Hope's Recovery Makes 'Our Hearts Soar'

Editor's Note: For those of you who haven't been following the story of Hope, you've missed a lot. About 10 days ago someone driving by saw a dog struggling to walk in Branford. She took the dog to the Dan Csogrove Animal Shelter and staff called it one of the worst cases of animal cruelty they had ever seen.

Staff said the dog was starved and was a day or two away from death. Over the past 10 days, shelter staff have cared for the dog around the clock and named it Hope. Over the past week, Hope has begun to make some progress in her recovery and the news continues to get better.

BRANFORD, CT — Shared by the Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter on Facebook:

Hi Everyone,

Here is the Hope update for today!

Today was a really really good day for Hope. As a matter of fact I was visiting with Hope and brought her out to my car to get something for her and she jumped in the car and then all around in the car. She was curious, she was wagging her tail and she just looked like a dog that wanted to go for a car ride. That made my heart smile and brought happy tears to my eyes.

Hope still has quite the road to recover but we have to say that today made our hearts soar. We still need to follow her blood work closely to ensure her liver and kidney values stabilize. She is still eating small amounts of food every few hours and she is drinking water nicely now. We are still cautiously optimistic for a full recovery of Hope, but today was a much more positive step towards that.

We are once again so grateful to all of you for caring so much about her. It truly is amazing how Hope brought people from all over the world together to unite for the recovery of this beautiful girl. We are very thankful to all of you!

Because our original post last night came off our Facebook, We would like to ask everyone who posts about Hope a favor again: Would you mind posting what Town, State or even Country you are from? We have had many amazing people email, call and post and people have been asking where all of the messages are coming from. We do know that people from Australia, the UK, Hawaii, California, Georgia, Massachusetts and Chicago have been following Hope (and of course Connecticut). We are going to make a map and color in all of the places where people have reached out from. Once we are finished we will frame it and keep it besides Hope

We will continue to say that we believe all of your prayers and good wishes have helped Hope through this. We are also so Thankful again to all of the amazing vets, vet techs and staff members that have dedicated so much time and love towards Hope. Both the medical and emotional support is what has allowed Hope to progress to the point that she is at.

We know people are still asking how they can donate: Donations can be made at branfordanimalshelter.org and then click on donate. Or you can mail donations to DCAS 749 East Main St Branford,CT 06405.