VIDEO: Ruby Needs Your Help To Get Healthy

Shelters in the Lake County area obtain their dogs and cats from a variety of places.

Placing Paws of Illinois (PPI) was established in 2008 in Lake County in order to save animals who were days away from being euthanized. Many of the rural shelters in Illinois and Indiana are small, overcrowded “kill shelters”  lacking in funds, and have a limit of 10 days to two weeks before they euthanize a stray or surrendered animal.

So, as you can imagine, most of these animals end up dying before they find a loving home. Quite often, the available dogs are large Labs or mixes that were kept outside as pets in these rural farming communities. Many times, they are intact males who wandered away and were never claimed. Sometimes they are female dogs who had litters and became a financial burden for the family.

Rescues such as Placing Paws of Illinois are contacted by fax or email about available pets, and these no-kill shelters organize transport caravans to bring the dogs up to the Chicago area. Recently, Placing Paws rescued a family of Labs.

The oldest of the dogs, Ruby, was used as a breeding dog and severely neglected. Here is what their website says about Ruby:

Ruby, a beautiful 3-4 year old, 65 pound chocolate lab, is where it all started for most of the current labs of Placing Paws.

Despite the extreme neglect that Ruby endured resulting in pain and suffering, she loves everyone. Ruby loves attention and greets everyone with a wagging tail, eager for affection. She is such a sweet and gentle soul, allowing the vet to examine her with never as much as a complaint.

Her time spent outside has left her skin in very poor condition with resulting hair loss and severe infection. She has several masses on her body that are thought to be from the prolonged untreated infection. She will need a chest x-ray to determine the extent of the masses. Several skin scrapes have already been done and she will need more as time goes on.

She has a large mass on her chest that will have to be removed. Her ears are also suffering from severe infection that is currently being treated. When she is healthy enough, she will have to be spayed and then heartworm treated as she tested positive. She is also on several medications and will need special food to help her skin. It is impossible to know how much her bill will be when all is said and done, 
but we do know that it will be a lot. 

To assist in paying her bills, visit Placing Paws of Illinois.

Information compiled by Barbara Cooke.