One Dumped Breeding Dog Prompts Incredible Response
Last week when I heard about a dumped breeding dog, left to die in a field with horrific injuries I got completely swallowed up by her plight. Some dogs do this to us. They reach straight into our hearts and their suffering tangles our insides and won’t let go. Susie-Belle did it to me five years ago and the feelings that engulfed me last week echoed what ran through me then. I knew I’d be strangled by difficult emotions if I didn’t throw myself into doing what I could to help this poor dumped breeding dog. As I’m in France I knew that there couldn’t be any repeat of my adoption of Susie-Belle, but I could channel my outrage at what this dumped dog has suffered into something useful. I started telling her story.
It’s helped a lot that Susie-Belle’s favourite rescue, the Diana Brimblecombe Animal Rescue Centre straight away got involved. As soon as Twinklet’s Smile Appeal was opened donations came rolling in. Goodwill message after goodwill message was posted and inboxed and people rallied behind this one dumped breeding dog. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened to her during her lifetime, but it’s a wonderful thing that many kind people want to correct that wrong.
If love alone could get her well, she’d be running around the DBARC paddocks this morning with not a care in the world. Unfortunately before she can do that, she has an arduous journey ahead. She’s started it well. Over the weekend while she’s been in the veterinary hospital she’s begun eating soft pieces of chicken, accepting them from her kind nurses. This alone is a remarkable step, as this abused dog has clearly been abused at the hands of humans for many years. She’s almost certainly never known any kindness. And yet, as we see time and again with abused dogs, she’s willing to tentatively begin to trust humans. It makes their abuse even more awful a betrayal when we know how much dogs want to love humans.
Twinklet’s journey takes a big step forwards today as she has her first major operation to fix her broken jaw. This will be hard for her, but hopefully it will go well and her healing can really progress. She’s been visited several times over the weekend by DBARC volunteer Donna and manager Janet who both collected her last week. Donna told me last night that Twinklet will certainly be going in for surgery this morning in better emotional and physical shape than she would have imagined she would on Friday.
Twinklet last night
Twinklet’s abusers may have broken her body but they didn’t break her spirit. She wants to live. And love. And be loved.
The Twinklet’s Smile Appeal has reached the initial £2000 target so treatment can start without any additional worry over funding. It will remain open as Twinklet’s care is going to be lengthy and expensive. There are several unknowns right now for exactly what she’s going to need.
If you’d like to support her, you can donate by visiting the link here:
