That Friday Feeling

A week that started out on such an awful low is ending a little better with the arrival of the sweetest little bulldog I've ever met called Daisy. Her daughter, Petal, came through a little while back via the RSPCA who since managing to get Petal have been working on the owners to get them to sign Daisy over also. She's finally here and boy was she worth the wait. I can't tell you how much love this little girl has to offer but for now she's going into a foster home so we can work on building up her weight and her confidence before throwing her out into the big wide world which right now is the most scariest place ever as far as she's concerned. Those big brown eyes are going to melt someone's heart that much I do know, but she won't be listed for a week or two so keep an eye on the rehoming page for further details.
One thing this week has taught me is that you really do never know what tomorrow will bring, I know there are a number of people out there who don't agree with everything we do and I appreciate that, but on days like today I wouldn't change this life for the world.

Rollercoasters

There is no getting away from the fact that a life involved in rescue is certainly one hell of a rollercoaster ride, the joys of the success stories and the despair when there's one you can't help often merges when a dog you thought was a sweetheart decides she's not quite to nice AFTER she's been rehomed and that's exactly the news I was woken with this morning; that one of the dogs that was rehomed over the weekend wasn't quite the angel she'd led us to believe and the heart breaking decision now has to be made as to if we can risk rehoming her a second time. The news came after what had been an exceptionally fantastic weekend for me when a reunion a few of us had organised went off far far better than any of us good have ever imagined. Back in the day when we were a bunch 16/17 year old scooterist, Friday night at the Grange was about all we had to keep us entertained and every week we'd dress up in our best clothes and dance the night away to the sounds of 60s soul and 70/80s mod revival. Recent news that the Grange is to be knocked down and rebuilt prompted us to recreate the night one last time and pretty much every 40 something in Midhurst turned out to show the youth of today that we can still party 25 years on! We even got one of the original bands that used to play to reform especially for the night!!! I paid for it yesterday mind you, dancing the night away was probably not the best idea when you get to my age.

The end of the week and some thoughts of wisdom

From April next year I will have been at the helm of Bulldog Rescue for 10 years, it’s been an emotional 10 years I must admit, I’ve seen sights I never thought I’d see and I’ve met people who really do make the world a better place. I’ve watched things grow from a “one man band” to a successful charity and I am very proud of what we have achieved during this time. The one thing that has never changed is the simple fact that Bulldogs will always need a rescue and despite the numbers that consistently come through I still very often hear people mutter “what do we need a rescue for”. My entire life now revolves around it so that in itself tells me that we are needed, and yet there are still breeders out there who recoil in horror at the thought of anything they’ve bred every ending up in rescue.

For those people I’d like to put the following scenario to you:

You sell a pup on a back to breeder contract, having not heard from them for several years you assume that all is well because you haven’t been asked to take the dog back at any time. Meanwhile, five or six years down the line the family suddenly find themselves in a situation that means they can no longer keep the dog and they have either forgotten, or have no intention of abiding by the clause in the contract – which of the following scenarios would you prefer happen to your pup?

a) They advertise him as “free to good home” on ePupz and he ends up with goodness knows who, goodness knows where and no one ever hears from them again
Or
b) They ask rescue to find a new home. At best we would contact the breeder and let them know based on the fact they are registered on our back to breeder scheme, or at worst find him a vetted pet home where someone is keeping a close eye on him for the rest of his life

Having something you bred land here really isn’t something to be ashamed of because faced with the two options I know exactly where I’d like my pup to be.

Like a lamb to the slaughter

Well I did it, I stood up in front of almost 40 people and spoke aload!! For the first time in my life I was a speaker at a seminar instead of a guest. Six months ago I thought it was a great idea to accept the invitation, I had the exams in between so gave it very little thought after the powerpoint presentation had been created, but driving up to Coventry on Saturday morning I did utter the words "what on earth am I doing" on more than one occassion. The event was put on by an organisation called SNAG (Southern Newfoundland Action Group) and it was very well organised and turned into a very enjoyable day. Although it was a case of preaching to the converted as the event titled "Rescue and Rehoming - The challenge to find a permanant home for every dog" saw almost everyone in the audience from a rescue society of some form or another but what I really liked was the fact that we all discussed how we ran our individual organisations with each other and I'm sure that all of us went away feeling we'd learnt something from another rescue group. It's certainly something that would benefit from being done again at some point in the future I'm sure and face it there's nothing quite so wonderful as a day spent in the company of animal lovers that dedicate their entire lives to helping dogs across the country.

