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Dolly arrived with injuries from an electrocution when climbing on the cables.
Dolly, a lazy two-fingered sloth, attends every week to an acupuncture appointment where they play spa music and she gets to eat her favorite leaves during the treatment.
After six weeks of somewhat unusual therapy, she is recovering movement of her arm, but her hand still needs a bit more help.
“We are seeing progress, and as long as we want to continue, and Dolly is willing to do so too, the specialist said she will continue to donate her time,” said Sam Trull, the co-founder of the Sloth Institute in Manuel Antonio.
Dolly was discovered with large burns on her body after an electrocution with a transformer, but the damage to her arm was not as deep as in other similar cases.
“Basically the options were to amputate a healthy arm, or find a way for the arm to fully function again,” said Trull, who also cares for sloths abandoned by their mothers or injured by dogs.
In about six months, the animal could be released back into the wild if she responds to the acupuncture treatment recommended by Constant Boshoff of the Rafiki center.
Although acupuncture treatments are relatively new with wild animals, it has already been successful in helping a Congo monkey recover from partial paralysis in the Animal Rescue Zooave.
The original article can be found here.
