Dog Covered in Tar Rescued After 9 Hours of Non-Stop Cleaning: ‘She Was Born Again’

Illustration - Getty Images

A dog thrown in a tar pit and left for dead in the suburb of Libertad, Argentina, was luckily rescued in time after other stray dogs cautioned the residents by barking out loud.

The dog, named Aloe by her rescuers, would not have made it through this ordeal if her furry pack mates hadn’t raised the alarm with their anxious barks, alerting the local children in the month of February 2020.

The kids reached out to their parents, who then called on the local firefighter company, Bomberos Voluntarios de Libertad (Volunteer Firefighters of Libertad). After the firefighters posted a call on Facebook for assistance with the dog’s rescue, the animal advocacy organization Proyecto 4 Patas (Four Legs Project), based in the nearby capital Buenos Aires, stepped in to help.

“What we found when we arrived was a heartbreaking scene,” the rescuers wrote on Facebook. “Aloe was totally petrified and stuck to the ground. 100% of her body was hardened because of the tar: her eyes, her mouth, her ears, everything.”

“We were all very shocked,” the team noted in their social media post, “we had never been in front of an animal in those conditions, but it was time to focus and put all our will and love to get her out of that nightmare as soon as possible.”

Everyone realized the gravity of the situation. The people of the neighborhood did their part by bringing in liters of oil to help with cleaning. Together with the help of neighbors and firefighters, the Proyecto 4 Patas’s team spent nine “uninterrupted hours” to rescue the poor canine by breaking up the eight volunteers into teams to work through the night removing the sticky tar.

The daunting task involved rubbing Aloe’s fur with a total of 50 liters of cooking oil to painstakingly remove the layers of tar that had nearly killed the dog. Given that the tar was solidifying, the team had limited time to act, which made the rescue effort “exhausting and restless.”

No sooner had they removed one layer, than another revealed itself underneath. By dint of sheer will to save Aloe, however, they gradually found the adorable dog hidden behind the black gunk.

“Each layer that we managed to clean brought us closer to discovering her as she really was,” the team wrote, “and the emotion grew between us.”

After a long night spent with Aloe, the team affirmed that it was “the day of her second birth.” “[T]here is no doubt that she was born again,” they wrote.

Speaking to Bored Panda, Proyecto 4 Patas said, “When we were cleaning her, we were so afraid that she could die at any time, but after the first bath, she seems to relax so much.” They credit this to Aloe’s intuition that they “were trying to help her.”

“After we finished, we thought that she would be exhausted and let her sleep,” the spokesperson added, “but no, all she wanted was to stay near us and cuddle. Aloe has truly reborn that night.”

By the next day, Aloe had definitely begun to seize her second chance at life. They said that Aloe “loves eating absolutely everything,” and she follows them around all day.

The association isn’t letting the miracle dog go until they can be sure she has fully bounced back.

“Right now we are focusing on getting her healthy, she is really thin,“ the spokesperson said. ”Eventually, we will be looking for her forever family.”

The motto of Proyecto 4 Patas is “when the will exists, there are a thousand resources” and this certainly seemed to be true when it came to Aloe. The team is hopeful that Aloe will have “a great life” ahead.

“[Aloe] deserves it,” the spokesperson told Bored Panda, “just like all the dogs in the world.”