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Rescued after suffering a brutal dog attack.
Honey is an adult female two-fingered sloth who was brought to Alturas Wildlife Rescue after she was found injured and barely moving following a brutal dog attack. Our vet teams quickly got to work to help her recover from the shock of the attack as well as tend to her wounds. The first night was touch and go. We weren’t sure if she would make it. She was very lethargic and not wanting to eat. We cleaned all of her wounds and started her on medications like antibiotics to prevent infection from the dog bites (dog mouths are very dirty and dog bites are notorious for getting badly infected) and two different kinds of pain meds.
A Survivor!
Luckily, the next morning she was still alive and maintaining her own body temperature – a good sign that she didn’t have any internal organ damage. Often, dog attacks are so severe that they can lead to permanent organ damage, a trauma that is almost impossible for a sloth to recover from. This second day she also started to show signs of an interest in eating. First she drank a small amount of Pedialyte as drops were placed slowly on her tongue. Shortly after, she regained enough strength to chew and began to taste the yummy leaves we had offered.
Surviving the first 48 hours is always the most important in determining a prognosis for a sloth that has suffered sever trauma. This is because it takes about 48 hours for the body’s cells to finish responding to injury and at that point we can know the full extent of the damage. Lucky for Honey, she not only survived the first 48 hours but she surpassed them!
However, she wasn’t out of the woods yet. After a few days we saw her improving but her dog bites weren’t healing as expected and started to show signs of puss. This meant that the antibiotics we chose weren’t enough to tackle the bacteria that was attacking her. We had to start a second antibiotic and one that would work well in combination with the other antibiotic. Luckily, that plus the surgical installment of a drain into her deepest wounds to allow affective flushing, worked and Honey truly began to heal!
Once her infected wounds were under control, Honey was on the fast track to release. We started to take her outside to get her proper exercise so that her muscles would be ready for their life back out in the wild.
Successful Release 🙂
We are so happy to report that after a few months of medical treatment and physical therapy, Honey was ready to return to her home – in the jungle! She was released in a National Park near the area where she was found so that she hopefully never encounters another dog or any other human related dangers.
If you want to help more sloths live the lives they were meant to have in the rainforest, just like Honey, you can Adopt-A-Sloth and 100% of your donation goes right back into our life saving programs.
