The tough times

I must admit, I like writing and talking about the good stuff. The happy endings and sunshine stories because they are, I believe, what counts in the end. But doing what we do it only feels right that we also tell the sad stories. The ones that hurt us and leave us angry and crying in what feels like a void of hopelesness. We might not tell the stories in the most graphic terms, but sugar-coated just enough so that it is possible to swallow for those who might not necessarily want to naively rescue the canine world one doomed dog at the time, but still want to know what actually goes on in this sick and twisted world of animal cruelty. Because all the beautiful dogs on this blog; the shiny photo`s of blissfull canines on their soft and pastell cushions and all our doggies in the wonderful fostering and adoptive homes out there - they are all a result of the bad stuff... and a result of the sick and twisted.

Last week was a sad week. The type that comes around every so often without warning and just turns everything into sadness, hopelesness and an unwillingness to believe that anything can ever truly change...

We recieved an email from Z regarding a small dog and two tiny puppies that had been thrown out of a passing car into the ditch about two hours outside Budapest.
The organisation we cooperate with is several hours from the site and could not go to collect them that evening. They contacted the local shelter in the area and asked if they were willing to go and collect the poor souls, but they, for some reason, would not....
The day after Z went to collect the dogs. she drove for 1.5 hour and arrived at noon to the area where they had last been observed. And there was a dog, sure enough. But it was only the female - the puppies were nowhere to be seen. Only the female was not happy to see her rescuer, nor shying away at the aproach of someone unknown. She did not have to be coaxed with soft words or tempted with treats... She was lying on the ground, lifeless, gasping for breath with a bullet-hole through her abdomen...

Z rushed her to the vet who performed emergency surgery but the bullet had lacerated her spleen and liver and the poor, darling little girl died that same day....

Who can deliver such cruelty? Who takes it upon themselves to end a life in such a way? Who shoots a lactating, homeless and frightened female - not mercifully in the head but in the belly - leaving her bleeding and gasping for breath... and then walks off? With a smirk? Or in anger? Yes, people suffer. I am not naive. And they take it out on eachother. Their spouses. Their children. Their friends, their community and themselves. There is so much suffering in the world. So much torment. And at the bottom of all of this are our animal companions. Blissfully unaware of the pain this world experiences and always there to take the blow whenever someone feels like delivering one.

R.I.P dear Leona - which would have been your name had you only arrived to us safely....