Severe eye-injury on a stray dog we picked up (GRAPHIC)
This story is not for people who get triggered by photos of injured dogs or by blood and what not. Therefore if that sort of thing is something that makes you upset I suggest that you leave this post now rather than have it ruin your day.
In a shell, this dog was severely injured and we do not know how but we suspect it was done by a human since in dogfights dogs never intentionally go for the eyes, they just aren't anatomically capable of doing so for the most part and maybe there is some sort of dog code out there about not doing that.
The dog is fine but it is unlikely that we are going to be able to save his eye.
The first image is not of the dog intentionally so that the thumbnail preview doesn't gross anyone out.
The dog was discovered by a concerned villager in a rather remote area and if we are going to be happy about anything that happened here it is that the villager was aware that there was a group called Krabi Animal Welfare that he could even call for help. This shows that we are known in the area and even in remote areas.
When we got the call and the photo that he sent us we sprung into action.
When we arrived we were surprised to see that the dog was actually very friendly. This is quite unusual with abused dogs. It was also a bit of a showcase about how resilient dogs actually are because despite having been horribly wounded, the dog was just carrying on with his day.
We approached the dog with extreme caution and were careful to not touch the injured area. The dog was wagging its tail and seemed genuinely happy to be around humans and this raises the question of "if this dog is so friendly, why would anyone want to hurt it?" Well unfortunately, there are people in the world that simply do not like dogs and see them as a nuisance. If I had to guess I would say that someone threw a rock at the dog and got a lucky hit in.
The eye is still around the socket, but we do not know how much time has passed since the original injury happened. We think it may have been many days. The reason why this sort of injury is so concerning isn't because dogs can't exist without an eye, they are actually extremely good at it and are much better at it than humans are. The reason why it is concerning is because dogs have no way of cleaning this wound since they cannot reach it with their tongues, which is the only way they can clean any part of their bodies. Without treatment this wound will become infected and filled with parasites and that will spread to the rest of the head resulting in a slow and painful death.
Unfortunately when dogs end up with injuries like this, they instinctively crawl off somewhere to die in silence rather than seeking out the help of others. This is another reason why we are so happy that the villager called us to let us know.
He's a friendly and sweet boy and according to the vet this injury is not life threatening but by taking a look at the eye they were able to determine that there is very little chance they can save it. In situations like this, we may not even attempt the surgery because like I already said, dogs are just fine with only one eye and not much in their lives seems to change a great deal because of losing one. There aren't a lot of dog eye doctors in Thailand or even anywhere in the world for that matter and if you do find one, it is going to cost so much that our organization simply wouldn't be able to afford it anyway.
So at this point our objective with this very well-behaved boy is to clean him up, seal him up, get him treated and vaccinated, and then bring him back to the remote village where we found him. We will also ask around about if the dog has been an irritation for any of the members of the village and also if there are any females around that are unsterilized. Competition for mating could have lead to strange behavior on this dog's part and that could have resulted in him ending up like this in the first place. I suppose this is just one more reason why sterilization of stray dogs is so important. This is all speculation on my part though because I don't really know what happened to him. I'm just happy that we got to him in time.
if you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
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