Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS): Emergency Medical Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Funds helped cover the cost of emergency medical care for Barley, a shelter dog in our care.
Thanks to the Petfinder Foundation, Barley is happy, healthy, and loved in her adoptive home! After her hospitalization, Barley continued to make a smooth recovery and is now in stable health.
How many pets did this grant help?
1
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Barley came to PAWS as a seemingly straightforward medical case similar to many of the pets we save: She was found as a stray with an injured front leg, brought to Philadelphia’s animal-control shelter, and needed diagnostics and care beyond their resources. As that shelter’s largest lifesaving partner, PAWS was called upon to transfer her in. We rescued her, x-rayed her leg to rule out a fracture, and scheduled her for a routine spay. Halfway through her spay surgery, her situation turned critical: Barley’s blood wasn’t coagulating properly, and she was hemorrhaging into her abdomen.
Our vet staff worked for hours to stabilize her, but it became clear that she needed emergency intervention to survive, so we rushed her to Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center, a longtime partner of PAWS. After an additional surgery, 48 hours of round-the-clock care, and multiple plasma transfusions to give her body what it needed to clot, Barley pulled through. She was diagnosed as having an unknown blood-clotting disorder and was soon stable enough to begin recuperating in a foster home.
Although she’s been recovering steadily, Barley recently hit another roadblock when her injured leg took a turn for the worse. Her original medical plan included exploratory leg surgery, which had to be pushed back after her emergency. But when she stopped eating and stopped bearing weight on her leg, the risk of waiting became too great. Our veterinary staff operated immediately and discovered a rubber band wrapped around her leg bone that was so deeply embedded, her skin had completely healed over it.
In foster care, Barley had a continued journey of healing as we learned more about her coagulative disorder and possible long-term effects of her leg injury. Once she was ready for adoption, we listed her on Petfinder and she soon found a loving home with adopter Francis.
Francis says: “Thank you so much for introducing me to Barley and letting me bring her home. I’ve never received so many puppy kisses! Made her a fancy dinner and now it’s time to get her acclimated. Thank you for introducing us! You have no idea how much this has changed my life.”
We announced Barley’s adoption, with tagged recognition to Petfinder Foundation, on Facebook and Instagram.
