TAKA

On October 23, 2018 Taka was in a bad house fire, he was on the back porch when it broke out; the family made it out but they were not able to get to Taka. The floor of the porch burned and Taka fell through and was able to run to a neighbour’s house, he was still smoking when he was found on the doorstep. A veterinary technician, Crystal Lesley, at Care More Animal Hospital was contacted via Facebook and she suggested they bring Taka to her, upon arrival he was in a huge amount of pain and very scared. He was worse off than any dog she had seen in her 20 year career in the veterinary field. Dr. Emily Martin was called and together they were able to sedate him and evaluate his burns. From what they could tell, there was little smoke damage to his lungs, it was just the severe burns to his face and back. It was decided to take him to The University of GA Vet School, 2 hours away. Once he arrived he was admitted but 48 hours later they received a call from one of the doctors saying that he was in too much pain and needed to be euthanized. Looking into Taka's eyes though they knew he had fight left and it was decided he be returned to Care More. At this point Crystal still didn’t know who his family was and a call was put out of Facebook. After a couple of weeks, they made contact and that's where Crystal learned his name and age. He was an 8yrs old Shiba Inu. The family had lost their home and had several small children so were no longer able to care for him. They agreed to sign him over so the medical team could start making the decisions for his care.

On Oct 31, Crystal was taking Taka home every day and she woke and went to check on him. He was not his normal self and started screaming in pain when touched. She rushed him to SC Veterinary Specialists in Columbia SC where he stayed for a total of 6 weeks. By this time the community had rallied behind Taka and donations began pouring in to help him and the reason he was able to stay at the specialists for so long. They worked every day to clean his burns and got him to the point where the original medical team could manage him. Once back they received a phone call from a nurse practitioner at Doctors Hospital Burn Center, a leading center in the city. She offered their services even though they had never worked on a dog before. Taka had a few issues to deal with.

1. his healing caused something called "drawback". His eyes were so badly burned that when they healed he was no longer able to blink
2. he had 2 areas on him that wouldn’t heal

​The burn center said they could help. They talked to 2 of the leading burn specialists at the hospital and they agreed to come help Taka. The date and on that day 17 of the most amazing people came from the Joseph M. Still Burn Center to their little veterinary hospital and performed 2 skin grafts on his non healing areas, and reconstructive surgery on his eye lids so he could blink. They took skin from his neck to create the new eyelids. He had to wear bolsters on his eyes for a month so they would heal properly but he was a terrible patient and hated the bolsters but Crystal persevered and managed to get 2 weeks out of them. When they finally came off he was able to blink again!!

​For the next year, Taka continued to heal not only physically but emotionally too. He had a terrible time with one of Crystal’s other dogs and she was at a loss of what to do so she reached out to trainer Mandy Foster and she agreed to help. After meeting with Taka it was clear to her, he was very so suggested he go forward with getting his Canine Good Citizen certification, which he did with flying colours.

Then was then suggested for him to go into the hospital and see burn patients. He is a very calm dog and it was thought he could bring comfort to other burn victims. With Mandy’s help Taka passed the therapy dog test and all that was left was to submit the papers. He has gone to the burn unit a couple times, but he really didn't like it; understandably it made him nervous and upset so Crystal decided to wait until things settle down with COVID-19 and will get him involved in burn survivor camps and meetings. He is great with meeting new people and he eats up all the attention.

The community has been amazing with their support; without it Taka would not have made it. His personality slowly started to peak and today he is just the goofiest, happiest, thriving little guy ever! Crystal can't imagine life without him.