**October 28th**

Six days ago we rescued Kibo. He was one of the most emaciated dogs to come through our gates. An older boy, approximately 13 years old, he was only days away from lying down in the filthy garden he lived in and never getting up. But he held on and 6 days ago, thanks to some wonderful builders who didnt ignore him, he found his long awaited freedom.

Kibo was a walking skeleton when he arrived with his Patterdale friend, Koa, and thanks to the amazing dedication, kindness and love of our hard working kennel team Kibo is slowly gaining weight and strength but, most of all, he is gaining his life back.

Kibo weighed just 15kg with a body score in the minus and 5 days later he weighed 19.10 kg proving that it was the sheer lack of food, cruelty and neglect that nearly took his life. We have been absolutely blown away by the kindness and generosity shown to Kibo from people all over the world.
Your donations, gifts, comments and even anger but, also, your love we cannot thank you all enough.

We hope this update brings you some joy and hope and warms your hearts as you have warmed ours with your continued support.

**Oct 24th**
We received a call from builders who were working on a empty house in Ballinasloe. While fixing windows upstairs they could hear a dog whimpering and as they looked out and into the garden next door, they were shocked and rang us. Two of our team headed down and what they saw broke their hearts. This boy was emaciated. How he was still alive or even standing was beyond comprehension. There was no way our team was leaving that estate without him. They gained access to the house he was in by getting the occupants reluctantly to open their door. Their excuses we heard fell on deaf ears and our team only had one thing on their minds and that was to remove the dog from these conditions and away from those who had allowed this boy to nearly die in front of their very eyes and did nothing.


Back to our sanctuary we could see the fleas running along his protruding bones and he was so weak he could only stand for a minute at a time but he was interested in us. We could see that he had an inner strength that was probably the only reason he was still alive. We named him "Kibo", which means Hope, because we are adamant that from now on in that is all this dear old boy will have.
His little female Patterdale, now named Koa, which means brave.
Both went straight to our vets for bloods to eliminate any underlying illnesses on Kibo and his frail body was given a full check over. His diagnosis - Starvation.

Old, frail, a little deaf and a little short sighted meant any food that was thrown out into that filthy area he and the other dogs were expected to live in (and we would say it was very little and infrequently) went straight to the others.

Kibo is being carefully monitored and being fed 5 very small feeds a day. He sleeps a lot and getting up from his bed is slow but already we are seeing a difference. A little more pep to him, his head is up and his ears alert. We are sure there is a brighter light in his eyes. He was a victim of the most ruthless neglect and cruelty because they saw it every day and ignored it. They left him sitting in his own faeces, waiting till his body could no longer take the pain. Against all odds and, only because somebody saw him, ( a massive thank you to our caller) and didn't look away is Kibo here with us today. Another few days and nobody would have known that he had existed.

Kibo will blossom, we are sure of that. After years and years of abuse, he deserves only the best.

In compliance with DAFM legislation, the GalwaySPCA unique certificate number is GPT200022C.