I found Custer one Thursday morning in early April, 2011. Totally emaciated, his muscles seriously deteriorated, he was almost entirely bald save for his head and the ruff of his neck. His exposed skin was covered in mange and open sores, his eyes sunken from dehydration, his hind legs bowing from malnutrition. He was standing motionless in the fierce sun, no longer even having the strength to move out of the sun and into the shade.
The vet said he was mostly fine, but riddled with worm. He reckoned it would take six weeks to a year to be clear. He was declared worm-free in five. He had been owned, and abandoned, as he did not need to be house trained. He had also been abused while on the street. At first, Custer was very suspicious of people – myself included – approaching him, and froze when he saw someone holding a stick.
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I later found out, talking to people in the neighbourhood, that several had fed him in the period between his abandonment and my picking him up. I also found out that he had tried to join several local packs of street dogs, but they had all rejected him. He did have one friend, though, a dog belonging to a house several doors down, and it was outside that house that I had found him.
Some people have said I must be compassionate to have taken him in. I’m not, especially, and I know it wasn’t that. The overriding feeling I had that day was anger that a dog could be allowed to get into this state in the middle of a residential area. But dog walkers talk to each other, and I discovered over the following few months that a lot of owned dogs in the area are rescue dogs, picked up off the street.
And 10 years later, in April 2021:
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