Animal Care Austria stories - Aida, from shelter dog to princess /volunteer

As a lot of you were interested in my volunteer work with Animal Care Austria, I've decided to share here stories of the dogs and my experiences in the shelters, every now and then.
I will donate all profits from these posts to ACA, so every upvote and resteem are basically donations for the shelters.

For my first post, I would like to share the story of my own personal rescue, my little princess Aida.

Aida was discovered during Animal Care Austria’s Care Day in Hungary in August 2016. She was just brought to the shelter, completely covered in dreadlocks & dirt. That matted fur was about 3-4 times her size.

She was terrified. She didn’t walk at all. She didn’t even move. She was carried around by the volunteers from station to station (vet, groomer…). It took more than 1 hour long just to manage to cut all of that she was carrying on her. Under it all- she was tiny!

I was volunteering there that day as a photographer (as always) and the connection I felt to that tiny creature was so strong, that I knew I cannot leave her there. It’s as if Aida was calling me with her sad little eyes, telling me I’m gonna be her mom!

And so it was 😄

1 week later, after her paperwork was arranged and she received all of the basic vet treatments, she arrived to Vienna, to what was supposed to be a “foster” but who were we kidding, of course we could never let her go!!
We don’t know anything about her previous life, we can only guess, but when Aida arrived, this was her state:
She was terrified of the whole world. She was scared of people, she was scared of the outside. The first 24 hours she didn’t even do her business.
Her physical condition was:
She was stumbling around like a puppy, apparently she didn’t really walk for the previous 8 years of her life. Of course not walking for so many years, caused her 2 bad knees which in the beginning the vet thought might require operations.
Her ribcage is slightly deformed do to some accident in her past and she’s missing several good teeth.
She is relatively very small, smaller than any other Havanese we meet (apparently that's her breed, though when I saw her I thought she was a mutt), and we assume that that is due to mal-nutrition during her puppy days, which prevented her from fully growing.
With a lot of love and a lot of patience, Aida learned that life is good and the world can be a pretty awesome place! She learned that people can be kind, that treats can be delicious, that outside is where you meet other cute friends and play and that doing her business outside means leaving all of them messages (which she does every few steps now pretty much 😅😅😅).
She didn’t only learn how to walk, but she’s now running, dancing and playing like crazy! 😄
With a regular walking routine and the right nutrition and suppelments, she built up her musceles which now hold up her knees a bit better and so as for now at least, there is no need for a surgery.
She is healthy and happy and loving life, enjoying every second to the fullest!
We are so grateful, every second of every day, for bringing Aida in to our lives. She is the most loving creature we’ve ever seen and she makes us all so happy with every little thing that she does. She is such a perfect baby, more than we could have ever dreamed of.

Please consider adopting, for in every shelter dog there is a prince or a princess hiding, just like Aida, and you only need love inorder to find them ❤

And a little bit about the importance of Animal Care Austria’s Care Days: during these special days, which are held in different shelters supported by ACA in Hungary and in Serbia, there are volunteer vetrenarians, volunteer groomers and volunteer carers. Every dog and cat in these shelters (some of these shelters have about 200-300 animals), are being checked up by a vet, get immediate medical treatments needed, get spot-ons, being groomed and most of all- being loved by the carers. In such big shelters, it is impossible for the regular workers (usually 2-3 people) to care for so many. Coming in a huge group of volunteers and professionals with all of the medications, is something invaluable to them.

Thank you very much for reading!

http://www.animalcare-austria.at