ASPCA Success Story of the Week: Sweeter Than Honey
While out for a Saturday drive with her two dogs, Janice Ledbetter of Livingston, TN, spotted a young Rottweiler on the side of a busy highway. The canine had scars on her face and appeared to be starving and crippled in one leg. Remembers Janice, “I took my dogs home and immediately brought the Rottweiler some food.”
Janice approached cautiously, but very quickly relaxed—the pooch came right over, allowing herself to be hugged. “Now I am a grown woman, a mother and a grandmother,” Janice says, “but I stood right there on the side of the highway and cried just thinking about what this dog must have endured.” She instinctively named the pooch Honey.
When Janice returned to her car to get her phone, Honey—hungry as she was—ignored the food, followed Janice and tried her best to crawl into the back seat. “Seeing how much she savored that little bit of human interaction,” remembers Janice, “I gave her a boost into my car and took her home.”
A visit to the vet revealed that Honey was about a year old and severely underweight. In addition, one leg was broken.
“I started her on puppy chow and wet food and medication from the vet,” says Janice. Three months later, Honey weighs over 90 pounds and bounces through the house. “She and her best friend, my black Lab, Josie, tire themselves out wrestling together,” says Janice, happily. And Honey’s never met a human she didn't like. “She wags her stubby little tail at anyone who comes in the door.”
But there’s one human who comes before all others. “Honey rests in the shower while I brush my teeth and sleeps under my bed at night," says Janice. "She's become my shadow. I have no doubt she’d give her life for me without hesitating.”
ASPCA: Adopt: Success Stories