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| Name: |
Lily
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Age: |
Eighteen months old
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| Gender: |
Female |
Breed: |
Pembroke Welsh Corgi
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| Home: |
Seattle, Washington, USA |
This
is Lily, our "miracle" corgi. She is definitely a survivor. We got her
when she was just eight weeks old.
Last year, when driving back to Maine for the holidays, we had a terrible
auto accident during a snow and ice storm and hit a tree. The car was
totaled, we were taken to the hospital and Lily was taken to the local
animal shelter. Like my son, she suffered a broken back and broken rear leg.
Fearing the worst, and in the hospital myself, a good friend took over
Lily's care by phone. She arranged to have her transferred first to a vet in
Indiana, then to a specialty clinic in Kentucky that was able to deal with
her severe injuries. Lily was only four months old at the time.
Fortunately the orthopedic vet surgeon was able to operate and inserted
steel pins in her spine and repaired her leg. Lily was then transported back
to the Indiana vet to heal. After another month of recovery, her steel pins
were removed. But the story doesn't end there!
One of the wonderful staff at East Pines Vet Hospital took a shine to Lily
and tracked us down at my son's rehab hospital. On several occasions, she
brought her to the rehab facility so we could visit and play with her.
Seeing our sweet puppy again certainly sped up our own recovery and made
what could have been a difficult Christmas, a very memorable one. When Lily
was ready to be released, our new friend volunteered to bring her home to
Seattle so she could ride in the plane's cabin instead of the cargo hold. We
are so grateful!
Lily is very affectionate and likes nothing better than a good tummy rub.
She loves being with us and would rather be taken along and sit in the car
for a couple of hours than be left at home. She has a large car seat now
which gets her up to window level so she can see out, and is always strapped
in. She was out of her crate in the accident and sitting on my son's lap at
the time of the accident because it was so cold. I vaguely remember her
flying through the air and hitting the rear view mirror, which I think was
what broke her back.
Her favorite toy, which also survived the crash, is a squeaky chicken! I was
able to get it out of the wrecked car, even though I had several broken
ribs, and get it to her later at the Indiana vet. Our accident was in
Illinois where we were all taken first. The chicken is the one toy she
hasn't tried to destroy!
Occasionally she'll go into her "crazy dog" routine inside the house,
sprinting down the hall at full speed, around the coffee table then back
down the hall. She does the same in our backyard where she runs around in
circles at top speed around you. She is ecstatic when another of her puppy
friends visits and the two of them chase each other in circles til they're
both exhausted. Her mobility doesn't seem to be affected, though she does
tend to hop like a bunny up and down stairs. My son and I have taken a year
to get back to good health, but she recovered the quickest, probably because
of her young age, so we're all together most of each day. She has tons of
energy and now goes to daycare one day a week just to get rid of some of
that energy.
Sorry I couldn't find a good picture of her smiling because she has such a
sweet face. Everyone at the Midwest vets fell in love with her and wanted to
keep her! In the one picture you can see she has an inflatable blue collar
on and the little pink pompom on her back is to protect the steel pins which
held her spine together for a couple of months... that was taken last
February when she was about six months old and was staying at the Indiana vet.
We left her there after our return to Seattle because I wanted the same
surgeon in Louisville be the one to remove the pins.
Thanks to all the extraordinary caring friends, vets and staff, Lily is now
totally recovered and a happy, healthy and energetic eighteen-month-old a year
later! She loves to play with the neighborhood puppies, but more than
anything else, loves to play fetch with her ball. We think she's the most
beautiful precious dog in the world!
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