One pleasant, early summer Saturday, Anaan Akila decided to take his dog, Chief, a pedigree Doberman puppy of five months of age, for a walk on the beach. Chief, full of curiosity, who was tied in the back of a truck, noticed a cat standing on the sidewalk adjoining the road and jumped out at the cat, while the truck was moving. Anaan, concerned by the noise of the impact as well as the loud cries, immediately stopped the truck and discovered that his dog was bleeding, his bones were crushed and a deep wound exposed his flesh.
Anaan rushed Chief to the Society’s clinic, where it was decided to operate immediately. During long, and complicated orthopedic surgery the vets tended Chief’s crushed bones and he was compelled to stay in the Society for many weeks to undergo rehabilitation and medical observation. Anaan was told that it was difficult to assess to what extent Chief could be rehabilitated but that it was likely that he would limp for the rest of his life.
Anaan went home that night consumed with thoughts of the terrible events of the day, and after much deliberation, decided that he was not capable of leaving Chief and that his dog’s fate was inseparable from his own. Despite being advised by his friends to abandon the dog, Anaan came to the Society every day to visit Chief and to take him for walks. According to Anaan, he became more attached to Chief, whom he had received from a neighbor who wished to abandon him when he was only two months old.
This week Chief was able to go home, and according to Anaan, Chief’s joy and happiness is contagious, affecting everyone who sees him, and that he can even manage to cope with the steps up to his home.
