saving DAWGdogs since 1987
We would like to thank Claire of The Candle Jar Winton for letting us have a table top sale and raffle outside her shop today.
We raised £282.25 for the rescue.
Thank you to everyone who came to support us and to Nicky who organised it and everyone who helped on the day and baked cakes.
Jasmin and Humpty two of our Dawgdogs were on their best behaviour all day and didn’t once try to scoff the delicious cakes!
A lurcher pup which a member of the public brought into the rescue
after persuading some travellers to let her have him.
Spider was packed full of worms, had mange and was skeletal.
He went to live with a local vet.
Goldie’s pups were born in a rat infested hedge in someones garden.
They were brought to the rescue by the Dog Warden when 2 days old.
It took another 5 weeks to catch Goldie the mum and re-unite her with her pups.
Goldie’s pup’s first Ready Brek meal !
Goldie was brought into the rescue with 11 pups that were only a day old.
This was her third litter and she was very thin.
One of the pups was quite weak and we had to make sure that she was
able to feed from Mum on her own.
She survived but was always smaller than the others.
All the pups were homed and the smallest girl went to
live with a family who loved her very much.
Sadly she became ill one night when she was two years old and died.
The vet thought that she was just not as strong as her siblings.
In her short life she was loved and had long walks in the forest,
living life to the fullest capacity.
My friend Sue and I often say that when we are old we will giggle to
ourselves when we think of the time her husband went away for a
weekend and his parting words were “No chickens Sue, I mean it”
We were doing a battery chicken rescue at the time.
Well on the day he left for the weekend,
me and two other people went off,
loaded our cars up several times
(Oh by the way did you know that
you can get 80 chickens in a Ford Sierra estate car?)
dropped them off to homes and then halfway through the afternoon
and the last two car loads we found ourselves with a problem.
We didn’t have anywhere for the last 160 chickens.
So off to Sue’s we go for a cuppa and a think.
It was decided that we would put them in Sue’s newly decorated work room,
Dulux eggshell blue rather appropriately,
all 160 of them.
It seemed a good idea at the time.
Sue fed them, got them all settled and had the Titanic soundtrack CD playing
which seemed to soothe the chickens.
Eggs were being laid by the dozens and walked on and the room
was very rapidly becoming not as spic and span as it had been.
160 chickens seem to poo an awful lot.
Mark phones and as Sue is reassuring him that there are absolutely no
chickens in the house or aviary one of her dogs jumped up at the
stable door to the room to say hello to the clucks.
Which set them off completely.
She managed to make out that the noise they were making was a tv
programme.
The next day we go round to pick them up and as you do when
under pressure decide that a cuppa or two is in order.
An hour or so later we are still idling and Mark phones to say he’s about half an
hour away.
I don’t think three people have moved so fast in the history of man,
we had a relay system from the room to the car of protesting
chickens and boy do they take a while to catch.
We whizzed off and Sue amazingly managed to bleach the room just
before he walked in the door and as he is standing in the room
threshold she looks up at the ceiling to see
chicken shit splattered all over it …
Some the chickens were kept in a terrible state as you can see from these photos:
I think the following tale of our walk with the dogs is a Dastardly Dog story!
Emma and I take Mutley, Spike, Dooley and Harley up the field
today, leaving the new dogs that arrived today to settle in.
We leave Mutley in the car whilst we walk the others planning to come
back for him later (he and Rocco aren’t getting on too well)
All is going well the rain has stopped and the sun is out, that is
until we reach the river.
Spike and Dooley launch themselves in
obviously not realising that after recent rainfall the river is
flowing at a 100 mph.
Rocco who is usually first in the river is much more suss as he has looked at it and thought “No way Hosea”
They refuse to come out and are last seen at this point not actually swimming but
flowing backwards whilst barely holding their own.
Total panic!!
I race back down the field and realise that i need to get into the next field
to get to them.
So I climb up onto the fence, hop over and land in a ditch up to my knees.
Fight my way through nettles from hell that are chest high,
run down to the riverbank and can hear frightened squeals coming from
the river.
I realise that I may have to go in so throw my mobile down
and rush to the bank.
Harley and Rocco are behind me (don’t have any
idea how they managed to get in after me as the fence was high)
Emma is close on my heels.
Dooley and Spike are still swimming backwards and I call to them to
encourage them to swim towards me.
Dooley does and I pull him out but Spike doesn’t,
so I run further down and yell at him to come several times.
The little bugger then leisurely swims to me and pulls himself
out.
Emma also landed in the ditch and her wellies are squelching with each
step.
Then we realise that we have to get out and are surrounded by
nettles, we don’t fancy the ditch again as I have seen leeches in the
mud before.
So our only course of action is to battle our way round
the riverbank through the nettles to get out.
Off we go with the dogs following, after half an hour we reach a fairly clear bit and realise
that Dooley and Spike have gone back in the river, this time luckily by
the reeds.
We get them out and Spike disappears.
No amount of calling brings him back so back I go the way we have come
only to find the rascal has given up on the nettles and gone back to
the field, refusing to go any further.
You can imagine by this time I am thinking
“Your on your own mate either follow me or stay there!”
I get back to where Emma and the other dogs are and continue to fight our
way through to a piece of fence that doesn’t have 6 foot nettles on
the other side tunnel our way under the barbed wire and finally get
out. Of course Spike appears too.
Back to the car put Rocco in and bring Mutley out,
head back to the riverbank to get the lead I left there.
What does Dooley do but launch himself in again and off he goes having swum out to the middle.
NOT AGAIN PLEASE!!
Emma holds the dogs I battle my way back through the
nettles into the next field run to the river just as he hauls himself
back out.
Emma and I are soaking, covered in mud and our hands and legs are
throbbing from the nettle stings, what are the dogs doing ?
Chasing each other round the field without a care in the world
and completely ignorant of our ordeal!