Fonzie

The rescue of Fonzie was a long time coming. He lived for two years on the streets of north St. Louis and the wonderful people at Precision kept this guy alive with always having food and water out for him. But as many dogs do, living on his own, triggered a "feral" affect on him. He became a semi-wild dog that would not trust anyone. He would just run out of fear from humans. We set a trap to catch him months ago, but he saw his pit bull buddy get caught in one he must of thought, "I am not falling for that."

Sadly, I received a call from Tina at Precision one morning and she sounded heartbroken. She thinks Fonzie might have been shot and he's lying by a fire hydrant almost dead. Darrell and I rush to the scene and what I saw made me cry. He looked dead but we saw breathing. As I picked him up, there were no struggles, in fact, he was completely limp. I was scared he would die in my arms. A police officer was there and I think it's important to point out why we all need to change the mindset of basically good people. I asked the officer if he would escort us to the vet as time was of the essence. He said, "Not for that mangy mutt." I thought to myself, well it's not like I am going to be rescuing well groomed poodles off these streets. It annoyed me when he made the "mangy mutt" comment but we went ahead and rushed Fonzie off to Dr. Ed's office.

Fonzie suffers from a broken hip, heartworm, severe skin infections, mange, eye infections, malnourishment and other ailments as well. Dr. Ed expects him to recover, but it will be a long one. I had a wonderful moment with Fonzie at Dr. Ed's. I sat and petted Fonzie. He soaked up the human touches and the love and caring. He waited years for a kind touch, now there will be no more waiting for our Fonzie.

Randy