There are many people who consider dogs as their own children, but there are also some people who treat these kind animals very badly.
Cala, a guard dog of a mechanic in San Jose, Costa Rica, is one of those unlucky puppies. Her owner kept her chained up on a chain so short that she had no way of resting her head and could barely breathe. When she was sick the owner wouldn’t take her to the vet and rarely fed her. Fortunately for Cala, her suffering had a positive end.
Neighbors were concerned when they saw her living conditions, so they alerted the police as well as the Territorio de Zaguates animal shelter. When she was finally rescued, Cala had to be treated for emaciation, wounds, and malnutrition.
“The picture I first saw of her showed a pitiful creature robbed of its dignity and ready to give up — a dog whose spirit had been broken and was just waiting for the end to come while living a never-ending nightmare.” Lya Battle, the founder of Territorio de Zaguates said.
She described the healing process as a slow one, “the humans around her still had to cause her pain through the curing of her wounds, especially the gash in her neck caused by years of hanging from a tight metal chain around her neck.”
Even after she was rescued, Cala still suffered more abuse at the hands of humans. In June, people snuck into the sanctuary in an attempt to kill some of the dogs with poison sausages.
While 16 of the dogs died, this tenacious pup survived. Battle said this was probably in part due to her size and although she suffered some neurological problems Cala’s health returned.
Now, Cala is living with a loving family and has learned to get along with humans and new dogs.
“After years of neglect, torture, and imprisonment, Cala seems to be getting all the puppy misbehaving process out of her system and we all think that’s just fine. She is happy, strong, willful, a bit stubborn, and spoiled by her foster mom and family,” said Battle, adding, “This rescue is an epic battle of good against bad and of hate against love, and in the end, as it always does, love wins.
