Dave & Rachel

Sally

I need to start this newsletter with some sad news. Regular readers will remember Sally from the last newsletter. She was the adorable Lab from Dublin who had everyone panicking at the vets when she was spayed (those who missed this can read it on the last newsletter on the website).

After the spay, Sally continued to have tummy problems which we had previously put down to the pregnancy. Numerous trips to the vets and treatment with antibiotics, steroids and special diets over a number of weeks failed to resolve the problem. One weekend in early February we noticed that Sally was finding it more difficult to go to the toilet and she was rushed to the vets Monday morning. The vet decided that the only way to resolve this was to operate and take a biopsy but x-rays were wanted first so I took Sally through to the other branch for the x-rays at 9.30. At 11 we got the phone call from the vet that we had been dreading. The x-rays had revealed a very large, inoperable mass in Sally’s lower bowel and we were advised to let her go. We wanted to be with her so I drove straight over. When I arrived I was told that Sally was outside with Alex, our favourite nurse. Whilst waiting for me, Alex had taken Sally outside to sit in the sunshine and fed her a couple of packets of treats. Sally went peacefully off to sleep and was brought home, to be buried next to her puppy in the wood. I would just like to say how grateful we are to Alex for taking such good care of Sally at a very difficult time.

Sally was a VERY special little girl and is very much missed.

Hope

Hope was another adorable yellow Lab from Ireland who we sadly also lost last month. Just before Hope arrived it was discovered that she had a small lump on one of her teats. As soon as she arrived with us I arranged for a vet visit as she already had a home waiting and we wanted to get everything sorted out quickly so she could go out as soon as possible. The initial diagnosis was that it was an enlarged gland and it would be removed at the same time as her spay which was booked for the following week. I dropped her off for the surgery and the vet said that she would remove the lump and arrange a biopsy only if necessary.

At 3 o’clock I phoned to see how she was doing and was told that the surgery had been done but that Hope had bled quite badly so she would need watching once she came home. We were also told that the lump had, in fact, turned out to be nasty and was being sent off for testing but were warned that it was likely to be bad news and that we would be best not looking to rehome Hope. This was not a problem, she could stay here for as long as she had left although it would mean disappointing the family waiting for her. I was advised to leave collecting her till 6 that evening but at just after 5 the phone rang. It was the vets to say that they had Hope back in theatre as she was haemorrhaging and they could not stop the bleeding. I shot straight over and into the theatre. I have never seen anything like it, and hope I never do again. The vet was trying everything but there was no way to stop the blood it was coming from everywhere, not just the operation site. It appeared that Hope was suffering from some sort of haemophilia and, on vet’s advice, we decided to let her go before she bled to death. All of us, even the vet, were in tears.

Hope was another exceptionally sweet girl who is also very much missed.
 

Houdi’s plate removal

Good news for Houdi. On 25^th February Houdi went back to the vets to have his plate removed. I dropped him over in the morning and he was very unhappy at being in the vets and even more unhappy at being left there.

When I went to collect him I had a consultation with his surgeon before I got to see Houdi. He was delighted with Houdi’s progress. He told me that on the x-rays that they had taken before the surgery, you could not even see a line where the break had been. He showed me the plate that they had taken out and I must say, I was surprised. I expected a flat piece of metal but this was actually more like a bar, about 1cm square, 6 cm long and with lots of holes in it. In fact it looked like something out of a Mecanno set and was surprisingly heavy.

After receiving my list of after care instructions, Houdi was brought out looking very sorry for himself with a full leg bandage on. Houdi behaved impeccably for the first five days till the dressing came off but within half an hour of having the bandage off and coming home, he had managed to pull half his stitches out. I dressed the leg to keep the wound clean and phoned the vets. They could not do the re-stitch that day but as the leg was dressed and Houdi was already on antibiotics they felt it would wait till the next day. Back we went and the leg was stitched up again and a small bandage put on. That stayed on for the required three day and I changed it on day 4 as instructed. I replaced it a further three times over the next twenty four hours as Houdi took great delight in ripping it off. In the end we decided to leave it off completely and just keep an eye on things but the remaining stitches stayed in place till last Saturday when they were finally removed.

Houdi’s actual treatment is now complete and it is now just a matter of time. Hopefully Houdi will soon be able to come off his lead for the first time in four months and run. We are aiming to fence the front lawn off before then so that Houdi can have a flat, level, safe area to be off lead in. We have the material for the fence we just need the time.

