“To be honest, she was always out of her shell.”
Charlotte Hailey, volunteer at Mission Paws’ible dog rescue, was walking around Bali a few years ago when a stray dog with a serious skin condition caught her attention. The dog was covered in painful-looking, splotchy red sores and wounds — it was clear she needed help.
“The moment I saw her, I was just shocked at how bad her skin was,” Hailey told The Dodo.
Even though the dog was clearly sick, she surprised Hailey by trusting her right away. She came right up to her and ate a treat out of her hand.
“You could tell from her tail that she was just the sweetest little dog,” Hailey said.
The dog’s friendliness led Hailey to believe that she’d once had a family who’d abandoned her, likely because of her skin condition.
As much as Hailey wanted to immediately save the dog, she didn’t have any of her rescue supplies with her and didn’t want to hurt the dog by picking her up. So she left with a plan to come back as soon as possible to rescue the sick pup.
But when she returned, the dog was nowhere to be found.
Distraught, she asked around the area if anyone had seen the dog, and thankfully, a man told her he knew where she usually slept. Hailey gave the man a dog cage, and he promised to trap the pup the next time he saw her.
In no time at all, the man was able to trap the dog. Hailey transported her to the rescue, where they named the dog Delilah. Delilah made fast friends with each of the rescue’s volunteers, wagging her tail right into their hearts.
With some medicine and some TLC, Delilah’s sores began to heal and her fur began to grow back. Within months, she was unrecognizable.
Delilah stayed with a foster until a woman named Amelia fell in love with the sweet dog and decided to take her home. It didn’t take long for Delilah to love Amelia back — in fact, it happened instantly.
“When she came to me, she got out of the car and immediately started wagging her tail,” Amelia told The Dodo. “To be honest, she was always out of her shell.”
Delilah was only 8 months old when she was rescued and had likely spent several of those months sick. But once she was safe in her forever home, she finally got to enjoy being as carefree and playful as a puppy.
Now, her favorite thing to do is go to the beach, where she can go on long walks and play in the surf. The circumstances she was rescued from are nothing more than a distant memory.
