Before New Tampa, Florida, resident Rebecca Pierce left town for a quick trip last month, she dropped her best buddy — Rat Terrier Wally — off at the veterinarian for a couple of days.
But when Pierce returned home and came back to pick Wally up, she says she was led into one of the veterinary exam rooms. There, they gave her the awful news.
“They brought him in and I saw he couldn’t use his back legs,” Pierce tells FOX News.
Staff at the vet hospital had no clue how Wally had suddenly become paralyzed, but doctors suspect the once-spry little 12-pound Terrier might have a herniated disc in his spine. Pierce says she was absolutely devastated. And poor Wally struggled to get around without the use of two of his legs.
“He looked like a seal,” Pierce says of Wally. “He was using his front paws to get around. He’d either be sitting side-saddle or dragging his legs behind him.”
Pierce says she knew she had to do something to help her best friend. So she went where anyone goes these days when they are looking to solve a problem: the Internet.
And that’s exactly where Pierce got a very bright idea.
“I saw people on YouTube making dog wheelchairs. I thought, he’s still in good spirits. He’s still happy. He’s eating, he’s drinking. I bet I could make one of those!” she explains.
Mission in mind, Pierce scooped up Wally and headed over to the New Tampa Home Depot store, hoping to purchase supplies and come up with a design that would work for Wally.
But when kind-hearted Home Depot employees Debbie Klacynski and Greg Worrell met Pierce and her paralyzed pup, they knew they wanted to do everything they could to help them. So for two hours that afternoon, Klacynski and Worrell worked together to construct a working wheelchair for Wally.
“Rebecca was just really down. It was just, her day was done. This is her dog, all she had. It’s her love,” Worrell remembers. “And anything we could do to make it better, made our experience that much more.”
And when Pierce stepped up to the register to pay, the store manager refused to take her money, instead donating the materials and labor to Wally.
“She’s going to have an incredible amount of bills with this guy,” Klacynski explains. “This was an easy fix for us.”
Touched by the store’s gesture, Pierce took Wally home, where for the past two weeks the Rat terrier has been getting used to his new wheels. Pierce says Wally is doing much better, though his recovery is certainly a slow, difficult process. She’s taking him to a veterinary chiropractor for special treatments that will hopefully help Wally walk on his own again. But in the meantime, Pierce says Wally scoots around just fine, thanks to the kind efforts of the two Home Depot employees.
Source: FOX News, MyFoxChicago
