Kabang the hero dog heals, heads home

Veterinarian Anton Lim of the Philippines plays with Kabang, whom he will escort home on Thursday. Veterinarian Anton Lim of the Philippines plays with Kabang, whom he will escort home on Thursday. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Kabang the hero dog heals, heads home 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

Davis --

Veterinarians and caregivers at UC Davis bid farewell Monday to the faceless wonder dog who drew international attention after she leaped on a speeding motorcycle and saved two girls from being run over in the Philippines.

The muzzle-less mongrel named Kabang chewed treats, tossed around a squeaky toy and wagged her tail furiously after she was given a clean bill of health by specialists at the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at UC Davis.

The black and tan shepherd-type dog, whose face now looks more like that of a pug, seemed amazingly jolly after her eight-month ordeal, which included extensive treatment for cancer and heartworm, spaying, vaccinations and the insertion of an identity chip in her shoulder, in addition to surgery to close the grisly wound on her face.

Kabang was released to her Filipino veterinarian, Anton Lim, who will escort her back to the Philippines on Thursday.

"She is still not a pretty dog, but she is a happy dog," said Frank Verstraete, the chief of dentistry and oral surgery at the hospital, explaining their surgical handiwork, which did not include cosmetic reconstruction of the dog's missing upper jaw. "We opted for function and comfort as our primary goal."

Kabang became an international sensation in December 2011 when she reportedly threw herself onto a motorcycle and stopped it from hitting her master's daughter and niece in Zamboanga City. But the motorcycle's spokes sheared off much of the plucky pooch's face.

Word quickly spread throughout the Philippines about the heroics of the skinny mixed-breed known as an aspin, a kind of street dog often scorned in the Philippines, where purebreds are preferred.

Fundraising campaign

News of the "hero dog" soon spread around the world, and a grassroots fundraising campaign to get her the wound-closing surgery started after photographs of her gruesome injury began to circulate.

Kabang was brought to the veterinary hospital in October 2012 after donations from 20 countries poured in, enough to pay for airfare and treatment.

Facebook and Twitter accounts, the website careforkabang.com and pet lovers' blogs were an integral part of the effort, and the money keeps flowing in. To date, more than $20,000 has been raised.

There has been plenty of criticism. Complaints to the hospital and on the Internet objected to the spending of so much money on a single dog when the public could be fighting war, hunger, terrorism and global warming.

Even some of the veterinarians at the hospital were conflicted when they saw the gaping, exposed tissue and nasal cavities, which extended "almost to the point of entering into the brain," said Dr. Boaz Arzi, the surgeon.

"Some of my colleagues said, 'This is beyond repair,' " and that euthanasia would be the most humane approach, Verstraete said.

How she survived in the first place "is something we asked ourselves. The amount of blood loss this dog must have sustained was tremendous, but somehow she did survive."

Arzi said the decision to operate was made by the owner, Rudy Bunggal, who representatives say not only loves Kabang, but believes she was God-sent.

The 57-year-old native Visayan found her as a puppy in a swamp near Zamboanga. The dog and Bunggal's daughter, Dina, 11, and niece, Princess, 3, were soon inseparable.

Sacrificed herself

The consensus is that Kabang, which means "spotted" in the Visayan language, loved the girls so much that she sacrificed herself to save them.

"The decision on where to spend the money is ultimately the owner's," Arzi said. "Ethically and morally, we have to do what we can and be the best that we can be."

As it turned out, Kabang's ghastly wound wasn't her only life-threatening problem. Veterinarians discovered she had heartworm, a parasitic roundworm spread by mosquitoes that can cause congestive heart failure.

A golf ball-size tumor was also found on her vulva, which was diagnosed as an aggressive cancer called progressive venereal tumor. Both ailments are common in tropical and subtropical regions where dogs run loose, veterinarians say.

The four-legged heroine was given six weekly intravenous chemotherapy infusions, antibiotics and three powerful arsenic-based heartworm shots.

Finally, in two surgeries in March, Verstraete and Arzi removed the dog's upper teeth, reconstructed one eyelid, used three skin flaps to close the wound and reconstructed Kabang's nasal openings.

"Essentially, we advanced the lip to close the entire oral cavity," Arzi said. "This was unique in that we did not have an upper jaw at all."

Show-off

The tail-wagging wonder romped around the lawn outside the hospital, subduing a yellow stuffed squeaky dog, scooping up water with her lower jaw, chewing food with her only remaining molars and generally showing off to the assembled newshounds.

"I'm going to miss her," said Dawn Gillette, who runs the para-veterinary service facility where Kabang has been staying since she has been in the United States. "She is a special girl, a real character."

The sure-to-be emotional reunion with her master is expected Sunday, after a stopover in Manila, said Lim.

"I don't think it's an accident that she is alive," said Lim, who thanked the hospital and others responsible for saving Kabang on behalf of the Bunggal family.

"It all happened for a reason and this opportunity is not being lost on us. We're hoping to make Kabang an ambassador for responsible pet ownership."