Rescuers were greeted by a heartbreaking scene when they answered an urgent call from a Good Samaritan who witnessed a puppy being abandoned in a crate. The man had thought the people were dumping old tires in a lot next to his but when he went over he was shocked to find an emaciated Pit Bull puppy covered in maggots.
The puppy was in such a pitiful state it broke the hearts of Donna and Natalie from Stray Rescue of St. Louis when they saw her.
“We arrived and were horrified,” Stray Rescue wrote of what they found. “This little puppy was too weak to stand – emaciated and in her own filth – covered in maggots. They were all over her, eating her alive – on her head, her chest, her armpits, and between all of her toes.”
“I told her she’s love…It’s about to make me cry,” the man says to Donna in the video. “In Jesus’ name, live,” he prays to the puppy. They decided to name the puppy Prayer because she so desperately needed them. And as they carried her back to the car, they noticed how skinny she was and that she was rasping.
Donna and Natalie rushed Prayer to their clinic where they cleaned the maggots and eggs off of her and began to administer medical care. Her skin had been macerated “due to being in feces and urine for so long” and the rescuers noted that “This was the worst abuse we have seen in a long time.”
Although Prayer drank some water her first day she wouldn’t eat until the following day. Prayer ate a special “recovery soup” much to the rescuers’ relief and delight. But she was still in critical condition as her sodium levels were off the charts because she was so severely dehydrated.
