December 29, 2009

December 28, 2009

Took a walk along

the streets last week. After months away. Same streets. Different lives.

I do not recognise some of the dogs who greeted me that day. Where they have come from and where their lives will lead them.

Young


Bold


Injured


Wary




All they need is some food, shelter.

And a little bit of kindness and humanity. To allow them to live out a life that was given. A life not for us to take.

Walk with us into a new year we hold with courage and hope. With bigger and bolder dreams for the animals as we claim the promises for a better world.

* Donate to POSB Savings 108-15188-9 and together, we will create miracles for the animals in 2010.

Blessed New Year. The best is yet to come.

December 17, 2009

Gerry's leg needs funds to heal

Gerry and her brother (whom we have left unnamed for now) live out their existences at a construction site occupied by stockpiles of metal beams, barb wires and other materials, cranes and tractors in motion, landfill piling and dumping in action.

In the darkness provided for by the container quarters of the construction workers, Gerry and her brother find refuge--away from other stray packs in the neighbourhood and strange men who poke their noses into the quarters in the day.

They are friends to the workers but the one they are closest to is a Thai worker who returns in the evening after his work. Sometimes when he's around, our caregiver will pass him food for the dogs and willingly he feeds Gerry and her brother. Other times, we have found that the food passed to a random worker would be left to hang somewhere in the quarters and rot for a few days, unfit for consumption.

Perhaps that's why when we brought Gerry to the vet's with the help of her familiar Thai worker, she was found so underweight and undernourished by the vet. Dehydrated and running a temperature. The Thai worker told us Gerry's right hind leg had been injured and limp since two months ago. A lorry had run her over.

Prior to that, the caregiver and us visited the site in the morning in the absence of the Thai worker and were met with futile attempts to capture her. The moment she saw us, Gerry scampered swiftly away and hid herself from a pile of construction materials. In her limps, she jumped on nails, scratched herself against the rusty edges of old poles and grazed her back more, ducking, climbing and negotiating rough corners.

Until we had to call it a day and give up. A nagging worry on our heads that we needed to bring her leg to medical attention. We feared if her bones had been crushed.


A few days of hospitalisation at the vet's saw marked improvement in her behaviour: Gerry warmed up to all the vet staff and when walked, was able to put weight on her injured leg. Ginger and gentle. She responded happily when we put our hands on her head and patted her with a prayer of encouragement and healing.


The vet gave Gerry medication and various vitamins. Knowing that she's but a puppy actually, she suspects Gerry's case and being unaccustomed to using her right hind is a matter of bone development, aside from the lorry accident.

With our limited animal rescue budget, the best we can do is pump her health back, bypassing any need for any surgery, so that she can still continue her life at the construction site. We have no place at all to board Gerry and allow her to recover ideally.



This is Gerry, checking us out from afar, after our failed attempts to pursue and capture her.





Gerry's brother, the friendlier one -- responded to us lovingly for food and caresses. We target to sterilise him, and Gerry when she's well. At this stage, it's not recommended that Gerry goes through any surgery.


Gerry's brother.

This is a brief story of the initial stage of rescue of Gerry and her brother. As part of the objective to manage stray numbers, both siblings will be sterilised, vaccinated and microchipped--the best that we can do in alignment with what the authorities treat of stray populations.
At the moment, we are concerned with the recovery of Gerry's right hind leg which was run over by a lorry. Being female with an untreated limb, she faces the advances of other male dogs in the wild and could be impregnated in a matter of months. Where immediately possible, we will bring her for spaying.
There will come a day when the construction site is vacated and the workers move elsewhere. After all, this is a temporary dorm. Honestly, I do not know how many years we can continue to tend to Gerry and her brother (they could be displaced when the Thai worker moves), but as far as they are part of our caregiver's feeding route and within our reach, we will continue to provide for them. For as long it takes to keep them alive and well.
If you would like to donate to Gerry and her brother's rescue efforts, please email us at projectjkteam@yahoo.com.sg. No amount is too small and each bit builds into something to help make their existence possible. To keep them alive.
I thank you for your generosity and act of encouragement this Christmas season.

