His journey to recovery has started but it’s not yet clear just how far he will make it.
Now named Rupert Valentine, the Whippet was rescued by Sarah Wright the Assistant Dog Warden in Co Armagh on Tuesday.
She removed him from a farm where he had been closed in a trailer after straying onto the property weeks earlier.
But it is thought he has probably spent time in a home where he has been house trained, groomed and loved before he found himself in this crisis.
He was taken into care on Tuesday, his body barely hanging together, skin over jutted bone, covered in cuts, grazes and fleas and his coat thick with flea excrement, he was still compliant and gentle and accepted Sarah's help.
And today he has been named Rupert Valentine by Sarah and Hayley Doak who runs the husky charity where he is in rehab although sadly it is just too early to say if he will survive.
Hayley who runs rescue and rehabilitation charity Tyrone Husky Rescue took Rupert home after popping into the Armagh dog pound to see Sarah.
She said: “Sarah was so distressed. She showed me this wee pet and I knew I had to take him home. Sarah said she had seen thin and starving dogs before but not one this skinny and still alive.
“Just when you think things can't get any worse, they do. How anyone could leave an obviously starving dog in this state is beyond comprehension.
“If you know people are not caring for their dogs or you know of a dog that’s mistreated or neglected then please try and get help.
“Call a vet, call the dog warden, animal welfare, call someone in rescue and let them know there's an animal in need. Please do not walk away, please don’t close them in a shed and leave them there without care or support. They may not be your dog but they’re a living, breathing being and they need help.
“In this case Sarah got to him just after Valentine’s Day and she him tucked into a lovely cosy quilt and gave him a tiny bit of food and water.
"A dog pound is not a place of great comfort and Sarah wanted to get him seen by a vet and then somehow squeezed into a rescue centre. But most places are filled to the seams with dogs in need.
“The moment I saw him, I just felt the tears coming and Sarah and I just sat with him and touched him gently and I knew I had to take him home to try to recover.
“I took him straight to my vet at Parkland Vets In Dungannon where he was given flea and worm treatment, checked for dehydration and he was allowed to come home with me with instructions on careful feeding.
“I thought because he’d been rescued around Valentine’s Day I could call him Valentine and then I thought Rupert would be a fine name too so now he has both.”
He is feeding on two tablespoons of food and water at a time so he is not sick or his system overburdened and feeds are separated by long sleeps.
On Tuesday night Rupert slept in a crate with Hayley close by monitoring him regularly.
Hayley explained: “To be honest I was afraid he’d die in the night because his organs have worked so hard to keep his body going with no fuel going in. He had tiny amounts of food and then he slept and at 3am he started barking. He had messed in the crate and so I cleaned it and put him back in and he settled but as soon as I left the room he started crying.
“Every time I came back in he stopped and every time I left he started again, so I got my bedding and lay on the tiles beside his crate and put my hand in through the bars and held his paw and he slept for a few more hours.
“I eventually I fell asleep and woke at 6.30 in a panic as he hadn’t moved an inch and I put my hand in to feel if he was breathing but he was cold and didn’t flinch. I thought the worst because he was cold and looked lifeless. But I felt his neck and it was warmer and then he tried to lift his wee head to let me know he was OK.
“He is exhausted and sleeping a lot and he'd quiet but he’s not closed down. I think he has a fighting spirit in him and I feel he wants to live, which is a big part of the battle he is facing now.
“He’s not chipped, he has no distinguishing marks on his body or coat, he has no collar and nothing to identify him so we don’t know if he has been stolen or abandoned or lost.
"But I can see that he's house trained, he has also had his dew claws clipped at some stage and he wanted his bed cleaned when he messed in it. So I have a feeling he has lived in a home and been looked after at one stage because these are not the signs we see in most abandoned or farmed dogs.
“We think he is about a year to a year and a half old and I think if he was in a family before now, they probably wouldn’t recognise him yet. He needs to get some weight on him first I think.
“I’ve made a promise to him to do everything I can to help him keep going until he is well enough to be adopted unless a family comes forward. The rest is up to him and we just have to wait. In these circumstances anything can happen, any complication can make matters worse.
“Today’s big job is to have him bathed with soothing washes and start to make him feel better on the outside so he can get better on the inside too.
“I believe he has been without care for months and he has been without food for weeks.
“But life has started over for this little dog with the big name, we just hope it’s a long one and that he’ll forget the horrors he has been through and forgive this world that has people in who allowed him to starve.”
If you would like to help Hayley's efforts with Rupert Valentine you can donate through PayPal using the email Tyronehusky@outlook.com
