Angela Hill / Eyewitness News, July 15, 2011
NEW ORLEANS -- Animal control officer Amanda Pumilla walks to her LA SPCA truck as she has each day for the last two years. Two months ago she responded to a call of a dog in distress.
She goes to the address, is allowed in by the owner and finds a dog in the backyard tethered to a fence, with a red cable that is tangled around her neck.
'I see that it is embedded into the neck,' Pumilla said. 'The lady didn't know that the collar was embedded. She thought it was sick.'
It was one of the worst cases of tethering she had ever seen. Pumilla rushed the 1-year-old white shepherd mix to SPCA veterinarian Kerry Backsen.
'The first step was remove the cable tie from her neck,' Backsen said. 'We sedated her for that because it was pretty painful.'
There was significant swelling and edema and tremendous infection. Then it was a matter of cleaning and bandaging.
Day after day the dog was given antibiotics and pain medication to get through the weeks of healing.
And heal she did, from looking like her head would fall off to walking around in the sunshine, untethered.
Now her name is sugar, and she is loved by everyone.
Backsen said she had probably been tethered to that cable for a long time.
'She may have lived a while like that, in a lot of discomfort,' Backsen said, adding that the dog was malnourished.
The tether had cut nine millimeters into Sugar's neck. If she had remained on the cable, Backsen says it could have ultimately invaded vital structures.
'Blood vessels, and she could have just bled out,' Backsen said.
As bad as sugar looked when she came in, tragically, it was not shocking to Backsen.
'I've seen it before, so nothing new, unfortunately,' Backsen said.
Pumilla said when she asked the owner about the dog's neck, the owner said someone had come in her back yard and cut the dogs neck.
'I asked her why it's so infected, because I had the dog on a leash and you could smell it 4 feet away, and she denied that it was like that,' Pumilla said.
The owner relinquished ownership and was cited for cruelty.
'The arraignment has already passed and she was a no-show to court, so now she has an attachment out for her arrest,' Pumilla said.
She is named Sugar because she is so sweet, and Pumilla says in spite of the horrific conditions she was living in, suffering in pain and hungry, she was never aggressive or even depressed
'Even taking it off the fence where it was tethered to, where she walked down the driveway and she was wagging her tail. I get her to the unit, she looks up, she wags her tail, I pick her up,' Pumilla said. 'This dog just had the greatest spirit.'
And it is that spirit that captured this family who now fosters Sugar. They give her all the love and attention she missed being tied up in a backyard.
Sugar is alive because someone cared enough to call the SPCA about her horrible situation, because Amanda Pumilla did her job, and because Dr. Kerry Backsen never gave up on her.
It's as if that wagging tail is Sugar's way of showing how grateful she is.
The LA SPCA is organizing a series of events where dog owners can exchange their tether or chain for a free pet microchip to help identify their pet.For those who only wish to have their pet microchipped, which is useful in tracking and finding lost pets, they will be available for a $10 fee.
