A D.ying Puppy Rescued From The Side Of The Road Makes Amazing Recovery At A Chimp Sanctuary

Animal rescuer Jenny Desmond is used to coming across animals that are in dire need of love and care. The compassionate animal lover along with her husband are the owner/operators of the Liberia Chimpanzee Rescue and Protection Sanctuary, where the couple attends to the roughly 35 chimpanzees in their care at any given time.

So, a few years ago in 2016 at the beginning of the year, when Jenny and her husband were presented with the opportunity to save the life of a puppy who was already dying, they jumped at the chance to try and help!

The kindhearted animal rescuer had been taking a ride with some of her staff through the village neighboring Jenny’s sanctuary and suddenly noticed a small puppy. The poor baby was clearly malnourished, with huge patches of skin exposing sores all over his little body where his fur should be.

The sanctuary owner knew that she was going to have to act fast if she wanted to save this poor, suffering puppy.

Knowing that the tiny puppy’s life now depended on her next move, Jenny loaded him up into the car and raced against time to get him home to her husband, Jimmy, who not only owns and helps run the chimp sanctuary alongside his wife but is also a practiced veterinarian.

Jimmy’s trained eye told him what Jenny had been praying against; the tiny puppy had been starving so long that his body began to digest its own muscle mass.

After Jimmy was done washing the puppy’s wounds and getting him to take some food and water, Jenny gave the helpless little guy a name; Snafu.

Over the course of the next seven days, Snafu began regaining more and more of his strength and the rescuers even started seeing some of his fur beginning to fill in the empty patches.

“His hair is starting to kind of look more normal. He didn’t even look like he had fur or hair. There used to be big chunks of skin and there’s not that much of it anymore. Every day it looks like he’s getting better, but as with most animals we rescue there’s a day when it seems like they’re taking a turn,” Jenny describes the puppy’s precarious state in the video below.

After the puppy had regained the better part of his health back, Jenny and Jimmy decided it was time for Snafu to meet the chimpanzees at the sanctuary.

When the chimpanzees laid eyes on Snafu, it was instant love for everyone! The chimps, coming from a rough and abusive background themselves, instinctively knew that the puppy needed to be treated with the utmost care, as he was still recovering from his rough life on the streets.

Then the chimps did the sweetest thing; they gently picked the puppy up and held him close as they walked him down the stairs into the sanctuary.

Snafu spent the next year growing and healing at the sanctuary with the chimps that were so devoted to him. The small puppy had now become a healthy, energetic dog and was a full-fledged member of the family, both with the chimps and his humans.

With as much as Jenny and Jimmy need to travel, though, the couple didn’t want Snafu to go without the love and affection the sweet dog deserved to be showered in.

To make sure he got the attention he needed, Jenny asked her sister if she would be open to adopting the dog and soon found herself on a flight to Colorado in December 2017.

While Snafu had a rough start, it seems the dog was destined to be lucky in love, because when he met Jenny’s sister the two were instantly bonded. There was no question that Snafu was going to the right person.

Once Jenny had seen Snafu safely to his new forever home, she made the long trip back to her sanctuary in Liberia to get back to caring for her chimps.

Always taking on orphaned chimps whenever the need arises, Jenny came across another primate that needed her and Jimmy’s help earlier this year, rescuing her from a life of neglect, locked in a cage. Now, under the sanctuary’s care, the chimp is already beginning to thrive.

It seems there is nothing that Jenny wouldn’t do to help all of the animals in her life, chimp, puppy, or otherwise!

To see more of Snafu’s amazing life story, watch the video below, and if you would like to play a part in making Jenny and Jimmy’s sanctuary thrive, you can make donations here.