Hope for Hondo

Hondo’s journey with the shelter started out, like so many animals, somewhat tragically. Hondo escaped his yard and was hit by a car. Injured, he was taken to a local vet and his owner contacted. Unfortunately, the owner did not have the resources to be able to pay a potentially large vet bill. After some heart wrenching thought, the decision was made to surrender him to the humane society so that he could be cared for. And so Hondo’s extensive treatment process began.

CCHS veterinarian Dr. Lindsay Gehring cleaned and flushed Hondo’s wound. There was also a fair amount of dead tissue that had to be removed. His wound was cleaned of that and sutured. He had bruising to his abdomen as well and we feared possible internal bleeding. Luckily, this was not the case. Hondo was placed on antibiotics to prevent infection and was taken in by shelter employee Dovie Browning to be fostered while he healed.

Unfortunately, Hondo had to come back in a week later to have more tissue removed. Once again, he was sutured and sent back to his foster home. Another week later and his sutures had opened and he had to be stitched up a third time. Yet again the wound tried to reopen. We were beginning to fear for this big, lovable dog but were not willing to give up on him!

In April, retired veterinary wound specialist, Dr. Swaim, volunteered his time and assisted Dr. Gehring in a skin graft on the area that refused to heal. Hondo’s activity was severely restricted to give the graft time to adhere and begin to grow to the healthy flesh. For weeks Hondo had to be kept in a crate when not on a leash so that he would move the healing hip as little as possible.

Through all of this, Hondo has remained a cheerful and loving dog. This big shepherd just doesn’t give up! Dovie says, “He’s a very good dog! He just loves to be loved.”

Nearly three months after his medical journey began, Hondo was finally declared well on the way, if not completely, recovered! He is currently in a foster-to-adopt home. His current foster mom reports that he loves to play and, if his foster brother won’t play with him, he’ll throw a ball up in the air and chase it by himself. It’s this “won’t give up” attitude that has seen him through months of repeated medical treatments. We’re holding out high hopes that this precious boy finds his furever home soon! He deserves it.