The Dog That Survived the Most Horrible Situation Ever

Dogs are generally regarded as the best pets on the planet.

Long known as man’s best friend, dogs have been with us for thousands of years — ever since we first began to hunt together.

It’s no wonder that in 2017 alone, some 89.7 million dogs lived in households as pets in the United States — that’s compared to some 68 million dogs owned as pets in the United States in 2000.

Alas, some people don’t treat their precious animals as pets — or take care of their dogs properly, as they should.

Dawn Karam, president of Adopt A Boxer Rescue, has spent a significant part of her life trying to help the dogs that other people might discard. Her charitable organization, an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) group, was formed to rescue, rehabilitate, and find homes for unwanted and abandoned boxers.

The worst case she’s ever seen, she told The Dodo, was that of a boxer named Tracy (shown at the top of this article).

When Tracy was just four years old, her owner took her to the vet because the poor thing could no longer stand — due to extreme malnourishment and illness.

That owner ran a puppy mill and Tracy could no longer get pregnant.

Dawn Karam said the man told her that if the vet couldn’t make her well enough to be bred again — the only thing he would pay for was euthanasia.

“Greed is an awful thing, and this is all it was,” Karam told The Dodo.

The veterinarian knew Tracy would no longer be able to have puppies again, so he reached out to Dawn Karam at Adopt A Boxer. The organization decided it would cover whatever costs were necessary to save the desperate boxer’s life.

“Her chance of living seemed very grim,” said Karam. “She wouldn’t eat, and all of her symptoms seemed to point to some type of neurological ailment, like a brain tumor, but the tests found nothing.” Ultimately, Karam said she knew she had to “bring her to the only other people who could give her more help.”

Initially, veterinarians treated Tracy for pancreatitis, but after two days of treatment, she had not gotten any better.

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After the dog was taken to an emergency veterinary clinic, additional testing still didn’t provide a diagnosis.

So they rushed the boxer to Ryan Veterinary Hospital in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania. Additional tests there indicated that the dog’s problems were due to starvation.

Said Dawn Karam, “Every bit of her imbalance, every bit of her condition, was because she was locked in a cage on that mill and deprived of the simplest thing that any pet needs. She was only 37 pounds — a female boxer is supposed to be at least 20 pounds more than that.”

The young boxer had only been around people when the owners took her puppies out of her cage to take pictures of them.

Tracy was fed by tube for several days, and eventually she was able to manage snacks, as recounted by ShareTap.

Four days after that, she was strong enough to go to a foster home — and to await her “forever home.”

Before all of this, the young boxer had only been around people when the owners took her puppies out of her cage to take pictures of them — or took those puppies away from her, to sell them.

Fortunately, Tracy was able to learn from the other dogs at the foster home — and with the help of Adopt A Boxer, she survived the horrible situation that had been her life up to that point.

See this video below — then share your thoughts in the comments section below.