Team members at a remote elephant camp in Botswana were used to seeing their portion of animals injured, but were shocked to see a small dog crawling towards them one day.
Pop should have thought these people could help her, because she is now in love and getting the medical attention she needs.
The Okavango Delta is home to around a thousand species of animals including frogs, baboons, hippos, rhinos, zebras, wild bees, elephants, hyenas, crocodiles, cheeks, lions and wild dogs.
But he is a companion dog who quickly settled into the camp.
“She came crawling – literally crawling, legs completely still – to our research camp,” Susan Vogel told Dodo. “He couldn’t walk, but he was full of love, he was looking for help.”
The team took Poppy under their wing, wondering how far he had come from them, and survived the trip.
“The camp is in a remote area full of elephants, like lions, hyenas and other predators,” Vogel said. “The poppy came to us, exhausted and soaked with rain.”
Better a poor horse than no horse at all. Researchers followed Poppy for a few days, and as soon as he could, Graham McCalloch took him to the vet for an hour.
The vet found that he injured himself as a puppy for about seven months, it’s possible a person or large animal could set foot on him.
She needed corrective surgery, so team member Amanda Stronza created a GoFundMe page to raise money for it.
“The vet said he was less likely to have surgery or recover from it,” Stronza said. “But there was so much life in him, and I knew we had to respect his will to live, the hard fight he had already fought to find us and survive. I couldn’t accept putting him to sleep.”
The vets agreed to give him anti-inflammatory medication, and with that and the right food and water, Poppy grew stronger.
He was even able to straighten his atrophied legs. Every day he showed his rescuers how unique he was.
“His eyes immediately caught our attention,” Stronza said. “They are huge, they beg and they glow with life. He springs from the sweetest soul, and we could see him clearly, despite the desperate situation he was in.”
Poppy will remain on the search team with her temporary family for at least the next month until they decide what to do next: surgery, a more permanent home, etc. Many have already expressed a desire to accept it.
“She already has so many people around the world who love her from afar, they follow her progress every day, they want to see a happy outcome, that is, in a family who loves adoption,” said Stronza said.
“He will regain his ability to walk or have wheels to help him. I think he has a great future.”
