When you’re out driving, enjoying the country roads the last thing you expect to see is a 10 week old puppy wandering around without anyone near him.
That’s what happened to Liz Heatherly as she was driving down the road in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. At first she didn’t know what it was, but as she got closer she knew she had to do something.
The pup wasn’t just alone, he was in bad condition. Whoever abandoned him, didn’t want him to live because he had his mouth zip-tied shut. If Heatherly hadn’t found him, he wouldn’t have made it.
She, along with her mom and sister, parked the car and went back to try and gather the puppy. At first he was skittish and was hard to pin him down. Heatherly told The Dodo:
“Once we walked back to the spot where we had seen him, he ran from us into a drainage ditch that was about 6 feet down.
We had to slide on our bottoms to get down and my sister pulled us back up with a spare leash we had in the car.”
They immediately took the zip tie off and rushed him off to the nearby veterinarian.
After being looked at by Dr. Bryant Phillips, the poor puppy was dehydrated, malnourished and had intestinal parasites that needed to be taken care of. Dr. Phillips thought that the pup had spent two or three days with the zip tie around his mouth.
Look at him! Who could ever do such a thing to those puppy eyes?!
Heatherly and her family couldn’t let go of the pup who they eventually named Norman (great dog name by the way). They weren’t sure about how their other rescue dog, Jackson, would deal with a new dog in the family. But it’s safe to say she didn’t worry long…
Heatherly went on to say:
“I’ll never forget this, but when I walked in the backyard and Norman whined in my arms, Jackson jumped up to lick him and let him know it was going to be OK. Jackson loves Norman and it makes my heart so full looking at them playing together.”
It took a little bit, but threw hard work Norman eventually began to trust people once again.
“He’s so resilient. He took a horrible situation and he didn’t let it get him down. I honestly thought Norman would have trust issues or be afraid to let people touch around his mouth, but he has none of those issues. He is a leaping bundle of black fur that I wouldn’t trade for anything!”
As for Norman’s beauty marks? It’s been a few weeks since his rescue and he’s showing signs of healing. Norman is once again proving people wrong as he is bouncing back from a traumatic injury.
Heatherly concluded:
“Norman is our little miracle and I wouldn’t change him for the world.”
