An Anna Maria resident stepped up to adopt the rescue of an 8-week-old pit bull mix found Nov. 30 nearly frozen, dehydrated, emaciated and hairless at the side of the road in Palmetto.
Hal Badger of Anna Maria has adopted the abandoned puppy, according to Julie Royal of Royal Pet Rescue, a nonprofit rescue organization that averages about 30 cats and dogs in need of foster and adoptive parents.
Manatee County Animal Services in Palmetto received the puppy in a cage from a man who said he had found it on the side of the road. A staff member then called Royal, who picked up the suffering puppy.
“He’s doing well in day five — getting his mojo back,” Royal said.
She immediately took him to the veterinarian, gave him subcutaneous fluids, and now food. She also said she’s rubbing lotion on him daily because his skin is so tough — “like a rhino.”
In addition to her rescue work, Royal is the president of SunCoast Real Estate at the Island Shopping Center, 5402 Marina Drive, Holmes Beach, next to The Islander.
Rhino visited the newspaper office Dec. 1, when Hal Badger stopped by on another matter and happened to see the hairless puppy resting in a kennel.
Badger bent over and asked why the puppy was at the office, then immediately said, “I’ll help with his medical bills. I’ll pay the vet. In fact, I need another dog and I’ll adopt him. I want to take him home.”
Rescue organizer Royal called it a miracle. She had only brought the puppy to the newspaper office about a half hour earlier, asking for help to monitor his care.
“Everything about this is a miracle,” said Bonner Joy, publisher of The Islander, of the rescue story. Badger only happened to stop by the office, and the puppy was at the office for the first time.
Royal added that when first found, Rhino’s temperature was only 96. “We didn’t know if he was going to live.”
“I was obviously shocked with his condition and took him straight to the vet,” she said, adding that he had open sores and was so thin that his ribs, collar bone and hip bone stuck out from his body.
Island Animal Clinic, 5343 Gulf Drive, Holmes Beach, advised Royal that the puppy’s skin condition is a type of “mange,” and that Rhino also had hook worms and a staph infection, and provided treatment.
Rhino already is improving — “for the first two days it was touch and go when he couldn’t get up at all,” Royal said. He is now looking for shoe laces to chew and other puppy-like mischief to make.
Badger said he looks forward to taking Rhino home after the puppy makes it “out of the woods.”
The next step for Rhino will be vaccinations, neuter service and a microchip — and an introduction to his forever home with Badger Dec. 16.