We, at Dog Rescue Newcastle are dedicated to rescuing dogs from death row at pounds and giving them a second chance to find loving homes. We can’t save them all but we can save a few when we foster carers available.

Elly is a tiny Shih Tzu, approximately 6 years old. She spent two weeks in a pound in the middle of winter, in a concrete enclosure with no heating or bedding. She shared her cage with several other small dogs and there were only two trampoline style beds for all of them. Being very timid and frightened, she must have spent all her time cowering in a corner on the cold ground.

After we rescued Elly from the pound, her vet check revealed that she needed surgery to repair the kneecaps on both of her back legs. Poor Elly must have been in pain all her life. This could be one reason why she is so timid. We also don’t know if she has been mistreated. We couldn’t let this dear little girl suffer any longer so we put her on pain medication and scheduled her surgery for as soon as possible. Her surgery will cost our group approximately $1,000. So we need to do fundraising to try to cover this cost.

Elly had the first of two operations on 26/7/10. She will need to heal for 8 weeks and then, if all is going well, she can have her second knee fixed. She is a very frightened little dog who must have had a hard life up until now. She is just beginning to come out of her shell a little. She wags the tip of her tail when her kind and gentle foster carer approaches, but then she hides her face and cowers again.

We believe that in time she will learn to trust people. We have seen other rescue dogs that come into care very frightened dogs then blossom into happy, trusting dogs when they are shown kindness. We expect Elly to make a full recovery from both her operations and to be available for adoption toward the end of November.

In the mean time, we need to raise the $1000 needed to pay for her veterinary care. If you can make a small donation, please go to the Dog Rescue Newcastle home page http://www.dogrescuenewcastle.com.au/ and click on the “Donate” button to donate securely using your credit card, bank account, or Paypal. Alternatively, you can make a direct deposit to our Newcastle Permanent bank account BSB: 650 000, Account: 986245302. Please include “Elly” as a reference. You could also shop at Petitude online pet store and enter coupon code 4ELLY on the last page of the check out process and Petitude will donate 15% of whatever you spend to Elly.

You can see more photos and video of Elly at http://tinyurl.com/dogsnew and can keep track of her progress by joining our Facebook group http://tinyurl.com/dogsface.

Thank you very, very much from all of us at Dog Rescue Newcastle and Elly.