Our Boris is famous!

So I start my blog this time with a bit of excitement. Thanks to our friends at Dogsblog.com our Boris has found 15 minutes of fame! Click on the slideshow to see our celebrity:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/3123884/Paw-puppies-need-a-home.html

The good news is Boris had a second viewing this Saturday and it went very well. The next hurdle, however, is to see how he gets on with cats....should be fun.

So, this week has been typically busy with a whole host of new furries coming in to our care. The theme of pedigree dogs and pups being relinquished to animal charities has been ever present again with us this week.

We saw the lovely Sasha take up our last kennel space. She is a beautiful natured Elkhound who was signed over because the owner could not cope with her dogs any more. Sasha was being bullied by the other one. Into foster care we took a 5 month old black Labrador because the owners had found out the hard way how work needs to go into puppy traing (a lab) and now that the lady was pregnant it was too much to cope with. Our pup is a typicall boisterous handful and so far I don't think Mel has had a straight night's sleep with his barking and she may well end up throttling me, but knowing her she will perservere and sort the little love out.

This week we rehomed cats and bunnies - yippee! Our little poppet of a cat, Fifi, finally found someone fall in love with her - she should have been snapped up weeks ago but I think the summer holidays affected that. In fact, our rehoming stats for August are just dire - we rehomed just 16 animals. This is awful but I'm hoping things will get better this month because already we've said goodbye to Abbey cat, Toby & Louis kittens, everyone's favourite bunny Sonny and our longest stay bunnies ever - Jack and Bitsy. We also have all but 3 bunnies reserved, which is incredible, but many are pending 'bonding' so it may not yet work out.

This week also saw three very welcome windfalls for the branch; a treasured friend and supporter of the branch sent us a donation for £150 whilst a local pub raised us £230 with a dog show. How wonderful is that! And Gilly's bloke is currently cycling 100 miles (as I type) to secure the amazing £474 he has raised in sponsorship for us - go Ian! (I will be cheering him over the finishing line with Gilly in a bit so pictures will follow.)

So, back to our other new arrivals: 2 six week old abandoned kittens, one gorgeous tabby tiger called Angus whose owner left him behind when they moved out and then two desperately tragic cases: Thomas and Purdy.

Thomas was rescued by an Inspector toward the end of August and has been receiving intensive veterinary treatment since. Thomas was emaciated and red raw and balding with a chronic flea infestation. His condition was so bad that the Inspector photographed her arms after handling him. The case is being investigated further but thankfully the owner has signed him over, which means we can get him rehomed as soon as he is better. What is so sad for us all with Thomas is how utterly loving and trusting he is of us all. He is a shy boy but he has a beautiful nature and at the moment he likes to be fussed whilst he eats to make himself feel reassured that everything ok.

But really, what right has a human to abuse the unconditional love and trust that an animal gives to them? It is so angering to see the state of Thomas whilst being so priveledged as to hold the affections of this sweet boy despite his ordeal..

But it got worse, as it often does, and yesterday my last job of the week was to take Purdy the Persian to be put to sleep.

Purdy was found abandoned in a brook in Sth Mcr - which could very well mean that someone had made the effort to place him in this discreet loation to leave him to die because Purdy was badly matted, underweight, terribly unsteady on his legs and had an oozing tumour on his face. The poor lad was in such a state that there was no alternative but to alleviate his suffering. He talked to me all the way to the vets and was a really lovely soul but he shoudln't have had to go through his ordeal.

I cannot reconcile why someone would abandon an animal in a remote location rather than outside a vets where they could be discovered and helped quickly. I keep being surprised by what humans do to animals, even after years of doing this work, and I wonder if this will ever end. Thank goodness we were there for Purdy and Thomas but how many more are there out there that we don't know about?