It’s likely that Tommy once had an owner who cared for him. At 9 years old, his lifespan is much longer than the average street dog and he was relatively well-fed when he was found.
Despite being left to fend for himself on the streets of Tijuana, Mexico, Tommy was lucky.
One night a trio of women with experience at a spay and neuter clinic were on their way home from volunteering when they came across Tommy (that’s the name the gave him) and another furry friend walking down the middle of the street.
Elaine Seamans, Rebeca Altamirano, and Hilda Torres immediately stopped the car when they noticed Tommy’s strange head tilt, recognizing that the dog was in distress.
Both dogs approached the car at first, but then ran off. The women kept their cool, knowing that dogs in need will often turn around and let people who seem friendly approach them.
Once they were able to get close to Tommy they noticed he also had a large lump under his ear. Torres then wrapped him in a blanket and managed to lift his 50-pound body into the car.
Tommy’s luck didn’t end with being found by animal lovers. One of the women in the car, Elaine Seamans was the founder of the At-Choo Foundation, which provides medical funding for dogs in need. The foundation sponsored the spay and neuter clinic the women had just come from.
They took him into a local vet and found his condition to be worse than imagined. Despite being in bad shape, Tommy was a very sweet patient and didn’t give the vet any trouble.
Seamans told The Dodo:
“He was 50 pounds and we didn’t know what he was going to do, but he was the biggest, sweetest ball of mush,” Seamans said. “The vet was poking him and putting his finger in his ear, and he just sat there and was just the sweetest boy.”
The vet concluded that Tommy had been attacked by another dog, injuring his ear. A resulting infection was eating away at his ear canal, which will require reconstructive surgery to clear out. And to top it off:
“The head tilt comes from the infection eating away at his nerves, and he also had pockets of puss all over his head, face and neck area. Despite all this, Tommy not once growled. He sat on that vet table like he knew things would only get better from that point.”
But don’t worry, Tommy is now on the mend, having received the care that he needed.
The third woman in the car, Rebecca Altamirano will be the one to drive Tommy into the U.S. once he’s all cleared so that he can find a loving home.
It’s amazing to think that someone could give up such a sweet pup, but eventually, Tommy got as lucky as a dog can get when three women with the experience and the means to help him ended up in the right place at the right time.
If you’d like to help the At-Choo Foundation deliver care to street and shelter dogs in Tijuana, you can donate to them on their website.
Tijuana has long had a problem with stray animals. People abandon pets when they can no longer afford to care for them (for example, in 2013 when a spike in the price of dog food led to a sharp increase of strays) and due to unrestricted breeding. Shelters can’t keep up with the demand and often have to reject pets that owners need to surrender.
No one likes to see animals suffer, which is why it’s important to spay or neuter your pets and take all decisions to adopt a new family friend very seriously.
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