Are you Responsible?
I am writing this to both experienced and inexperienced rescue workers as a life lesson in rescue work with domestic animals.
Some of you have been at this for many years, and others are just starting out… I’m not preaching, but be prepared…
Take heed of the following story, so that if you are serious about doing rescue work, please take my maxim straight to heart and LIVE IT.
POINT IN CASE:
This was the email message/s originally received to try and find a home for 2 dogs…just the normal type of request that we receive on a daily basis.
“Please please could you help, either for yourselves or pass on, these friends also from Rhodesia. They need to move and can’t take their dogs with them, really lovely ,I think both are youngsters. Thanks so much for doing that, I think you’re a star!!! Please let us have the telephone no’s. for the German Shepherd club & I think you mentioned another number where we can try for our doggies. We only have 2 weeks left!!!!”
2 Unsterilised female German Shepherds desperately needed homes (with a time limit). Owner had considered euthanasia because he didn’t want to be parted from them!
We offered to take both dogs in as a home had been identified for the younger dog, and the other had a foster home to go to. We were concerned as both female dogs were unsterilized and on offer ‘free to a good home’, so I got the mail out of circulation as quickly as possible.
The people duly delivered the 2 dogs to our sanctuary vet as arranged, as both dogs were scheduled for sterilisation/vaccination & de-worming early this week. (neither dog had been vaccinated since puppies!!!) Both dogs arrived matted and not in a great condition. Neither dog wanted to eat either.
When we saw the older dog (touted as 6 years old – I don’t think so!) More like 9 or 10 years, she was sporting a belly like a barrel, the vet immediately noticed something was wrong, dog presented with white gums, very anaemic, couldn’t breath properly due to pressure on the lungs from several litres of water in the dogs stomach! Dog was diagnosed with Liver and Spleen cancer. As can be seen in Pic # 2 – post mortem – water issuing forth from abdomen, virtually no blood!
I immediately contacted the former owners and asked them how long this dog had walked around like this, they claimed they’d been away on holiday for 2 weeks, but I said that this had not happened overnight, they thought the dog was constipated!!!
Younger dog (approx. 1 year old) already had pyometria (cancer of the uterus), fortunately we are able to save her.
If this email had just been fwded, fwded, fwded (as is our tendency) and someone had adopted one or both dogs, the consequences could have been shocking.
The older dog, who was sadly euthanized, would have probably died in agony of a ruptured spleen, a terrible death. I don’t think her natural end was too far off either.
The younger dog, if not sterilised (consequences for all concerned) would have died of pyometria or would have had to have been euthanized if the condition had not been attended to.
MY ADVICE IS AS FOLLOWS:
1. If you are going to do rehoming, GET THE DOG TO A VET PRIOR TO THE REHOMING. There is not point in rehoming a dog that is SICK AND MAY DIE A HIDEOUS DEATH FOR THE LACK OF A VETS CHECK UP.
2. Dogs that are rehomed as a direct result of the Animails directly from owner to a new home without home check, vaccinations, sterilisation and deworming via a Homer are AT RISK FROM MANY QUARTERS. The above example is just one of them – THERE ARE WORSE CONSEQUENCES THAN DEATH!
3. STOP forwarding emails without taking steps to ensure the animal’s welfare – you are knowingly ABDICATING YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!
This is why the New Animails and the Hopeful Network have been set up- to PREVENT THIS KIND OF THING HAPPENING.
Sadly we lost the older dog, but she didn’t die in agony unattended, she went quietly in our care at the vet’s rooms.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO RESCUE WORK, DO IT PROPERLY OR DON”T BOTHER!
Wendy Burrows
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