned to navigate in his foster home which became crucial in his journey toward being adapted.
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“He would sort-of charge around, and within the first couple of days, he’d really laid out a map of his foster carer’s home,” she added.
“I think he did have breed on his side, in that terriers do something once and they go, ‘Oh, right, won’t do that again, that wasn’t very fun’.
“So, he’d walk into the corner of a room and know not to do it again. He would rush into things and learn as he did it.
“He really just came into his own in foster. As time went on, he became quite confident, and his personality very quickly came out.
“He’s now got a whole new incredible life ahead of him—but it could have gone down a completely different trajectory.”
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More than 25,000 pets have come through Blue Cross’s fostering and rehoming services in the last five years—and the charity has launched its annual Christmas appeal to support pet homelessness for those who’d like to donate.
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