On a recent tour of the Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital, a group of College of Veterinary Medicine graduate students were given a very special greeting.
Honey was brought out from her kennel in the Canine Rehabilitation Center to say hello.
And what a special hello it was.
Honey ran from grad student to grad student, excited to say hi, wanting to greet each and every one of them.
What makes Honey’s hello so special is how far the puppy has traveled in a short period of time.
On Christmas Eve, Honey was presented to the Hixson-Lied Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care Service suffering from a severe traumatic brain injury after being hit by a car. The five-month-old puppy’s traumatic injuries included multiple facial, orbital, ocular, skull and mandible fractures that were causing bleeding into her brain.
The initial prognosis wasn’t optimistic for Honey.
“I thought she was not going to ever recover from her injuries, but I knew if she didn’t die in the first 24 hours, maybe she could make it,” said Dr. Kamila Correa, the ECC resident on duty that Christmas Eve night.
Complicating matters was that Honey’s owner was unhoused and was in need himself.
“He begged me to save her, so I had to try,” Correa said.
Correa and hundreds of Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital faculty, staff and fourth-year veterinary students have stepped up to make Honey’s recovery a reality. Among the units involved in Honey’s care include orthopedic surgery, anesthesia, canine rehabilitation, internal medicine, ophthalmology, and emergency and critical care services.
And Honey’s owner was cared for as well that Christmas Eve. He was offered food and was taken to a shelter in Des Moines where he lives. Because of the nature and cost of the care needed for Honey’s recovery he surrendered the puppy to Critter Crusaders of Cedar Rapids who immediately began a very successful fundraising campaign.
Honey survived those initial 24 hours, but it wasn’t out of the woods yet. She was unresponsive for several days after her initial surgeries. But with Correa by her side, slowly, but surely, she began to improve.
She received TBI treatments – medications to prevent increased intracranial pressure as well as anti-seizure medicine. She also had treatments for a recumbent dog including a urinary catheter, recumbency care, passive range of motion, IV fluids and tube feeding.
She had to wear a muzzle to stabilize her jaw fractures.
Less than two months after her injury, Honey is a completely different puppy as her greeting to the graduate students indicates.
The muzzle has come off. She is blind in her left eye but the fractures across her skull, sinuses and orbits appear to be stable.
Honey is being fostered by the German Shepherd Dog Rescue in Ames and is still a daily visitor to the Canine Rehabilitation Center. Plans are underway for Honey and her previous owner to meet again.
And Correa continues to see Honey even though she has been discharged from the Hixson-Lied ICU.
“When Honey left the ICU, I was happy and very proud of her,” Correa said. “But I shouldn’t be surprised. She has amazing strength, resilience and a will to live.
“She’s a survivor.”
February 2026
