10/10/2025
In March of 2021, I received a message about a dead dog inside a fancy gated community; the lady said when she came closer she noticed the dog was alive, but something was not right.
Immediately, I put a crate and a trap in my car and went to her. I got there and I could see from far away a body laying under a tree. I thought she finally died and I was too late...but to my disbelief, she was barely breathing.
I softly called her and she opened her eyes and tried to wag her tail. The ticks on her were just unreal...it wasn't until I flipped her ears when the vision hit me hard...the ticks were draining the little blood left in her. I ran back to the car for the crate because there was no way she could stand to go in the trap.
Gently I lifted her and we left.
The ticks started to crawl all over my car, my hair, my legs...it was a nightmare!
I called the vets and explained to them she needed help, but because of the infestation of ticks, they refused to admit her at their clinics. One after another, we got rejected. I called one last vet and by then I was just a mess, hysterically crying and angry at everybody, that this time they told me to bring her to the parking lot and they will draw blood, but she couldn’t come inside. They told me to take her to the refuge to clean her and bring her back...I was on my own now. How was I going to manage to remove all those ticks...thousands of them - thousands!!
Alone, I spent 5 hours in the tub with her, pulling every single tick with my bare hands. The blood drops soon made it look like a crime had taken place in my tub...it was a pool of blood, smelling grotesque.
She stood there in silence, staring at me with her sad eyes while I could hear her labored breathing, lacking air.
My fingers were totally numb and I was in so much pain with cramps from pulling ticks. When she was finally cleaned, I drove her back to the clinic so this time they could assist her properly inside.
I drove one of my healthy dogs to donate her blood for Tikka. Tikka was severely anemic. While her gums were white, her tongue was blue. She had an acute case of Heartworm to complicate everything for her.
She received 3 blood transfusions and remained on fluids and antibiotics...but the reaction to the antibiotics caused her to swell so bad that she was moved to another clinic, with more severe complications than when she arrived.
It was a hard road that we walked together. She survived, even when at times I thought that she would not be leaving the clinic alive.
After a few months, the sweet little girl boarded a flight to the States, where my rescue partners helped her and found her this beautiful home.
Last year, while I was following treatment in NY after the dog attack that left me handicapped, Tikka (Sophie)’s mom brought her to the park to see her again.
What a joy to be able to hug her and caress her again and see how beautiful her life was and how much she was loved. It meant everything to me. My little girl found her best human and I was so happy for her.
How she ended up there, dying inside the gated community, only God knows...but I was told she laid there for days and probably wagged her tail at everybody, begging them to help her. But everybody was blind and deaf to her needs.
Thank you, Second Chance Rescue NYC Dogs, for helping my Tikka.
Million thanks to Re Kleinbard, for taking my baby home. You could have picked another from the hundreds, but you chose her! It had to be her and nobody else. ❀ Thank you so much! ❀
