Four-month-old Labrador-cross puppy Anderson Cooper is rail thin.
His hips and spine poke out on his honey-coloured coat, and each little rib and vertebra could be counted.
But he’s looked worse.
Two weeks ago, he was nearly dead.
“It’s just so great to see him being like a normal puppy because all he had the strength to do was lay in a heap two weeks ago,” says Jan Carroll, a North Burnaby resident who helped nurse the pup back to life. “He can stand and walk and he’s curious and he’s following people around.”
Carroll, co-founder of The Journey Home Dog Rescue, says Anderson Cooper, along with his mom and sister, was discovered 14 days ago in an abandoned farm building in Matsqui.
“Either the mom was a stray that just found her way in there or somebody dumped them,” Carroll says. “We have no way of knowing. I think she was looking for a warm place to keep her puppies safe away from predators.”
The people who came across the dogs got in touch with Carroll the same day.
They had already found a home for the mom but didn’t know what to do with the pups, who were in rough shape.
“The puppies were completely emaciated, just skeletons,” Carroll says.
After a visit to the vet, she brought them to her home and placed them in a nest beside her bed.
But Anderson Cooper’s sister didn’t make it through the night.
“In the morning, I found him laying over her body,” Carroll says.
Terrified that he too would die, Carroll bundled Anderson Cooper up and brought him into her own bed.
“He was very weak,” she says. “He looked really scary. I didn’t sleep for several nights because I thought he was going to die too, and I was so afraid he would die alone.”
Over the next few days, she syringed water and electrolytes into his mouth and offered him a couple teaspoons of food every two hours.
“At first he was eating and then he was throwing it all up, but now he can keep it down,” Carroll says. “Now he eats pretty close to an acceptable ration for a puppy his age.”
Since then, Anderson Cooper has gained a full pound and is well enough to stay in a Journey Home foster home with volunteer Jessica Perez.
“He’s got youth on his side, so that’s good,” Carroll says. “I think he’s going to survive and thrive and make a great family dog.”
As for the pup’s name, Carroll says he just looks like the famous American talk-show host and news anchor.
“He’s the most serious puppy; he’s so serious,” she says.
Carroll has volunteered with different dog rescues in Hope, Mission and Aldergrove, for 10 years.
In July 2014, she and North Vancouver resident Terri-Lynn Switzer started their own organization closer to home.
“We both live in the city, and so we wanted to have the dogs close to where we live and to have a cluster of foster homes close to where we live,” she says. “We try and stay in a physical proximity so that it’s convenient for people to go in and meet the dogs, so we work mostly in the city.”
Over the last year, their fledgling organization has helped save 30 dogs.
For more information, visit thejourneyhomedogrescue.ca.
