Susanna Baird
Mar 23, 2011 – 12:01 PM
A bleating truck alarm led a Boston woman back to her dog, who was believed lost or perished after a Feb. 23 fire but was actually surviving inside the burned-out house.
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| When Terisa Acevedo’s house burned down, it wasn’t the loss of her belongings that broke her heart – it was the loss of her one year old Dachshund, Lola. Acevedo was sure that Lola had either burned to death in the fire, or had escaped and was wandering, lost, in her Hyde Park, Massachusetts neighborhood. In the freezing cold February weather, that would have been a death sentence for a little dog like Lola. |
EMT and college student Terisa Acevedo, 24, wasn't at home in her Hyde Park duplex when a electrical short circuit started a two-alarm fire, but her 1-year-old long-haired dachshund, Lola, was.
The two-family home was destroyed and Lola was missing.
"The police had sniffing dogs come and go through the house," Acevedo told The Boston Globe. "There were no signs of her at all."
Acevedo papered the neighborhood with fliers and contacted animal shelters, but heard no news, good or bad, until Monday night, nearly a month after the fire.
"Yesterday, late evening, my neighbors were complaining about the truck alarm going off," she told the Globe. Acevedo has been living with family since the fire, and drove with friends back to her now-condemned home.
"I stood on the porch just to look at my house and say, 'I can't believe I lost everything,' just so sad about it, and I just heard something scratching at the door and it was Lola, so we tore down the door," she said.
Once substantial, Lola was skinny after spending 27 days in an ash-filled hovel, but she sustained no visible injuries and was happy to see Acevedo.
"Her tail was wagging. She jumped on me," Acevedo told the Boston Herald. "I was crying, and I just didn't want to let go."
The staff at Boston's Angell Animal Medical Center found that Lola was several pounds too light, but also discovered food in her stomach, indicating she had eaten recently, perhaps finding her way to cat food in the other side of the duplex. After ruling out smoke damage to Lola's lungs, a three-pronged team of emergency and critical-care specialists, internists and nutritionists is now assessing how best to start Lola back on food.
"She's currently being treated for what's called re-feeding syndrome," Brian Adams, medical center spokesman, told AOL News. Because Lola was nearly starving for a month, her body can't handle a full-on reintroduction of food.
"Lola received her first meal to begin her new feeding regimen late this morning. She is currently being provided with 16 grams of wet food, equivalent to one teaspoon, every six hours as her body once again becomes accustomed to nourishment," Adams said.
If subsequent feedings go well, Acevedo could take Lola to her temporary home Thursday.
Adams said Lola's story marks her as a plucky, and lucky, survivor.
"For a dog, what we usually see is that dogs can survive several days without water. They can survive several weeks without food as long as they have water. For Lola to have survived nearly four weeks without a regular source of food and water is amazing," he said.
"The miraculous part is that Terisa never gave up, Lola never gave up and through this rare occurrence of the car alarm going off and hearing some scratches, they were reunited. It was really an amazing story," he said.
Source: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/23/plucky-dachshund-lola-survives-one-month-in-charred-house/
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