Heart-breaking before and after pictures show the incredible recovery of a dog who was set on fire and beaten in the face with a slab of wood.
When rescuers found Bruce the bull-lurcher wandering the streets of a sleepy village on the outskirts of Carlisle dazed, battered and near death, they thought he wouldn’t make it. The emaciated dog had been dumped days before by vicious attackers, whose beatings left him with a deep hole in the top of his skull, burns around his tail and puncture wounds in the side of his face.
Rescuers rushed him to the vets where an MRI scan revealed that Bruce’s skull was shattered and he couldn’t open his jaw. He underwent life-changing surgery to remove an eye, repair his fractured skull and treat an infection caused by suspected splinters from wood used to beat him, which also had a nail sticking out.
While Bruce was being treated at the surgery, vet Marie Coleman fell in love with the ‘special’ dog and decided to adopt him permanently.
She said he has settled into her home well and has recovered brilliantly.
Ms Coleman said: ‘He loves home life. His wounds have healed very well. You can hardly see his scar at the top of his head.
‘He lost all of his hair on his bottom from being burnt and all the way down the inside of his legs, which has healed up beautifully.
‘He is so special. Bruce is 100 per cent happy in life and he’s made our lives 100 per cent better.’
Bruce now enjoys the simple pleasures of curling up on the sofa with the vet’s young son, George, and long walks in the countryside.
‘I fell in love with him because he has the sweetest temperament and never grumbled when he was being treated even though he was in terrible pain,’ said Ms Coleman.
RSPCA Inspector Sam Morris said when Bruce was found on August 30, 2018, he was ‘gobsmacked’ at the horrific state the dog had been left in.
He said: ‘I’ve worked for the RSPCA for 10 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that awful.
‘We know Bruce had been in that condition for a number of days before he got the vet treatment he needed.
‘The pain that he must have been in is unimaginable. He was losing the will to carry on.’
‘You really question what kind of person could do this. Vets said the side of his face had been caved in and described the damage to his skull as dramatic.
‘Bruce is a fighter. As soon as he woke up from the surgery his tail was wagging!’
The miraculous tale will feature on the new series of The Dog Rescuers, which kickstarts tonight on Channel 5.
In the first episode, presenter Alan Davies says it is a ‘miracle’ Bruce survived and recovered from his ordeal.
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