SURVIVER

"Gabriel" was picked up from the street on April 3rd of 2000 he arrived to our shelter in a box with a strong odor of decomposition. Under his tail were wounds that were dripping of blood and pus. The reason for this was he was paralyzed from the waist down and was dragging him self. This poor animal didn't have not one tooth and could only see through one eye. When we picked him up we noticed that he was also malnutrition but we figured it was from his sickness. When we approached him with some food he devoured it. After suffering so much we realized this little animal wanted to live and we should give him that chance.

We decided to keep him with us for his full recovery, this is were the healing begins. As we started to bath him and remove the clumped hair we noticed he had been tortured with cigarette burns, profound cuts around his legs and someone took a hole puncher to his ears. He would not respond to any kind of affection and would panic when anyone with high heels would come close to him. His healing process to a very long time, but when his wounds finally cleared up one of our volunteers Mr. Rudy Alvarez built him a wheel chair so that he could walk again.

For no apparent reason his chair started to malfunction. We had no explanation for this but the muscles on his highn legs were regaining their strength, God was truly creating a miracle. In July with tears in our eye for the first time we saw "Gabriel" try and give his first steps. From that day on every volunteer put forth any kind of effort they could to help him walk.

Today Gabriel can walk with a little bit of difficulty and clime stairs. Even though his back was arched from not walking for many years. This is one survivor that can tell his story through us. Thousands just like him die on the road from hunger, tortures, and in the hands of cruel human beings.

Our duty is not to just report these crimes but also but to stop them from happening