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How a dog starves to death. Please don't read this on a full stomach.
Dogs are tough. They don't die quickly.
Locked in a backyard without food, a dog starts to use up his body fat.
After that, his body starts to diggest muscle tissue.
By three weeks he is desperate to find anything, anything at all to relieve his excrutiating hunger pains.
That's when he starts to eat wood, his own faeces and, if he's locked in with other animals, the flesh of the dead.
From this appetising menu, he picks up severe gastric infections and tape worms in the intestine.
Vomiting and diarrhoea will rid the body of any nutrition the tape worms may miss.
Now severely weakened, he begins to pick up recurrent skin infections.
Some are so virulent that his frantic scratching reduces his skin to a bloody mess. (One vet, seeing a dog in this condition, thought at first it had been stabbed).
It's at this point, with all fat and muscle tissue gone, that his kidneys and liver start to fail.
As unclean blood reaches his brain, he becomes disorientated.
He stumbles and falls over continually.
There is a lot of vomiting.
Just stomach froth and bile now.
With no flesh to warm him his temperature gradually drops.
Despite his confusion, the dog seems to understand what's going to happen.
He finds a quiet place to lie down. And waits.
He will be dead within 24 hours.
(Extraordinarily, even at this point, if he sees his owner, he will still try to lift his head and wag his tail).
Sometimes this agonising process can take a few weeks.
But because most neglectful owners tend to throw their pets the odd scrap of food, it's much more likely to go on for months. Even years.
Happily, Red the boxer, pictured here, was rescued by the RSPCA just a few days before this became his life story.
Hundreds of dogs last year weren't so lucky.
We're sorry you have to read something so distressing.
Our hope is that by writing it, we'll make some people sorry they cause it.
Neglect is cruelty.
(Agentie: Abbott Mead Vickers/ BBDO London
Client: RSPCA)
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