Sylvia's Diary 28-11-24

Thursday night my heart was so heavy, I just laid in bed and silently wept. The despair I felt was so huge and weighty that the next day looked like an impossibility. I will backtrack for you many years, so you may understand. We had a litter of St Bernard Poodle Crosses come in and I adopted one of them and later a second. I adopted the second when she came back from her home as a rather awkward year old dog. Her adopter soon after adopting had a traumatic incident that resulted in him not wanting to leave his home, hence our pup was not socialised. She would attack other dogs when on the lead and hated bitches. As she grew up with their other dog, she had her faith for top dog status until the people could no longer cope. All of these things made our girl tricky. She lived with me, not that happily as I had female dogs she hated. 

Chelsea, my kennel manager, who all of those years back was a kennel hand, took her out as she was and eventually we felt this beautiful dog was happier in Chelsea’s quiet house than my many dog home. The dog’s name was Truly Scrumptious and she truly was scrumptious, however naughty, Bill and I called her Truly Unruly. She came to work and had so many adventures with Chelsea and in the last years, has given Chelsea all the love and dedication to help her through the darkest hours. 

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to this beautiful dog who had the heart of a lion and the gentleness of a lamb. She was the last of my special family of doodles and memories have flooded my brain ever since. Chelsea’s heart is completely broken and there is no fixing. There’s nothing anyone can do or say, except we truly do know the sadness that losing your best friend brings. As the car rolled off to the pet cemetery with Chelsea cuddling Truly's still body I was called over the radio. I tried to be strong but it was difficult. Unfortunately, Carrots, a very special little cat, had been X Rayed and the findings were bad and not so long after Truly, Carrots too had to cross the bridge. Leah, my daughter drew a beautiful pastel picture for Chelsea. Life’s tough and losing our loved ones can be almost unbearable. Watching others' pain when inside you slowly feel like you are dying is almost too much.

As I am sure you remember, I posted about two equines last week, only to have a lot of negative folks complain about my requirements for his new home. I am sorry people feel like this, but I know the Arab cross very well and know what he needs too. I respect your thoughts, but why is it my wishes for his future cannot be respected too? I guess your best is never good enough, but that's life!!! This week I will elaborate on the Arab cross. I did not want to put pictures of the equines in here incase the wrong people stepped forwards. Most requests were they wanted pictures of him, not questions about him, it was like they did not care about his special personality and requirements to make him happy, all that was necessary was his looks. It truly puts me off homing horses, and makes me feel isolated. I thought as a horse lover others may understand how hard this is, especially with this particular horse.

Last week’s intake of local and not so local dogs has been sad. A 14 year old dog was released to us who lived in the same home his entire life and has lost the only home he has ever known because of a marriage breakup. We have taken in numerous ex-breeders, and a delightful dog someone took in as a stray many months ago and then realised at their age they could not give what the dog needed. A Doberman was rushed to us having eaten a whole tub of slug pellets, by the time he got to us he was fitting, our vet dropped everything and treated the poor dog, and by the afternoon it looked like he would survive. He was also released into our care so that we may find him a good home.  

Every day is a drama but also sad endings and even happy ones too.  Lux, our little liver-shunt-poodle-cross-puppy, who we have talked about in the past, was operated on but before this could happen, he had to have a £1,000 blood transfusion as he was dying. That went ok so they got on with this extremely specialised surgery. He will be staying at the specialist to be monitored night and day. If he lives he will then be released to his fosterer who also has a lot of veterinary knowledge. This is a very precarious time for him, but let’s all pray for him and remember how he was only a week before this operation that was brought forward to save his life. His fosterer just wrote this to me: Just to let you know Lux is out of surgery, he had a huge shunt and almost no blood going through the liver at all, the blood flow has started now, just have to wait these next two days to see how his body reacts this is the scary bit, but he is being very well cared for and everyone there has fallen in love with him.

It’s 5:30am and I am now sitting on the steps of the Stena in line waiting for a crew member to go through the locked doors to the car and lorry deck our vans on. We the public are not allowed to go to our vehicles until we are instructed to do so. However if you go early and sit on the steps and wait for the crew to remove the chains and blocks on lorries you can slip in. This means you can clean, water, and most importantly give the dogs the breakfast sausages you saved. My co-driver took my dinner ticket that transport divers get and got me roast chicken so that was shared too and we are now on route home. Those dogs and the farm kittens are now our family. I feel invested in them all and just through meeting them, feeding, cleaning and treating them, I feel like I know them more.

