 Purred: Thu Mar 26, '09 8:05pm PST |
 | |  | | Hello everyone!
My name is Sara, and I'm the Admin of this group. I currently own a terrier named Penny who was rescued from the home of an elderly woman who had thirty dogs and several cats. The woman was suffering from Alzheimer's, and truly had no idea how terrible the situation in her home was-- she thought she only had seven pets, and she loved them all, but was simply unable to even know that she was not taking proper care of them. She was chronically ill because of the filth that she was living in, but her family and neighbors did nothing to intervene. One day she slipped on some excrement that was on the floor, fell, and broke her hip. She called over to the animal hospital where I was working and asked if we could help her by going to get her dogs and caring for them while she was in the hospital.
That was how the truth came out.
Penny was one of the lucky pets from the rescue. She survived and she had no major medical problems. Some of the dogs needed major surgeries. Some were lame, some had feces stuck all over them, some had severe dental issues, some had horrible behavior issues that required months and months of patient training from their new adoptive families-- and some poor pups had not survived.
Penny is wonderful, but certain things have always been a challenge with her. When I first met her, she was afraid of grass and stairs and men worried her. She has recovered from those fears, but she still doesn't quite understand that the carpet is not an OK place to potty-- when she was a puppy, nobody cared about that!
Penny isn't the first animal that I have adopted from rescues of animals who had been kept by a hoarder. A few years earlier, I had adopted two rats who had been taken in by the humane society from a woman who had kept 80 rabbits and 20 rats in a tiny one bedroom apartment. One of my two rats had part of his tail chewed off, presumably from being kept in a cage with too many companions, and the other was terrified of being held and required a ton of patient rehabilitation in order to accept human touch. I also have a cat who came from a situation that I suspect may very well have been a case of hoarding too-- a private "rescue" that had far too many sick animals on their hands, unaltered animals reproducing while in their care, and a severe lack of animals actually finding new homes.
We look forward to learning the stories of other survivors and the people who love them.Edited by author Thu Mar 26, '09 8:54pm PST
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Why Does My Cat Always Use the Litter Box Right After I've Cleaned It?
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