It's Gia Vision.

I was found living on the street, and so I was brought to Chicago Animal Care and Control just like any stray would’ve been. The pound is not a great place for dogs, even though they try as hard as they can. If you’re not on the adoption floor (and it is really hard to get onto the adoption floor), you don’t really get much attention. Maybe someone from a shelter will come and look at you, and you get fed a few times a day and your run cleaned, but that’s it, really.

Luckily and unfortunately, I was able to live in the quieter medical unit. Both of my front legs were broken, I was covered in open wounds, and I was so emaciated you could feel my spin and ribs. I don’t really remember what happened to me. Maybe a dog bite, maybe hit by a car, maybe both.That’s what they think, anyways.

One of my front legs was covered in a cast and the other required surgery. I could kind of walk… my casted leg dragged on the floor, and the other was so weak it could hardly hold me up. Just walking a few feet winded me.

I was happy, though, that I found the strength to make it down the hall of the medical unit. Had I not, who knows what would have happened to me. I don’t know if I would have ever made it to the adoption floor, and who would want to rescue a gimpy German Shepherd that needed a ton of medical care?

Well, the Chicago Canine Rescue did.

I was greeted by four guests. They gave me some stuffed toys, a bone, and pet me. I rolled over on my back, happy for the attention because as much as the medical unit workers loved me, they had a lot of other sick dogs to tend to.

I left that afternoon with the shelter workers from CCR. They brought me to their vet, who removed the old, smelly cast that was on my leg and treated my wounds. I was given antibiotics to help the infection in my leg and pain killers, which the pound had not given me. Not only was my one leg badly broken, but my elbow refused to stay in it’s socket. So, they sent me to Indiana to see a specialist; they didn’t care that the specialist was 3 hours away. They just wanted me to get better.

He performed surgery, and when that didn’t work, my front, left leg had to be amputated.

While it’s a bit weird to hobble on three legs, I’m managing. I have a comfy place to sleep, I’m fed a ton of tasty food, and I’m loved. What more could a dog ask for?

It has been a very long, painful, lonely road. I’m so happy that despite all of the smaller, fluffier, healthier dogs that they could have rescued from the pound, the Chicago Canine Rescue decided to save me because they knew that no one else would.

(This is me before my amputation. I look good in blue, right?)