An animal shelter in the United Kingdom has rescued a puppy born with six legs and other anomalies.
Greenacres Rescue at the Ebbs Acres Farm in Pembrokeshire shared on Facebook that a female spaniel puppy with six legs was “handed in to a local veterinary practice” on Sept. 27 after she was found abandoned in the parking lot at the Pembroke Dock location of the B&M home improvement and garden store chain.
Urging the owner or anyone with information about the animal to come forward, the rescue said that, in the meantime, they would “begin a diagnosis and treatment plan with our vets.”
“We are hoping she can live a normal life, if her tests prove favorable,” the rescue noted.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(517x0:519x2):format(webp)/Ariel-100723-13-a25e52923514431b9d56de58599161a7.jpg)
Greenacres wrote in an update on Facebook the following day that “internally [the dog] is normal” and “her organs are all as they should be.”
“We have no idea why she would be born with a defect,” Greenacres’ Mikey Lawlor told Newsweek. “Never seen this before.”
Lawlor added that the shelter named the puppy Ariel after The Little Mermaid character because her “extra legs look like a tail.”
The rescue shared the vets’ assessment of Ariel on Facebook, which states that she “has two additional back legs and the beginnings of an additional vulva. Her pelvis hasn’t formed properly due to the extra hip joint.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(479x0:481x2):format(webp)/Ariel-100723-2-41c87df6998747e1a19a8622bc637526.jpg)
The rescue said the vets will evaluate Ariel again in a month “with the aim of removing the additional limbs and exploring the function of her remaining leg.”
“There is a possibility she may lose one of her own legs due to the structure of the additional limbs and pelvis, but time will tell,” the shelter wrote. “For now, we can relax and just let her be a pup. She has a long road of surgery and recovery ahead, but we are confident we can ‘get her right,’ and that’s all that matters.”
“The extra appendages do not impede her ability to move, although because they are on her pelvis they will cause damage over time,” Lawlor said, per Newsweek.
As of Thursday, Ariel “has settled into her foster home wonderfully, and we are now looking at starting her vaccinations,” the shelter wrote on Facebook.