Dog Named 'Lazarus' Survives Euthanasia Attempt

Photo Credit: AP / Jay ReevesAnimal control officer Wanda Snell knows what she saw: A veterinarian inserted a needle into the black-and-brown mutt and injected a chemical meant to euthanize the dog no one had adopted. The animal moved a bit and was still and quiet by the time she left the shelter for home.

What Snell can’t explain is how or why a mixed-breed dog that nobody wanted recovered overnight and has since bounced back fully from what should have been a lethal injection.

Less than a month later, the dog lives with a family in a suburb of the Alabama city of Birmingham, where the animal romps and plays with another rescue dog. His survival seemed all the more surprising since the same dog already been struck by a car before arriving at the Ozark City Animal Shelter.

A rescue worker who retrieved the roughly 4-year-old male dog after the failed procedure named him “Lazarus” after the man the Bible says Jesus brought back to life. Snell has another name for that escape artist of a dog. “I call him Houdini,” she said.

No one connected with the shelter is exactly sure what happened to prevent Lazarus’ death, and officials declined to release the name of the contract veterinarian who performed the injection.

Read more from this story HERE.