Lost

Born around six months ago on a commercial sheep farm, she began life as many lambs do—as an Aussie White, with her breed’s soft, open face, and a mother who would have done her best to love and raise her in the only world she knew. But somewhere along the way, something went terribly wrong. And someone got lost.

A kind-hearted traveller, stranded on a lonely country road when their GPS failed them, noticed a small white figure standing by the roadside. Their navigation may have faltered, but their compassion did not.

And there, Jilly stood.

At first glance it appeared her hind leg was badly broken. With her unnatural gait and tail sharply angled, it would have been easy to assume the worst. Her body had been marked in the blue spray of Extinosad, the telltale treatment for flystrike. The story that followed was one of a suspected dog attack.

With the distance between Jilly and us measured in hours, we reached out to our good friends at J & D’s Sanctuary, who were closer. And then, as serendipity would have it, the farmer arrived.

“Can I take her to rescue?” came the question that quietly changed the trajectory of Jilly’s life. From there she hopscotched her way to sanctuary. When we first met her, two things struck us. Her sweet, almost apologetic face and the absence of the necrotic smell we were bracing ourselves for.

But when we gently cleaned away the faeces-encrusted wool in that space, what we discovered was something different. There were no signs of a fresh attack and no obvious flystrike.

Instead, what we’re seeing now appears to be either a congenital abnormality, her lower spine fused, affecting her ability to defecate, or the healed aftermath of trauma long past.

So what we see today is her tail sitting at a sharp right angle and her little body compensating as best it can. At sanctuary, her spine tells one story while her hunger tells another — Jilly has been stoically struggling for some time.

And now it is our turn to fight for her.

We give a heartfelt shout out to the kind soul who got lost and to J & D’s Sanctuary who stepped in to ensure Jilly was truly found.

Although sometimes getting lost feels frightening and disorienting, it can also place you exactly where kindness is waiting.

Jilly is now in urgent need of veterinary assistance and corrective surgery to give her comfort and dignity in her life ahead. She has endured enough uncertainty for one small being. It is time to set her future bright.

If you would like to help Jilly live her best life here at sanctuary, please consider making a tax-deductible donation towards her life-saving care.