December 9, 2009

We speak forth

healing and all good things for our animals.

This is Daisy

Gentle, calm, serene and girly.

Regrettably, I haven't got the chance to blog about Daisy's story.

For the past weeks, it was sort of a heart-in-your-mouth experience for us. Daisy came down with a lump on the right side of her neck--two marbles large and hard as stone. What's more, she suffered from severe nose blockage and everytime little Daisy heaved, the discharge snorted and leaked out of her nostril.

We put her at the vet's for 10 days or so and were told that Daisy might not make it, given the condition of her lump. Their first opinion was that Daisy's lump could be cancerous and the procedures of biopsy and chemotherapy entailed thereafter would mean hefty medical costs for us. We were given the option to put Daisy to sleep, otherwise she would, just the same, "waste away".

Aunty S, the 80+ caregiver, and I picked up Daisy, with an uncertainty what her lump would mean to her life. When she was brought out of the ward, both her fore limbs were shaven for injection of glucose drip.

On the exterior, Daisy shrivelled, weakened and her meows became gentler.

Her mother, a dark-haired community cat whom we named Suzy and previously suffered a gaping sore on her back, missed her so much that she loitered in the backyard of the caregiver's to get closer to Daisy. As Daisy rested in the cage we set up for her, quarantined from the rest of the cats--the many the caregiver could take in herself without causing a fuss to her family and neighbours--Suzy held vigil for her daughter.

She hanged around the room where Daisy stayed and never so much as strayed from the place. If policies imply that animals are emotionless, Suzy's demonstrated behaviour for her daughter defy any clinical principle on which the policies stand.

What followed in a few days was the absence of glucose supply for Daisy and her rapid loss of appetite. As the weather got colder with the December rain, Daisy became thinner, weaker and paler. Daisy was literally bony.



Side profile: in the red circle, you can tell her neck is thicker due to the lump


Profusely leaky discharge from left nostril. Just common cat flu, the vet said



Back from her 10 days at the first vets: Daisy explored the room and climbed the window grilles to seek a spot to escape. We let her be for her to settle down










There was an inner prompting to take immediate action: take Daisy for a second opinion.

At the second vet's, Daisy was met with a basic checkup. Results?

Gingivitis judging from her pale gums; dehydration (her skin eased softly down when pulled up; and an unmistakable lump which was not abscess after extraction test.

Daisy was so weak the veins on her limbs collapsed and the vet could not, at all, put her on drip. Except through the back--a slower process though. With her health so poor, it would be life-threatening to operate on her to remove the lump.

After a round of consultation with a senior vet, Dr V. felt it would be best to let Daisy be for the lump was mischievously located at a spot linked to a complicated network of arteries and blood vessels . No-go for surgery for sure.

And in a few days' time, after rounds of prayers for her recovery, Daisy sprang back to life: her appetite revived, water intake normal, flu let up. Just the obstacle of a lump still present.

Daisy was discharged and brought back to her cage quarantine. Suzy was happy to see, even from a distance, her daughter again cozying up in the cage in peaceful recuperation.

Today, I received a call from Aunty S to check on Daisy. I rushed to her place and saw her in the cage where S managed to put her in (Daisy ran away a few days ago!), felt her lump and realised her lump is 90 per cent reduced!!!

Her gums have returned to a healthy state of pink. Aunty S's tip: apply Bonjela.
.........................

Gladness. We await to confirm with the vet if it is still necessary to bring Daisy back for a review.


*********************************************************
Daisy's case has fetched up to a few hundreds for us. If you would be so kind, please contact projectjkteam [at] yahoo.com.sg to help us with her medical bills so that Aunty can continue to do the good work she's doing.
At over 80 years of age and managing, on her own, a few colonies of community cats, Aunty needs all the help she can get. Please, if you could... help us help Daisy.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.