Cora Rose, a 3-year-old poodle, suffered bone infection after the car accident shattered her legs and pelvis.
It’s not where you go, but how you get there. Just ask Cora Rose, a 3-year-old poodle that hops around on her hind legs after losing her front legs in a car crash last winter.
“Losing her two front legs hasn’t starved her of anything,” her owner, Zach Skow, 39, told SWNS. “Of all our dogs, Cora Rose is the happiest.”
Skow, who runs dog rescue Marley’s Mutts with his wife Heather in California, rescued Cora Rose from euthanasia after the accident left her pelvis and legs shattered, and infection had set into the bones.
The Skows put up $10,000 for surgery that would amputate Cora Rose's two front legs and save her life.
“That kind of infection is like cancer for dogs,” Heather said. “One leg at a time needed to be amputated because she would have been under anesthesia for too long if we had done both.”
The tiny poodle took a while to get used to her new stature and originally moved around with the help of a cart. But now, Cora Rose hops like a tiny kangaroo, seemingly unaware that her life was ever any different.
While Skow rescued Cora Rose, he credits his five dogs and other furry friends for helping him get sober and saving his life.
Addiction left his health in poor shape. In 2009, he quickly lost 40 pounds, his skin yellowed, he used a catheter and cirrhosis left him in need of a liver transplant.
“I had fantasized about ways of taking my own life,” Zach explained. “I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I looked like an old man.”
He recalled crying one day and noticing his dogs looking up at him.
“It made me realize that I was still the leader of their pack," he said. "They could still see the man inside."
Zach then dedicated his time to taking care of his dogs, walking them several times a day until he got healthy enough that he no longer needed a liver transplant.
"I never set out to be a dog rescuer, but they saved me," Zach said. "Now we rescue hundreds of dogs a year."
RELATED STORIES
