Doggies doomed from birth
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Not all rescued animals can be adopted, as two pups born on a construction site clearly demonstrate
THE VISITOR to my home tells me she loves animals, but from the way she reacts to my dog and cats, she’ll love them as long as they stay far away.
No matter how friendly my dog is, no matter how hard the cats try to catch her attention, she ignores them all.
It doesn’t matter. There are plenty of other people out there who enjoy dropping by my house for a cuddle with a cat and/or dog.
Suddenly, my guest sees the back of my hand, where an angry bruise is starting to turn black and blue.
“What happened?” she asks, and I explain that the eight-kilo cat Phantom was upset with me this morning. I was brushing him a bit too hard, and he asked me to stop the only way he knew how.
He grabbed my hand in his mouth. The huge cat was angry but in complete control. Although he’s elderly, he’s still powerful, and if he’d meant to hurt me, he could have. Instead, he grabbed my hand in his jaw, pressed down lightly, snarled at me and jumped off the sofa.
I now have a small crush wound, but by applying a bit of ice to the area, I’ve brought the swelling down. I’ve also learned that when Phantom starts twitching his tail back and forth, he’s telling me that he’s becoming annoyed.
My guest is horrified. “You rescued this cat,” she says disapprovingly. “His owner was going to have him killed, and you saved his life when you brought him into your home. He should be grateful.”
In his own way, Phantom is grateful. He’s grateful when I brush him (properly). He’s grateful when I give him a favourite treat. His gratitude, however, doesn’t last very long, and neither does his anger.
Within five minutes of biting me, he was back on the sofa asking me to continue with the brushing.
Frankly, Phantom has been easy to rescue. He has a charm of his own, and gradually, I will learn the ways of this old man.
More heartbreaking are the two white puppies you can see in one of today’s photos. They’ve been living in a construction site near Chatuchak, and they couldn’t be more than four or five months old.
Under ordinary circumstances, these two kids would be easy to rescue and find homes for. Anyone would see their natural beauty after they had a bath and some good food.
When she saw them a few days ago, however, animal rescuer Tharinee “Carrie” Wipuchanin was not attracted by their potential. If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see that each pup has one front leg shorter than the other.
Carrie doesn’t think they’ve been injured but that they’ve been born with this problem. “Maybe their mother didn’t have enough good food,” she guesses.
Apart from the pups’ deformity, they still couldn’t be put up for adoption. They’re both feral. Extremely fearful of people, they were almost impossible to capture. Carrie finally mixed a sedative in some food she gave them, caught them with a hand-made net and took them to her vet for neutering and vaccinating.
Back at her home, the two pups remain feral, still frightened of humans, even of other dogs, constantly barking from fear and anxiety.
Carrie feels very bad for the two kids. In her view, they cannot be taken back to the construction site where she found them. They would not live very long where there are speeding trucks and dangerous construction work.
It was easy to rescue Phantom, almost impossible to rescue two pretty pups who were doomed before they were born, but I doubt that my guest would understand the difference.
