Issue 1 October 2004

We would like to start this newsletter by saying a huge thank you to all the wonderful people who answered our appeal for help with vets bills by sending donations. Every donation was very much appreciated and will enable us to continue to care for the dogs here in the best way we possibly can but we need to say a very special thank you to one particular lady who made an amazingly generous donation for the second time. I wont name her in case she wants to remain anonymous but she knows who she is and we just want to pass on our most sincere and heartfelt thanks for her kindness.

Saturday 16^th October’s Collection

On Saturday we were due to collect two dogs from Ireland that were coming to us from the ISPCA in Co. Longford. One of our volunteers, Sam, was down to help so we started the kennels early to make sure everybody got fed before I needed to leave to pick the dogs up. Remi from ASH Rescue phoned at 10 to confirm the pick up for 12.30 so I needed to leave by 11 and this week it was important that I was on time as Remi had a drop after ours that needed to be done before that particular rescue closed for the day.

I managed to be away for 11.20am so I was fairly certain that I would only be a few minutes late at most but 25 minutes into the run I arrived at Huntingdon and disaster struck. Roadwork's on the A14 had caused a traffic jam. I was faced with around 2 miles of almost stationary traffic!!! I sat and crawled along for 45 minutes and in the end I rang Dave so he could relay a message to Remi to apologise. Finally at around 12.40 I got to the end of the jam and managed to get moving properly again and made good time to arrive at Northampton at 13.35 (one hour late). I jumped out of the car, full of apologies and Remi just laughed and said not to worry. He reckoned he could still make his last drop but if not it would mean him making an overnight stay before driving home.

The two dogs, Bambi and Cherry, were unloaded from the van and proceeded to bounce round the car park to the grass for a walk. They also managed to bounce all over us, each other and several other people who stopped to admire them before being loaded into my car for the trip back home. These two stunning girls are 7 month old black Lab x Setters who had been in the ISPCA kennels since they were two weeks old with no chance of finding a home. It is hard to believe that such attractive, friendly, healthy and happy girls could wait so long for a home over in Ireland when here they are sure to be snapped up in no time once they have settled into our quarantine kennel and have been assessed. Their pictures can be seen here

I don’t know if Remi made his drop and managed to catch the ferry home but no doubt if he didn’t it will cost me a cup of coffee next week.

On Wednesday afternoon we received a visit from a very nice RSPCA Inspector who had come out as the result of a recent anonymous complaint about our dogs not receiving veterinary treatment. We spent an hour showing him round the kennels and introducing him to the dogs, many of which were carrying stitches or shaved bits from recent surgery or treatment. He agreed the complaint was completely unfounded and confirmed that the dogs were happy and healthy. We also discussed the ongoing improvements we were making and asked his opinion on certain things. His only advice was that we learned to say no as we were starting to get full with difficult to rehome dogs. He did add that he had checked our file before he came out and that in his 9 years he had never had cause to come out before on a complaint. We did, however, try the scare tactics on him……………….we introduced him to Alfie who proceeded to try and see him off by putting both feet on his shoulder and kissing him.

On Tuesday 12^th October we took Kurgan to the Wisbech branch of our vets to have his pin removed by their orthopaedic vet. We had quite a long chat before the op about what the surgery would involve and how Kurgan would cope with it. It was felt that the prognosis was very good apart from the possibility of arthritis forming in later life. Because we had already discussed Kurgan’s separation issues he was given his pre-med whilst I was still with him so that by the time he was taken through he was already very sleepy. I was told to phone at 2 but they phoned me at 1.45 to say that Kurgan was awake and crying so could I please collect him as soon as possible. As we are very familiar with Kurgan’s singing I shot straight over to get him to prevent further distress to the poor staff at the vets. Kurgan was pleased to see me but managed to look very sorry for himself with a large white bandage on his foot. I lifted him into the car and brought him home and got him settled into his crate to sleep. Kurgan spent the next five days on antibiotics hopping round on three legs, quite often with a carrier bag on his leg to keep his bandage dry.

On Sunday Kurgan had a visit from his new family to be and whilst they were here we removed the bandage as per the vets instructions. His joint looked fairly swollen and he was reluctant to put weight on it so after a lot of cuddles from his new mum and dad we fitted him with a buster collar to protect his stitches and settled him back into a nice comfy bed for a rest. Within half an hour Kurgan had managed to rub his leg with the buster collar and make it bleed so we applied a light dressing and removed the collar. He left this alone overnight and we took him back to the vets first thing the next morning. The vet felt that there was still some inflammation in the joint so the leg was re-dressed with a more padded bandage and his antibiotics were increased. The current situation is that if he is putting weight on it on Thursday the dressing can be removed, if not he needs to go back to the vets Thursday for x-rays.

This month rehoming has been fairly steady so far. One of the nicest ones was to see Mirren finally go off to a new home. Mirren came to us in May from Ashton pound and had been here a couple of weeks when she started getting very greedy and changing shape…………..she was pregnant. On the 20^th June she produced 7 pups in very brisk fashion. The pups eventually went off to new homes and Mirren was spayed and went off to live with a wonderful new family. The latest reports are that she is doing really well.

Rainbow Bridge  19/10/04

It is with great sadness that we need to announce that Woody (aka Jake) has gone to Rainbow Bridge. Jake was a wonderfully quirky character who came to us in June 2003 as a result of an appeal on Dog Pages – "3 days left for Jake". Poplar Farm stepped in to save him from being PTS and he arrived here and very quickly made a big impression on us all. On arrival he went into the kennels and immediately let us know that he wasn’t happy by shouting the place down. In desperation he was settled into a crate in the van overnight and by the morning he was complaining about that too. We brought him into the house and he decided that was an acceptable option and promptly made himself very much at home.

For three moths we tried to find him a new home but stubborn, independent elderly GSD crosses are not easy to place. We were pretty much resigned to him staying here for the rest of his days when a miracle happened. We had an offer of a home for Jake from some lovely people who explained that they had a busy and somewhat unusual home but had fallen in love with Jake’s picture and would like to take him on. For several weeks these special people made a 4 - 5 hour round trip to do introductions to their existing dogs and finally on the 22^nd October 2003 I took Jake off to his new home.

Jake got a new name – Woody, and a new home and we made some very special friends.

Woody turned from a sedate, elderly dog into a fun loving, stubborn, cantankerous and very happy dog. He drove everybody mad at times but everybody loved him. Woody became very ill a few weeks ago and after being spoilt rotten for his remaining days, this morning Sharron & Roger took the heartbreaking decision to let him go to the Bridge. We would like to send our deepest sympathies to Sharron, Roger and the family and to add that we too will miss him dreadfully.

Woody truly was a unique dog.