Keep everything crossed

The past 2 weeks has been an absolute whirlwind getting ready for my exams which were Friday, I guess what is done is done and although I won't say I found them particularly difficult but there were questions I couldn't answer so all I can do now is hope that the ones I did answer are right and that it was enough to get me the pass mark. I'm not going to hear how I've done for 8 weeks so I guess I need to just put it out of my head now and get on with my life. The most important aspect of which is to catch up on all the stuff that got neglected whilst I was cramming. I did manage to get some housework done over the weekend which has made me feel a whole better, but now I'm in the office I can see just how much stuff got put to one side so please bear with me this week whilst I chase my tail - at least it'll keep my mind off the exams!!!
Thank you to everyone that has made allowances for me over the past couple of weeks and especially my family who got used to me locking myself in the bedroom and only grunting at them when I did make an appearance.

Friend or Foe ..... who on earth knows.

I was sent a photo yesterday morning of supposed starving, neglected puppies via facebook (you know the one where everyone is "friends") and despite the hatred that was being spat at the owner of the pups I decided to find out the facts before joining in what eventually became nothing more than a witch hunt. The short version is that in speaking to the owner it appeared that her version of events was ever so slightly different - but to be sure and in an effort to appease the witch hunters I made the five hour round trip to check on the pups. I found a litter of three small pups that resembled typical hand reared pups that had been very ill during the first 2 weeks of their lives. However, not happy with these findings I then became the victim of the witch hunt which not only became very hurtful and very personal has made me think if rescue is really what I want to do after all. Having been told I must be blind and that I must be stupid by people that have not seen the pups or spoken to the owner my take on the human being right now is darn near zero. Especially as throughout the drive up there I was having to deal with the heartbreak from an owner who's old dog had reached the end and having called me from the vets had to say goodbye to their beautiful old man. He'd come from rescue after suffering a terrible life of numerous homes and he had had a life of neglect which in the end proved too much for his old body to cope with.
To put the record straight once and for all, the litter was not starved, nor were they neglected. They were taken 5/6 days early because the bitch was fitting. There were water pups that didn't survive (not drown in their food as someone said this morning) and the bitch had feaces in the uterus, the pups were all born full of infection and were subsequently rejected by the mother. The vet gave them only a few hours to live but the owner battled through thick and thin to save them and she did by hand rearing them on her own despite suffering MS. I have been appalled by the behaviour and the language of people who've been in the breed five minutes and assume they know it all. These same people are the future of this breed - gawd help us!
So on that note I'd better do some of the studying I should have been doing last night before I leave for my course tomorrow.

Kaboooooooooom !

I can't believe how busy rescue has suddenly got, I've said before that as soon as the kids go back to school after the Summer hols things go mad, but Monday alone was manic and I've actually lost track of who's been asked to do what - thank goodness for Georgia who is quite possible the most amazing thing that's happened in rescue for a long time. She takes so much pressure off of me organising home checks and pick ups and home visits but Monday was a particularly crazy day and it left me a little out of it come Tuesday. A lot of people I know with CFS/ME say that there's more bad days than good days, but yesterday was a particularly bad day to the point that I had to give in and take the day off - I've not been that bad in a very long time but Sunday's early start and Monday's rescue flurry certainly didn't help, on top of all of that the studying is really difficult. I have no idea how I am going to remember all of this stuff but did get alot of studying done yesterday much to Hilda's disgust as she had no idea that "PJ day" meant that I got the sofa! If nothing else I can now tell you the difference between a Viral infection and a bacterial infection - no idea why I need to know that in order to prescribe wormers but there you go.