The vet looks at his paws and screams “Wait” (Video)

The pup was small, only 10 weeks old. She was old enough to be weaned, but she was clearly unwanted. She’d been abandoned, left in a box on the beach with some food in a too-small attempt at kindness from her former owners. That wasn’t her biggest issue, though. The biggest issue was that she could not walk. She kept lying on her stomach, her legs splayed out in four different directions. When a kind stranger spotted her and brought her into the shelter, staff was told that her back was crushed. Despite her puppy joy, she was suffering from flattened organs and it wasn’t clear just what was wrong with her.

On the brink of putting her to sleep, they decided to get another opinion and took the wiggly pup to a specialist. The vet recognized the symptoms and diagnosed the shepherd puppy with Swimmer’s Syndrome. Swimmer’s is a condition that can be treated, but it would take months of physical therapy for the pup — appropriately named Starfish — before she would be able to walk again. Fortunately she had a team of caring people around her, including the family in San Francisco that decided to adopt her.

A new opportunity!

“She responded to everything that they taught her, because she wanted it so bad.” Physical therapist teams worked with her to stretch her muscles, exercise her legs, and train her legs to be under her rather than at her side. Starfish had plenty of puppy energy and enthusiasm and made a great recovery. “All we had to do was to get her feet up underneath her,” said Gray. “And as soon as we got her onto the grass, and she had a little something to hold onto, she’d just — she’d follow us anywhere.” Gray wrote that “In decades of practice, our vets have never seen the transformation of a dog like what Starfish would show us over the next two months of physical therapy.” Watch the video, it’s almost impossible not to be touched when you see how she is doing today!