Top Things No One ever Tells You About Owning Animals

The closest many people ever get to being around animals is the petting zoo on a Saturday afternoon, where the animals all behave, there is no poop, and nothing smells. The reality is far from this, and there are several things no one ever tells you before you go down the crazy path of animal rescue.

1. Animals are gross by nature, and love being gross, and some will even wait until you are nearby to increase their grossness. Animals produce a huge amount of poop everyday, and many don't care where they go. They will do it in their feeders, water, sleeping area, and my chickens even manage up the walls. 
2. Animals are violent, you may think they are cute, but in fact they are plotting how to kill and injure all day long. Watching any animal for any period of time, you will realise they are incredibly devious. The animals at the petting zoo have had their spirits broken by hundreds of little hands rubbing their heads. 
3. Holidays and time to yourself simply does not exist, you may be able to grab two hours max away from the chaos. However, you need to brace yourself for what has happened on your return.  Asking a friend to pop over and water the plants, and feed the cat is not an option, and no friend will offer. Every animal is waiting for you to leave to plot their revenge, and the only way to escape is to breed workers who have no choice but to help.
4. Everyone around you with animals is insane, waiting to kill you in your sleep or inbred, and shots, and mutters of "get off my land" can be heard for miles. Everyone knows each other, yet no one speaks. You must only wave if they wave first, or it is seen as a sign of weakness. Your neighbours know who you are, how many animals you have and what breeds, but cannot count up to 10. 

Even knowing all this now, I still have animals, it is like some weird cult, once you are in there is no escape. 

Things Need To Change!

There are many things within animal rescue that needs to change, and no I'm not talking about the laws, or punishments, although they do need looking at. What I am referring to is the community itself. The attitude and mentality need to change, the hateful, backstabbing, lying, catty behaviour that so many people thrive from needs to stop.

Why do so many people get involved in the rescue world, when they have no idea what they are doing. Good honest rescuers are attacked, abused, and made to feel like crap, by a group of keyboard warriors that have never experienced a day's rescue in their lives. Don't get me wrong some rescuers are equally as guilty, and I often wonder why.

Rescuers have a lot to deal with on a daily basis, and I know I for one, am rude, crazy, and many other things, but walk a day in my shoes, and you will see why. However, rescue is not an exclusive country club, and there is no committee to decide who can have membership. Far too many people dictate who is "good enough" in their opinion, which is simply wrong.

Of course there are standards, and laws to follow, and even ethics come into it, however, just because your opinion is different to other peoples doesn't make it wrong. Who gave these people the right to judge others, and to attack and abuse because they want to be heard. There is a way for everyone to work together, but so many are in rescue for the glory and the pats on back.

I have decided that rescue is very much like school, the mentality and the bullying is so similar it is scary. There are the popular kids who think they are better than everyone else, and the outsiders who actually are doing all the hard work. The popular ones are vindictive, spiteful, and drama filled, where as the outsiders put their heads down, and get on with it.

When did we become a world where tearing someone apart is considered to be better than helping them build themselves up. The bullies claim constantly that rescues like me, are not good enough, dont do it right, yet none have ever been here, seen what we do, or even asked. Far too many rescues will help dog's simply so that other rescues cant, and then moan that they receive no help.

Do you know what would help more dogs? If more people got off their Facebook soap box, stopped posting in the million we hate FB groups, and actually confront things head on. Your nose does not have to be in every single drama, or event that happens around the world. You do not need to rant, and post about what certain rescues are up to now.

The mental toll rescue take son you is overwhelming, the abuse of animals, and the injustice is hard to see, therefore, we all don't need outsiders attacking as well. Real rescuers put blood, sweat and many tears into what they do, and when they are being attacked every day it is enough to break you. Fighting the invisible war within the rescue community is pointless, as no matter how hard you work, how many dogs you save, and who you are, you will never be good enough.

I won't become one of the popular people, I wont attack threaten or abuse to get in with the crowd. I wont become part of your judge and jury because you feel you have the right to decide. For my own mental health I will not get involved all I care about is the animals. I run a good rescue, and have rehomed thousands of dogs over the years.

So, for the haters that follow this blog, and repost it on their pages, I hope one day you take a step back and see what you are. That you learn compassion, not just for the dogs, but for humans too, and understand that you are not always right. Maybe when you do, you will achieve so much more, and help so many more animals.

When you Think You Have Seen it All

So, a Bull Terrier was picked up by the police this week, in very poor state, usual skin infections, overgrown claws and a huge chunk out of his side.

He also has a docked tail which looked infected, and was obviously in pain. When we took him to the vet I said better to knock him out so we could have a good look without fear of being bitten.

The vet examined him, cut his claws, and then checked microchip details, whilst he was at his laptop, I thought I would see if he had been castrated. I rolled him over, and that is when I saw we were lacking something, in fact we were lacking everything. I looked up and said "guys, we appear to be missing something"

The poor dog had nothing, no genitals at all, it was like they had been sliced off. The vet confirmed that no vet had done this , or it was a "bad" vet due to the butcher job on the dog.

He has scarring all over his legs, so we can only presume something happened, who knows what, but it was all removed by someone.

The pain the dog must have been in is unthinkable, and even now no one knows how uncomfortable the dog is. Yes, he can pee but his hormones, and overall mentality must be affected.






