Photo by Danny Fulgencio
Karen Pigg Simmons walked out of her Sunset Hill house one 100-degree day in July 2018 and saw something moving in her neighbor’s bulky trash pile.
The moving thing blended in with the trash, but she realized it was a dog. With 20 years of rescuing animals under her belt, Simmons looped him with a leash and picked him up.
The dog’s hair was matted filthy. He was covered in fleas and what she thought at the time were chemical burns, so she put him in the bath. After about five washes, the dog still looked terrible. Simmons says her bathtub has never been the same.
She put the call out for help on Facebook, and a friend who works at the SPCA, David Maldonado, answered.
Maldonado contacted Dallas Street Dog Advocates. Their medical coordinator, Relle Austin, came and picked up the dog right away and rushed him to the emergency vet.
It turns out that the dog’s fur was coated in motor oil, which had spilled under the bushes where he was hiding. The dog was severely anemic and malnourished.
“They sheared him like a sheep. His coat came off all in one piece. That’s how skeevy he was,” Simmons says. “At that point you could see how bad off he was. He was skin and bones and completely white. There was no color in his nose even.”
The dog, later named Angus, went to live in a foster home for a couple of months, “so he could decompress and learn how to be a dog,” Simmons says.
The transformation is amazing.
“You wouldn’t know this was the same dog,” Simmons says.
A couple in Lakewood, Robbie and Caroline Edmonstone, adopted him after watching his story on the Dallas Street Dog Advocates’ Instagram account.
The Edmonstones threw him a party with proseco, cupcakes and cupcakes for dogs after his arrival.
“He’s a little survivor,” Caroline Edmonstone says.
Angus and their maltipoo, Wallace, became fast friends.
He is still skittish around new people and has a particular fear of men. But he’s a “love bug” who purrs like a cat when he’s happy.
Angus recently graduated from beginner behavior training at PetSmart and entered the intermediate class.
“He’s still adjusting to life and can’t quite believe he has a good one,” Caroline Edmonstone says. “He just loves the attention.”
Follow Angus on Instagram, @wallaceandangus.
Photo by Danny Fulgencio
