Earlier this month, at a high school in South Gate, California, a staff member noticed something strange in the campus parking lot. Among the discarded items from end-of-year cleaning, they saw the pile move and then a mop-like creature emerged and dashed away.
The matted, dirty pup covered in debris fled from the staff member in fear and hid out of reach. Upon seeing her condition for the first time and unsure of how long she had been living in the trash pile, the staff member was instantly determined to rescue her.
“You would have never known she was there,” Suzette Hall, founder of Logan’s Legacy 29 dog rescue, wrote on Facebook. “Thank God she popped her head up, and a wonderful worker at the school noticed her.”
When Hall got the call about a skittish dog in a garbage mound at the school, she and volunteers rushed to the scene. They surrounded the trash pile with baby gates and tried to lure the scared pup out.
“She was buried under one of the old couches,” Hall wrote. “It took time, but … there she came and popped her little head out.”
Before long, the dog, later named Patsy, crawled out of the trash pile and allowed the rescuers to slip a snare leash around her neck.
“This sweet baby was eager for safety, love, and to be out of the trash,” Hall wrote.
The rescuers captured Patsy in Hall’s humane dog trap and took her to Camino Pet Hospital for a full evaluation. They were saddened to find numerous discarded items trapped in her matted fur, indicating she had been living in the trash for some time.
“The trash pile was furniture, bins, old light fixtures and piled so high,” Hall wrote. “[The] poor baby had Velcro buried under her fur in every part of her.”
Patsy’s new caregivers at the hospital decided to shave away as much of her hair as possible, and she soon looked like a completely different dog.
After her makeover, vets assessed Patsy’s health. She was dehydrated with irritated skin, but her conditions were treatable.
A few days post-rescue, Patsy is feeling much better with IV fluids and continuous care from the vet team. Hall looks forward to finding her a forever home once she’s fully recovered, marveling at the gem she rescued from a garbage mound.
“We have definitely found a treasure in the trash,” Hall wrote on Facebook. “We love you, Patsy.”
