How Doom Crusher Crushed Doom
Here’s how a whole community came together to turn a stray senior dog’s story around.
With a name like Doom Crusher, you might picture a hulking guard dog in a spiked collar. The real Doom Crusher is a 12-year-old ball of scruffy golden-and-white fluff with dark button eyes and a whiskery little face. She’s about as doom-crushing as a dandelion. But when she came to the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, her world felt a lot more like doom.
Doom Crusher at AWLA after her first few days
It started with a phone call
On May 28, AWLA’s Animal Control team was dispatched after a call about an injured dog at an intersection. They found Doom Crusher hungry, in pain, and unwilling to stand or walk, and brought her back to AWLA, where help was waiting.
Healing, one step at a time
Doom Crusher is blind and deaf, and our veterinary team found much more going on: painful, long-term inflammation in her skin, ears, and eyes, dental disease, and a heart condition that will need ongoing care. A medicated bath, a nail trim, and a good cleaning later, Doom Crusher finally got started on a treatment plan that set her on the path to recovery.
On day one, she lay quietly in her bed and ate cautiously. By day three, she was walking on the grass, eating almost anything put in front of her, and wagging whenever someone said hello. By day five, she was walking out of her kennel and hopping up to put her paws on a staffer’s legs.
It’s amazing what consistency of routine, medical treatment, and a space safe from the elements can do.
Because she couldn’t see or hear, our team paid close attention to her behavior and noticed she seemed to feel most comfortable on one side of the kennel. So, they rearranged her bedding and cleaned around her so she could stay where she felt safest. Little by little, she grew more curious, more outgoing, and happiest around people.
Doom Crusher Crushing Life
Her heart condition is something she’ll live with, but you’d never know it from her spirit.
One sunny day at an AWLA event at a coffee shop in Ballston, a woman from an office upstairs came down to ask if the dog lounging in the sun was Doom Crusher. She’d been following her story online. She drove across town to AWLA to apply to adopt Doom Crusher. What started as a Pawjama Party (short term foster option available for dogs) resulted in an official adoption on September 4, just 3 months after Doom Crusher arrived!
Today, she’s spending the holidays in her new home, where she now goes by Babette and is living her ideal retirement: naps in all of her beds, nibbles of mild cheddar, and outings in her very own stroller. Her heart condition is stable, and she gets lots of compliments on her pretty fur, which is a long way from where she started. Next on her bucket list: a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.
Doom Crusher resting in her new home
This is what community looks like
A passerby who made a call. An Animal Control team that responded. Vet, animal care, and behavior staff and volunteers who met her where she was, day after day. Supporters whose gifts made her specialized care possible. And a neighbor who looked up from her workday, spotted a little dog in the sun, and decided she was family.
It took all of them to get Doom Crusher from that intersection to her new home. From all of us at AWLA, thank you to everyone who makes stories like hers possible, and happy holidays.
