Puppies!

Little puppy with bad skin condition. Was found roaming around a housing estate.

Another puppy with equally bad skin condition. Was also found roaming around a housing estate

A very weak and small puppy believed to be a runt. Found in Seremban

This male puppy is partially blind due to an untreatede eye infection. Was found with his sister living at a dump site.

The partially blind puppy's sister - takes good care of her brother.

Another frail puppy which was rescued in Seremban

Yet another Seremban puppy which needs long term car

Satu lagi dari Seremban

Maybe it’s the season – or something else – we don’t know. But we have certainly been kept on our toes by the large numbers of puppies that are showing up wherever we go. Sadly, many are weak and in poor condition that we have to treat them before putting them up for adoption. Some kindly folks have adopted some of them regardless the bad skin condition. They have also taken their pups to the vet and put them on various other therapies to make them healthy. These people are also the ones that keep us going – as we know they will take over from us in loving and nurturing the puppies they adopt – without placing any expectations on the poor things. But sometime we get an exception – the nightmare of every rescuer. We had such a nightmare a couple of weeks ago by way of a lady who adopted one of our pups. Within days she decided to return the puppy because ‘it had diarrhea and a skin problem.’ She knew about the skin problem as she picked-up the puppy herself from our fosterer. She had also changed the brand of puppy food and given this, one can understand about the loose bowel. She also said she had taken the pup to the clinic and the vet had told her that its skin condition would take ages to get better. We can refute this as we have adopters who had healed their dog’s/pup’s skin condition in a week or so albeit the vet saying that it would be a long-term problem. And of course we have Luca – who is testimony that no skin condition is beyond treatment. And there’s also our Jojo – whose skin condition was countered in one single week in spite of one vet saying that it would take years. Anyway, coming back to the lady who returned the pup – we were furious that she didn’t give it a chance and angrier that she did not attempt to treat the diarrhea. We told her that she was being very irresponsible and her reply was that ‘if she was irresponsible she would have ‘left’ the puppy somewhere’ instead of returning it back to us! Aiyo! We also hope she understands why we are pissed with her.

RUBY

Ruby - held down to prevent from running away during her rescue. She is now happily resettled with a family in Cheras after being spayed and vaccinated.

We had a call from a lady a couple of months ago that there was a young dog trapped in the center of a roundabout in Cheras. We asked her if she could get the dog for us but she declined to do so. We then informed two veteran independent rescuers who immediately went to the spot and started feeding the dog daily. Last week, Malaysian Dogs Deserve Better accompanied them to rescue the dog, now named Ruby. Ruby was not an easy rescue and put up a good fight. The experienced rescuers grappled with her for a bit before getting her into their car and transporting her to our vet in Klang. Ruby has a beautiful disposition and has been vaccinated and is waiting to be neutered at the clinic. We also responded to a call to rescue a dog that still had a chain attached to his collar in Bukit Jelutong. He was quite ferocious and bit the two good Samaritans who had alerted us to him. After grappling with him without any success of getting him into the car to be transported to Klang – we rushed to the nearby fire station in Bukit Jelutong to ask the firemen to help us. They came in a big fire truck but had no luck in getting him into the car as well. However, the dog walked with one of the firemen who caught hold of the chain. The fireman walked the dog to the station where he was given food and water while we rushed back to Klang to get a carrier. The canine’s benefactors managed to get him into the carrier they borrowed from the clinic and he is now recuperating at the clinic. Due to all the drama – we had forgotten to take pictures. We now wish we had! Anyway, the vet tells us that the fellow is a Cocker Spaniel cross. He has some skin problems but will be ok soon.

MIKI

Miki and new best friend

Happy Miki now at her new home with her new family

Miki frightened at the vet's

Miki feeling safe in her own prison

We found Miki (whom we called Nina) alone and destitute hiding behind the closed grille to the first floor entrance of a shop house. She was afraid of people and stayed inside her ‘cage’ most of the time and only ventured out late at night when no one was around to eat the food that we had been leaving for her. Not able to gain her confidence, we called the shop owner and managed to catch her with his help. Miki, who is about five to six months old, was so afraid of people that she cringed when we tried to touch her. We placed her at one of our vets and hoped that some kind soul would adopt her and patiently gain her confidence. One day a young lady, her brother and her grandmother came to have a look at the many puppies that we had. It was love at first sight for the young lady’s brother when he saw Miki. He wanted her even though we told him that it might be a long time before she would warm up to him. He was prepared to take the chance – and we are glad that he did. Today, Miki is a distant shadow of her old self and has bloomed into a happy and gregarious puppy within a month. She has also developed a very close friendship with the family’s other pet, a Shih Tzu. It’s for happy endings like this that we do what we do. Have a happy life Miki – you certainly deserve it.

DOG IN A BOX

WE WILL GET HIM.

We apologize for the late updates but all of us had been overwhelmed with the recent influx of puppies. Now, coming back to our caged dog in Pulau Ketam – we went there as planned a few weeks ago armed with a cage, a carrier, a loop and even sedatives to get the poor dog. We had also hired a boat to take us to the ‘scene of the crime’ as well as to bring back with the dog to the mainland. When we arrived at the place, we were shocked to see that the owner had broken open the cage and the dog was missing. When we confronted him – he told us that the dog had died. We did not believe him. So we hung around and soon spotted the dog taking refuge under the man’s stilted house. Apparently they had caught wind of our plan and had released the dog because they did not want us to take him. We argued with the owner a bit and he made some calls asking people to come over because ‘some people were trying to forcibly remove his dog.’ We refused to move away and stood our ground and in no time the man realized that no one was coming to his aid given the very bad publicity the islanders had been receiving due to their cruel treatment of dogs. The dog also came from hiding and we fed him but could not get him to come near us. He (the dog) looked a little better but had wounds and scars on his body. Some Indonesians told us that the dog was boarded-up because the owner wanted it stationed there 24 hours to ‘protect’ his boat’s engine. After a short quarrel with the incorrigible man – we managed to get him to promise to give the dog sufficient food. However, we are now concerned that it may have joined the ranks of the many strays on the island even though the dog does not wander far from its earlier prison. We left but not without making plans to go get the dog soon – since we have been visiting the island quite a bit in recent months.

Goodness Gracious!

POPIKO MAIL

ME - MIGRAINE


I am having a severe migraine due to the sufferings we dogs have to go through. In recent weeks our volunteers have rescued countless puppies - some so young that they still needed their mums. But the mums were nowhere in sight which got us thinking that the dog catchers might have gotten them. Or did the owners of the mothers dump the unwanted puppies? Anway, we now have in our possession hordes of puppies which need to be treated,vaccinated and cared for before being put up for adoption. Stay tuned for updates later in the evening.




Sharmini Popiko Sasha (SPS)