Meet Tweedy. This poor Shar-Pei was forced to live on the streets of Los Angeles after she was heartlessly abandoned. Someone finally saw her and called for rescue. Hope for Paws wasted no time in rushing to help her out. Train tracks are hazardous for animals, so rescuers wanted to get Tweedy out of there as soon as possible. But they found out that saving her was going to be a lot tougher than they had initially hoped.
When Tweedy saw the rescuers approaching, she started turning away from them. It was obvious that she had been abused at the hands of humans before. She was really anxious when she saw the women. They were only trying to help, but Tweedy was scared out of her wits. They even threw some food her way, but she wasn’t interested in it either.
Tweedy just wouldn’t let the women come near her. But finally, one of them was able to slip a leash around her neck as she tried to run past her. Tweedy started panicking the moment she noticed the leash. She was so frightened that she expected nothing but the worse. When they tried to bring the pooch back to their car, the women saw a small dog house and some food laid out nearby, meaning that someone had been feeding Tweedy.
They had no idea how long the pooch had been down on those train tracks all by herself, but the rescuers were glad that at least one kind person was trying to help her. The alarmed dog even tried to chew through the leash when she got caught, however, she just couldn’t calm herself down.
But when they took her to the vet, she showed a bit of change. Tweedy realized that she was finally in safe hands. “When we got her into the car after the initial uncomfortableness of the rescue, she definitely calmed down and just sat there,” Lisa Arturo, rescuer from Hope for Paws, said. “I wouldn’t say she was my best friend yet, but I was petting her paw and she didn’t move away. She didn’t look at me but she was like, ‘I’ll let her touch me.’”
The vet determined that Tweedy had a broken elbow, fractured teeth, a skin infection and an ear infection. They started treating her, and as her pain started to go away, so did her fear. Tweedy let Arturo pet and love her, however, she still had trouble bonding with anyone else. The pup had a long way for full recovery. “I sat in the kennel with her and over the course of 48 hours I just went really slow, and got her to eat food out of my hand which is a really good step,” Arturo said. “By the third day I was touching her and kissing her, and she was like, ‘Oh, OK, you came to save me.’ I’m so proud of her that she can trust again.”
LA Animal Rescue stepped in and placed Tweedy with a foster family. Initially, she was still scared and confused. Her new family gave her plenty of space and time so that she would seek them on her own when she was ready. They thought she was still a bit nervous because she was having trouble looking at them, but then they realized that there was a problem with her eyes. “Initially I thought she was visually impaired because she wasn’t making eye contact,” Su Roos, Tweedy’s foster mom and a staffer at LA Animal Rescue, said. “We discovered she had entropion in both eyes and was very uncomfortable. Lisa arranged to have her eyes repaired and that really helped Tweedy’s comfort!”
Once her eyes were fixed, she started showing off her true personality. She was finally able to see fully and started doing so much better in her foster home. Tweedy is now ready to be adopted. In the meantime, she will enjoy the company of her foster family. “We are grateful to work with Lisa from Hope for Paws and give these animals a second chance at a life filled with love and kindness,” Roos said.
Check out Tweedy’s rescue video below!
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