Small pup suffered in silence from ‘worst embedded collar’ Ohio shelter has seen
Bojangles, a 3-year-old dog weighing about 15 pounds, had been chained outside for so long that half the collar was embedded deeply into his neck and nearly invisible to the naked eye, an Ohio shelter said in a Dec. 20 Facebook post.
“Slowly, the chain grew into his FLESH and half of the chain completely disappeared UNDER his skin, becoming part of his body,” the Jefferson County Humane Society in Wintersville said. “Can you imagine the shocking intense pain he must have suffered EVERY time that chain was moved, or anytime he tried to move further away from his tether?!”
The shelter’s development manager, Brandi DeNoon-Damewood, told McClatchy News that she had never seen anything like Bojangles’ wound before.
“Honestly, I have seen numerous embedded collars over my many years of rescue, but this is by far the worst, deepest, and with largest amount of the collar completely embedded,” she said. “He was imprisoned in the most dreadful way!”
The shelter said that Bojangles’ animal cruelty case is an open investigation that’s pending prosecution, so not much can be said about how he ended up in the horrific situation.
Because the pup could barely move with such an open wound, he became a “sitting duck” for predators around him, the shelter said.
“I imagine that he suffered through infections since he was exposed to the elements 24/7,” DeNoon-Damewood said. “In the summer, it was likely covered in maggots and flies.”
DeNoon-Damewood and the shelter knew while the case was dire and that a wound like Bojangles’ would be hard to recover from, the young pup wanted to live.
“Our Humane Agent who rescued him said that Bojangles looked up at him with those big beautiful eyes filled with heartache and pain and in that instant his rigid body relaxed as if he knew his voice was finally heard - which is also something he simply couldn’t (bear) ... the pain to bark,” the shelter continued in the Facebook post. “Every time he moved his mouth, or turned his head (it) caused his neck to seep and ooze. So, I can only imagine that he didn’t move around much at all and was forced to live a silent life.”
Bojangles has been through two surgeries and has to be put under for staff to clean his wound since it’s still extremely painful. The path to recovery is going to be “very long and dangerous” due to the size of the wound, the shelter said.
For more information on Bojangles and how to help, visit the shelter’s website.
Wintersville is about a 140-drive northeast of Columbus.
This story was originally published December 23, 2024 at 11:11 AM with the headline "Small pup suffered in silence from ‘worst embedded collar’ Ohio shelter has seen."