We have been running an appeal for help with the vet bills for Houdi on the website and also on several internet forums, as well as having a piece in the local press and we would like to thank all the people who have made such generous donations towards this. The current situation is: -

TOTAL money in. £440.00
Total money paid out. £1242.16

Still to find = £802.16

I am hoping to get some new photos soon which will hopefully show Houdi’s leg as it is now and also Houdi, free, off lead and happy on all four legs.

Sarah

Sarah is a Greyhound who came to us last year at 12 weeks old with a damaged back leg. Her owner, a Greyhound breeder/trainer had told us that she had damaged the leg in the kennels and that her vet had advised cage rest for several weeks but that she should recover. The x-rays taken by the owners vets were sent up and passed on to our vet. After about 8 weeks of cage rest we felt there was no improvement and if anything a mild deterioration of the leg so we arranged for our vet to do a second set of x-rays for comparison. The new x-rays showed a change in the hip and they suggested that Sarah might need a hip replacement done when she was fully grown and advised us to encourage Sarah to exercise as much as possible to build up the muscles in the bad leg in preparation for the op later. We continued with this until just before Christmas when I discussed Sarah’s case with our orthopaedic vet, who had done both Houdi and Kurgan’s surgery. He reviewed both sets of x-rays and his opinion was that surgery was required sooner rather than later and that a hip replacement was not the best option. He felt that the best option for Sarah was to surgically remove the head of the femur and allow a natural false joint to form. He as confident that the new false joint would be sufficient to support Sarah’s weight as she was not a big dog.

Sarah had been in a foster home for several months to allow her more freedom to run and play in the hope that she would regain the use of the leg so we arranged for her foster mum, Trish to bring Sarah to us the day before the operation so that I could take her to the vets in the morning. Sarah duly arrived together with her own special beds and I was left with strict instructions as to exactly how she liked it making up. Off to the vets the following morning, only to be told that due to unforeseen circumstances the operation was going to be postponed to the following week. I went home and phoned Trish who came and picked Sarah back up to take her back with her and we arranged for her to come back the following week.

This time the operation went ahead and I phoned in the afternoon to see about picking Sarah up. They told me that the operation had been very successful but that they wanted to keep Sarah in overnight for observation. I collected her the following morning and spoke to the vet, who presented me with the bit of bone they had removed. It was obvious, even to me, just how badly eroded the bone was and the vet explained how the bone being taken out would remove the pain and that Sarah should be able to move fairly normally again. He did explain that Sarah’s joints and muscles were wasted and stiff due to lack of use and he told us that he would expect it to be around 4 to 6 months before she was using the leg anything like properly.

When I brought Sarah home I was initially quite concerned because her leg just seemed to be dangling but then I realised that it was because, without the discomfort, Sarah did not feel the need to hold the leg rigid. Sarah was happy to move about, stand up and lie down pretty much right from the word go and once the stitches were out she went back to stay with Trish. When Trish came to collect her, she agreed with our assessment that the bad leg was slightly closer to the floor than it had been before the surgery and that gave us great encouragement.

Several weeks passed and then one day I got a call from Trish. She was on her mobile, out on a walk and was very excited, and I am sure she wont mind me saying, in tears. Sarah had been running flat out with Sam and Trish had seen her put her bad foot to the floor. As we were talking, Trish suddenly interrupted to say "She’s done it again", well Trish was crying, I was crying, we were both delighted that Sarah had finally used the foot. Sarah has come on in leaps and bounds since and is now putting the foot to the floor much more often and we are all confident that she will make a very good recovery.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Ted & Kay (and Jagger & Mimi) for sponsoring 50% of the cost of Sarah’s operation as well as all their other help and support in the past.

Jewsons

We owe a HUGE thank you to Jewsons and a lovely lady called Jackie in particular. One of our regular supporters and fund raisers, Lynsey, has recently had an extension done and has bought a lot of materials from Jewsons. She decided to approach them to see if they would make a donation of materials to us. The first branch she tried were unable to help but at the second one, she found Jackie, a big supporter of rescue dogs who asked Lynsey to supply a "wish list" from us and she would see what could be done. We sent the list, hoping that maybe we would get a few damaged paving slabs to help us with paving one of the exercise runs or something.

You can imagine our delight when we got a phone call from Jackie to say that there was a wagon coming out to us with 2 pallets of paving slabs, together with sand and cement. This will completely pave one exercise run and will mean an end to mud, which can only be a good thing.

Once again, thank you to Jackie and Jewsons for their support.

