Meet Splinter, a puppy who, when he got sick, was exiled to live in the pantry. His owner wasn’t sure what was wrong with him and he didn’t want it to affect the other animals. So Splinter spent night and day in total isolation while the disease took his fur, his vision and almost all hope from him.
But one day, the pantry door opened. The owner had been reported for animal abuse. Authorities took Splinter to the Shafter shelter in California.
Doctors found a 7-pound tumor in his spleen. Known as buffer disease, this is a condition that causes weight loss, skin infections, and the appearance of “bloating” in the stomach. Besides the extremely uncomfortable feeling of having a tumor the size of a ball pressing on your internal organs, Splinter remained permanently blind.
Marleys Mutts, a shelter in California, accepted Splinter out of the shelter and introduced him to a world bigger and better than he ever imagined.
As it turned out, Splinter suffered from a wide variety of ailments. An ear infection was making him partially deaf and he had a serious worm as well as testicular cancer.
But beyond all that and thanks in large part to an online campaign, an amount of $17,000 was raised for his medical expenses.
Splinter is on the right track now. About a month after being rescued, Splinter found his forever home with Trisa Ekema, who lives outside of Bakersfield, California. She was just looking for dogs for adoption at Marleys Mutts.
“When I got on the website, I saw Splinter staring at me through the screen and I just fell in love.”
Nearly a year after finding a forever home, Splinter hasn’t been able to recover much of his fur, beyond an occasional patch of fur. You can still see some of the lesions and scars from the skin infection.
After the tumor was removed, the organs moved inside his body , giving him a unique shape. Ekema likes to call him “Yamandillo”.
Today the little dog that lived in the cupboard is a celebrity on Facebook , with more than 16,000 visits to his page.
Trisa, his adoptive mother, said:
“Splinter has his own spark. He is determined, if he doesn’t want you to carry him, he won’t let you. But this bond that he has created with me is literally unmatched.”
“Splinter is constantly looking for me. He is always smelling, possibly I am the first human in his entire life who has been so close to him. He’s a very cheerful boy. He loves to sit outside, always on his solemn throne, of course.”
Would you like a dog like Splinter to have a real home? If you want to adopt, consider going to a local dog shelter or the many foundations you can find online. There are many little animals that need a home!
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