The drive home was uneventful for the most part, besides that I was in a rush as one of the dogs on board would not eat the sausage or chicken and when I took her temperature it was high. However, she could have been stressed and not wanting to eat because of that, but I had the feeling it was worse. I called ahead and asked that a vet could be available. Now I will diverge and get back to the story later. Here at Many Tears I have the ethos that the place runs in a circle of love and any breaks in the circle make it a weaker place. So to me what comes around goes around, for instance, a little kindness will one day be returned, perhaps not to you, but to someone else, and they in turn can pass it on just like a smile.

This was one of my mums’ favourite poems, and she lived by this and great kindness. Here at Many Tears, I try to help all I can. What you probably don’t know is that though a vet has trained for many years and taken many complicated examinations, they get little chance to spay or neuter at all before they go out to a vets practice and are employed. As you know time is money, and many practices don’t help the new vets and don’t allow them to spay or neuter as apart from anything it would be costly. So, the new vets get to do the consulting and others often operate. Literally every day we have vets asking to come and help spay and neuter, but often these vets need a mentor. Our permanent vet is happy to help, but this does mean he cannot neuter our own. But like the smile and circle of help, these vets often come back years later and give us some volunteer time and spay and neuter by then efficiently and in a timely manner. At the moment we have a vet from the Canary Isles, one from Nigeria, one from Columbia, and one from Shropshire.

All of these vets met me and as we moved that poor cocker we discussed above had a nasty discharge coming from her. The vet put her on a drip and administered antibiotics, took bloods and prepared her for surgery. The vet nurses scurried about getting the theatre ready, and all the vets brainstormed and helped. The poor cocker was knocked out and opened up. It was found that a uterine horn had ruptured and the nasty contents was leaking into the poor dog. The vet felt her prognosis was poor, but we all wanted to try to help her. So her insides were flushed all out, and she was spayed and put in a clean heated recovery cage in her drip where she was vigilantly monitored. It is very hard to know that a dog is ill like that on receiving it. She was inspected by a qualified vet at the port who was very pleased with the dogs the way they were being transported and the vans set up. The employee scanned every dog and said much the same. She was quiet but so are so many of the dogs either from homes or ex-breeders. After all, they are taken away from friends either human or canine, put in a van (probably for the first time ever) and driven with strange noises all around. From that moment till well after midnight, two of the vets sat and helped her in any way they could, sadly at 1:30 she died. I did the worst and wanted to know why my God had not given her the chance she deserved and let her live. But reflecting on this maybe he did do what was best and maybe she is in a far better place than this world we live in.

56 dogs are here now being bathed, seeing the vets and getting booked in. It's been an intense few days, without a driver coming with me it would not have been possible, so thank you to my co-driver David. We spent a very cold night cat napping in the van while the other was driving. All over saving lives and giving them a chance of a new start, but despite all of that the sadness of the one loss seems to outweigh the saved for me today. We have engraved a copper leaf to put on our tree, for Charm the cocker that had no name, no happiness and no person ever before she died. It reads 'Charm, we only knew you for a little bit, but loved you a whole lot xxx'. We do this service for anyone who has lost a dog, cat or animal, it costs £10 and we hang it on our tree of remembrance, in our memorial garden.

On our last journey to Ireland I picked up some dogs and whilst they were being brought to the van a white shepherd crawled on his belly near me, as usual I had a pocket full of treats, both horse and dog, (this always a problem, especially when Bill washes my clothes and I forget to empty my pockets first). Anyway, I separated the dog treats from horse treats and started dropping some around me, and he came closer. The men came back and he ran into his kennel. I asked why he was there and was told they needed another guard dog. I said I did not feel he was right for the job and asked if I could please pick him up on the next trip. Unfortunately, I could not take him right then, as he was not passported and the man said he would think about it. I emailed him a few times as the dog played heavily on my mind, but did not hear from him. Just imagine the joy I felt when the vet informed me that he had rabies jabbed the dog and he was going to eventually come. He is one of the dogs we brought home, and he is a gentle kind dog with the looks to be a real head turner too.

Unfortunately, I must share more bad news with you. King, who was supposed to come to us from Sarajevo, is now dead. The vets out there did not want to send his test results for brucellosis to the approved German lab. Instead, they used an antiquated unrecognised snap test, this came back positive, despite the fact the dog had not been near another dog for three years. The Brits felt it should be retested at the German lab but the vet out there killed him instead! I will give a leaf to our tree in honour of him too. The sadness is unreal!!! 

So many wonderful dogs here now, just unimaginable. With them often comes concealed pups, that no one knew about till spay day, or that are given up in pregnant bitches for many different reasons. Here are a few of these new life’s born into a happy and loving environment, they will be VERY well handled and VERY loved. Keep an eye out for them on the website when old enough, as one could well end up with you or someone you know.

Thank you again for bothering to read this long rambling diary, and for your love and support, for all those we try so hard to save.
Sylvia x