Buddy would have died without an Animal Advocates rescue

For thirty years Animal Advocates has been getting calls like the call we got for Buddy. Often the calls come from rescue colleagues. AAS has been doing rescue for so long that we have a large trusted network of real rescue colleagues, the ones who really get down and dirty, because often they are crawling in the dirt under buildings and trailers to rescue litters of abandoned mother cats and kittens.

You can read a few of our many cat rescue stories here.

Dog rescue is a bit different: often the dog has to be removed from a bad situation and a bad owner when all other attempts to get the dog the help it needs have failed.

That was the case with Buddy.

A colleague of ours told us about a dog in the Northern BC village she lives in, chained outside all Winter in sub-zero cold and all Summer in extreme heat and flies, who she saw had a gruesome growth of some kind on its leg that the owner was treating in a way he said farmers used on the prairies, where he grew up. He angrily refused vet help from our colleague (which AAS would have paid for), because of the implication that he was mistreating his dog. Local “rescue” groups would not help, neither would the SPCA. The rescuer knew from long years of helping dogs that the growth could be cancer: she could see it swelling over weeks like a huge boil. When she saw that the owner’s “treatment” was to tightly wrap an elastic band around the swollen lump so that it would “fall off”, she knew the dog didn’t have much time left before cancer or blood-poisoning agonizingly killed him.

The tight elastic band broke Buddy’s skin and the huge growth infected. Our colleague knew that septicemia (blood poisoning), or cancer and death would be next unless Buddy got to a vet. AAS told her that we had her back and would take over and pay the bills (which in the end, came to $8,000), if she rescued him, So she did the only thing a real rescuer would do. She took Buddy off his chain and drove him for nine hours to Vancouver and AAS.

Our vet took one look and immediately confirmed our fears, that Buddy already had the beginning of blood-poisoning. The raging infection and fever had to be brought down quickly, before surgery could be undertaken. A powerful antibiotic and rehydration were administered intravenously, and within two hours Buddy got the first of three surgeries. They were difficult surgeries because the lump had grown around tendons and major blood vessels. There was some good news: a biopsy result came back: No cancer.

Because there was not enough healthy skin left to draw the sides of the wound together it could not be stitched, it could only be wrapped in the hope that new skin would grow over the open wound. It wasn’t a sure thing and if it didn’t Buddy would probably die.

Over and over, at first every few days, Buddy’s foster family took him back to the vet to have the wrapping removed to see if new skin was growing, to apply antibiotic ointment, and to have fresh bandages wrapped. In all, Buddy was at the vet nine times, and every time he loved everyone, and everyone loved him. He was smothered in kisses which he gave back ten-fold. It took two months. And slowly, new skin did grow over the open wound.

The best happy ending of all was in store for Buddy: his foster family couldn’t let him go, and they adopted him. He sleeps on whichever bed he feels like sleeping on, he runs and swims and hikes, and kisses everyone out of the sheer joy of being loved and alive.

For more than thirty years, Animal Advocates has been doing ethical animal rescue, primarily cats and dogs, but also at times, horses, rabbits, raccoons, and birds. We do not import easy to sell small dogs; all our rescues are of BC animals (and a few in Alberta and Ontario and Quebec). Far from making a profit from importing easy to sell small dogs, we spend all the money that our suffering rescues need, no matter how much that is. We have had to rescue dogs from some “rescuers” to save their imported dogs from being dumped at a pound because the dogs are going to cost the “rescue” organization some money for vet bills, or because the organization hasn’t been able to sell the dogs. We have had to rescue dogs from some “rescue” organizations because they would not pay vet bills to save the dogs’ lives.

Once we have promised an animal, We will rescue you, we never stop paying the bills for it. Ethical rescue is very expensive. We simply must raise the money to keep our promise.

But we can’t do our ethical rescue without you. Your kind donation is how we do ethical rescue. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart,

Judy Stone

There are more Animal Advocates' True Rescue Stories here.