UPDATE: Apparently a friend of a friend saw Duke lying on the highway at 4pm!!! So that means he was knocked down even earlier (who knows what time), and was baked in the sun, and then drenched in the heavy rain, before we rescued him at about 7.30pm... ugh humans are the worse creatures on the face of this planet!
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24/08/15 Nicole Lee Suresh and I have had a long week, with our rescued kittens and cats. And we were on the way home after a long day after we had dropped off a stray puppy that we had rescued earlier in the day for boarding.
As fate would have it, I ignored Waze's instructions to take a particular route and decided to take the DUKE as I was more familiar with that route, and lo and behold we spotted this boy lying by the side of the road. We would have not noticed him if he did not move, but thankfully he did.
It was raining and traffic was heavy, but we managed to stop the car safely. And of course, thankfully we had everything that we needed to get him - leashes, a muzzle, a thick towel, some dog food and a medium sized crate.
When we approached him, our heart broke. We do not know how long he was lying there in the rain and in pain. He looked at us mournfully and we knew we had to take him. We put out some food for him but he didn't want it. So we tried to leash him and he let us do it easily. He even let us put the muzzle on easily. And thankfully we had a muzzle because when we tried to move him he screamed in pain and tried to bite us. We knew then that something was hurting him very badly.
We wrapped him up in the towel and carried him into the crate. And put him in the car. We tried calling a few vets but we were sorely disappointed as all of them just said that they were closed. We tried one of the hospitals as well but they said they would only call the vet once we arrived - eventhough we told them that we would go there right away. On the one hand we understand why they do this, but on the other hand it means that there would be a delay of at least another hour after we arrived, and traffic was absolutely hideous last night.
Finally, we called our regular vet. We knew he closed at 6pm, and it was already 7.30pm when we picked up Duke. He immediately asked what was the condition of the dog, and after I explained, he told us to bring him to the clinic immediately and that he will be waiting for us. We should have just called him from the start, but he's an aging vet and we knew that he would already be exhausted by this time so that was why we tried other clinics and hospitals.
We finally arrived at 8.30pm and my vet was there waiting as promised. After a thorough examination, we suspect that Duke has at least a fracture on his left hind leg, and some trauma on his right hind leg. There was also quite a few lacerations on his body and the insides of his legs. As Duke was obviously in distress and in shock, our vet gave him a pain-killer jab, a shot of antibiotics and another shot for liver and kidney support. He also took blood to check his organ functions before he is sedated for x-rays and possible surgery. We are so grateful that our vet is so dedicated and committed to the welfare of the furry ones...
We are pretty certain that Duke belongs to someone as he was clean, had no ticks, well clipped nails and was actually very sweet and even affectionate.
We will keep everyone updated on Duke's progress but in the mean time, please share this with all your friends, as his owner's might be looking for him.