Dog Hit by Car Then Survives Euthanasia

Worker finds 'Lazarus' walking around morning after injection like 'it's nothing'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 6, 2014 1:47 PM CDT
Dog Hit by Car Then Survives Euthanasia
Lazarus, a mixed-breed dog who survived a car accident and a euthanasia attempt, sits in the sun at his new home in Helena, Ala., on Oct. 1, 2014.   (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

One rescue worker has dubbed him "Lazarus," while another calls him "Houdini." But a mixed-breed dog who now bounds happily around the yard in a suburb of Birmingham, Ala., has escaped death not once, but twice, the AP reports. Lazarus (what he's officially being called) was dropped off at the Ozark City Animal Shelter on Aug. 19 by his owner, who reportedly was moving. The dog was in bad shape after being hit by a car and no one wanted to adopt him, so he was scheduled to be put down. Here's where it gets biblical: A vet administered Lazarus' supposedly fatal injection on Sept. 10 and called it a night. A worker who witnessed the procedure says Lazarus did "[move] a bit when injected, almost as if fighting the drug," but that he then appeared to succumb.

When the worker came in the next day, however, Lazarus was hanging out in an outside pen. While the shelter isn't officially saying why the injection didn't take, a volunteer has her own theory: "His body overcame and he had a will to live and somehow, some way he made it through," she tells the AP; another vet who had nothing to do with the procedure says the drug dosage could have been wrong or the injection didn't make its way to the proper vein. Lazarus, who has since been adopted, is still wearing a cast on a leg hurt when he was hit by the car and taking meds for heartworms but otherwise seems happy. "He's not skittish, he's not afraid of anything, anybody," his new owner says. "I mean, it's just amazing what all he has been through." (This Rottweiler also seemed to come back from the dead.)

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