Rehoming up on last year

Last year was our best year so far for rehoming, with 150 dogs going off to new forever homes. This year so far the figures are slightly up on last year although we did have a few really good months in the middle of last year so we will have to wait till the end of the year to see how we do overall but it is looking good so far.

Last minute escape

Recently we have had several batches of dogs from the Irish pounds that have been got out at literally the last minute before being put to sleep. It has taken a lot of phoning round and frantic organising to arrange to have these dogs got out of the pound and transported to kennels in Ireland to be held before being transported over to us. We are very grateful to all the people in Ireland who have helped to save these dogs and to make sure they got to us fit and well.

The last batch, in particular, caused a great deal of panic in Ireland with deadlines being cut very close and also gave me a serious fright when I collected them. We had offered to take a small female JRT and a black and tan terrier male, as well as a red and white collie. The two terriers were to travel together so when I arrived at the collection point I found two dogs sitting in a crate in the van but they were the wrong dogs!! Well the JRT female was the right one but the black and tan male was definitely not the dog in the picture. It turned out that my black and tan was sitting in another crate away from the other dogs as he had been a bit upset and scared by the trip so he was being kept in a quiet corner. All I can say is, it’s a good job I had seen pictures otherwise I would probably have taken the wrong dog home. Mind you it would have been a very funny looking terrier.

New kennel progress

I mentioned in a previous newsletter about the plans for our new kennel block. Unfortunately now the plans have been completed and quotes obtained for the base and the septic tank and drainage system, any further work has been put on hold until we figure out a way of funding the project.

However, we have started on a second project. We are currently converting an existing building from a workshop to a kennel block using some donated doors and partitioning that we got last year. One half of the building was cleared out by Ruth when she visited over Christmas and we now have two completed large kennels in use and a third very close to being ready. There will hopefully be a further three or four large kennels in the other half of the building once we get the other side cleared and ready.

The only person to be completely put out and upset by all this work is our stunt cat, who lives in the workshop. She is very unhappy at having her privacy invaded although, from our point of view, it is proving very useful for cat testing and cat socialisation. We have convinced several dogs so far that they can share a building with a cat without chasing it.

Obviously more kennels means more dogs and more work. We do now have a small team of regular volunteers, which helps us immensely and we also have a small number of kind people who make us regular monthly donations. Both the financial and practical help are greatly appreciated as we could not do as much as we do without them. We would like to work towards being able to employ a regular part time helper as this would give me more time to be able to concentrate on the administration and re-homing side of things. If anyone reading this feels that they could help support this aim with a regular monthly donation, however small, we will be happy to provide bank details for this to be set up.

Collie Antics

About half of the dogs here have come over from Ireland and when we are offering on dogs in Ireland, we have tended to go mainly for the Lab types and the occasional collie cross but have shied away from the actual collies. I now remember why!!!

A couple of weeks ago we took pity on Maria in Ireland who was overrun with Collies and agreed to take two females in our next batch of dogs. Both these girls were described as very friendly, typical collies and very pretty girls.

Molly and Miska duly arrived and proved to be pretty much as described, but I had forgotten what "typical" Collie meant. Within four days of arriving Miska was climbing out of her kennel. Not a problem I thought, we will just move her in with the other jumper into our extra secure kennel. This kennel has seven foot fences and a lid over the door area to stop dogs climbing the door. This foiled her for a few more days but not for too long. Not content with escaping into the exercise area herself, she taught our other "jumper" to do it as well. Then she went one better and started climbing onto the lid over the front of the kennels and using it as a bed. I went to move her back into the kennel but before I got to her she had climbed from her vantage point and was happily running round on the roof of the kennel block. At this point we decided that drastic action was needed so we moved some fence panels and constructed a mesh roof over her kennel. So far this has kept her in.

Anyone want a Collie????

Website

One other piece of good news is that our web site has now been running for a whole year. In that time it has clocked up 30,000 page views and helped us increase our rehoming dramatically. We get lots of lovely comments from people on how good the site is and how much they enjoy looking at it. Some of these can be viewed in the Guest book on the site.

Dave, the dogs, and I, must say a huge "Thank you" to Hazel who has created, maintained and funded the site single handed right from the start.

Final comment

For the first time a printed version of this newsletter is being sent out to adopters who do not have email. If you know of someone who would like a printed copy, or if you have received this through the post and wish to be removed from the mailing list please let us know. We can be contacted at: -

Poplar Farm Kennels.
Sutton Gault
Ely
Cambs
CB6 2BJ  UK   01353 777399