Having lived like this for sometime he has learnt to adapt, and the next few weeks/months will show how his attitude is, and what the future holds. As with all the dogs he is getting the best care, and hopefully he will get his happy ending to his shit life soon.

Your Rooftop is For Sunbathing!

Over here most houses have a flat, purpose built rooftop which can be used for a huge number of reasons. Sadly, it is not used for drying the washing, or sunbathing, but to keep dogs on, and forget about them. I have lost count of the number of photos I have been sent from people of dogs on rooftops.

Usually the photos are of huge piles of dog poop, dogs in very poor condition, which always makes me wonder why I have a dog if that is where you intend to keep it. The other day a video was taken of some dogs in typical crappy conditions. We of course offered to take the dogs, and went with the police and got them.

The dogs were matted, stunk, and had obviously been up there for a while. The owners did the typical claim of I only let them out there today, and they just need a brush!

REALLY are you looking at the same photos as me?

So off to the groomers they went, and they do look "better" however, they are old, and when I say old i mean 13 years old, and are terrified off the outside world.

These poor dogs are scared of everything, they have spent a huge proportion of their lives left on a roof with no human contact. I am praying we can get them homes soon, so they can enjoy their time left being loved, rather than ignored.

This is The Reason I don't Go Out

No matter where I go I find animals, I don't go out with that in mind, I even where clean clothes and brush my hair and still they find me. Last night my husband and I went out for dinner,doesn't happen that often, but when it does it is nice. There is nothing more grown up than eating a meal without a cat on your lap, or dog hair in your food.

So, after a lovely evening we returned home, up the mountain and as we rounded a corner my heart sank, stood in the middle of the road were two shepherds. Not the type that watch over sheep, but two starved, scared beautiful German Shepherds. As my husband slowed down the car I had already opened the door and was grabbing the leads, and treats.

We have been married  a long time, he knows the drill, he knows arguing is pointless, he knows I will always save animals. So there is us, pitch black, clean clothes, no cages for the car with two big dogs that potentially could bite us. However, wave a bag of stinky bacon treats at any starved dog and they quickly become your friend.

The dogs had been dumped, who knows how long hey had been wandering, they are skin and bone, which is always heart breaking when you think how big these dogs should be. So into the car they went, quick check for microchips, ok you can stop laughing its a process, but of course no chips! 

The dogs are safe, warm, with food and water , off to the vets today. Yippee just what I needed another two big dogs to rehome, FML 

It Didn't Happen Overnight

Over the years I have seen many things, and embedded collars is something that make me shudder, as the moment you start to peel the collar away from the flesh, you know that didn't happen overnight. The worst ones I feel are chains used as a collar, the fact that the skin has grown over the chain, which has become rusty causes huge infections.

I hate the people that stand in front of you whilst you are peeling away the flesh, and state, "it wasn't like that last week" "I never noticed it" How? how did you not notice that your dog was in pain, that they could not move their neck properly, or the smell fro the infection.

This is Millie she had been chained up all her life, one small piece of chain around her neck, attached to a longer chain. Her life was miserable, she was unloved, and uncared for.

The reason so many owners don;t notice that their dog is in so much pain, is that that simply don't care. They chain them up and walk away, push food and water towards them when they remember.

These dogs receive no love, no attention, therefore, the owner does not even notice. The collar or chain gets tighter, the dog suffers and the owner is oblivious.

The question I ask these owners all the time is why? Why have a dog if you don't care enough to check the chains/collars. Why have a dog that you have such little interaction with that you did not even notice.

Thankfully Millie recovered from her injuries, and is now in a lovely home, sadly many are not so lucky, and die from the infection caused by the embedded item.

Putting Dogs to Sleep

As everyone knows of me I am very honest, and want people to see every aspect of rescue, warts and all. It was part of the reason for writing the blog, for people to understand a little more about what we do and why. Obviously we would love to save evry dog that comes through our rescue, but sadly the reality that is not always the case.

There is a huge majority of people that consider me to be a "dog killer" due to me being honest and saying, yes we put some dogs to sleep. Do I do it for a laugh or for fun nope, I do it when there is no other option. When we have debated, and looked at every option, when I have spoke to the vet several times, when we have gone over and over all of the information.

I was asked the other day if I put dogs to sleep, and as I answered honestly, yes if they are too sick, under vets advisement, or aggressive to the point of no return. This statement has now been passed around, and this morning I woke up to abusive voice notes from a guy in the UK threatening me. Stating I ama killer, scum, vile, and if I "kill" one more dog then he will destroy me.

So, my question to you Phil and all the other haters is, what shall I do if a dog is dying, just let them suffer and die because you don't agree with putting dogs to sleep? So, I should go against my vet because you "know my address and have connections all over Europe" No Phil what I am going to do is carry on running my rescue, doing a good job, and ignoring your threats and abuse.

As I have stated many times, any rescue that claims they don't put dogs to sleep are liars. and anyone who works with animals and thinks it doesn't happen are incredibly stupid. Sadly I am used to abuse and I'm used to threats, and I actually pity these people. They have nothing in their life other than to troll and bully people. I actually do not understand humans that simply want to cause pain and upset to others through social media, it is incredibly sad.....