A woman was out driving in Southeast Missouri when she spotted what looked like a wig in the middle of the road. Confused and a little concerned, she slowed down — and soon realized it wasn’t a wig at all.
The lump of hair lying motionless on the road was actually a dog.
The poor dog was in such bad shape that she barely looked like a dog at all, and she was so lucky that the woman realized what she was just in time.
“It made complete sense that she looked like a wig or lump of hair in the middle of the road to the finder and not a dog,” Rochelle Steffen, Founder of Mac’s Mission, told The Dodo. “The woman honked and the dog did not react, so she got out and picked her up, thankfully. Realizing the dog was in such awful shape, she took her with her that morning while trying to find her help.”
The woman was able to get in touch with Mac’s Mission, and they immediately stepped up to take the dog, later named Pear. When Steffen first laid eyes on her, she couldn’t believe it.
“She was a hot mess,” Steffen said. “She was a giant matted ball of fur. She didn’t even seem like she could walk or see. She was missing one eye … She was super calm and was easy to hold and triage, which is not usually the case with these types of rescues.”
Despite the pain she must have been in, Pear seemed to be relieved to finally have help. She’d clearly been left to fend for herself for so long and was just happy to finally be getting the care she deserved.
“It took us a few hours to cut and shave her mats off, bathe her, clean her up and settle her into her space,” Steffen said. “She never made a peep or moved the entire time. She was so sad seeming, or maybe it was happy that she was getting loved on. She snuggled right into my arms after her bath and just laid her head down on my lap and took a deep breath. No telling how long she [had] been in survival mode!”
