yet more bad news

The little dog mom picked up starving who she thought had a prolapsed uterus apparently has a vaginal tumor. Mom took her to vets who removed it and spayed her. She was started on chemotherapy immediately. Oh my God more money going out and not enough coming in. Hey what could mom do leave her to die? A lot of people would in fact the majority here would. I love my mom! I wish other people could see how good she is and how she sacrifices for her canine family here. Not a single donation and less than two weeks t go!!!

YET MORE PROBLEMS

Well mom is still very depressed but she is so busy with illnesses that she has not had much time to reflect on the impending doom looming over all of our heads. Still nobody responds to our cries for help. Erica Jong wrote if God was a Dog--huh obviously not. Well one of the two new dogs here (photos soon) had a pyometra, which is an infection in the uterus that is very common in unspayed dogs. She was abandoned because her owner moved to an apartment in Rio apparently. This will cost mom and dad another 500 reais and the other little dog that mom took last week wwho was hanging around town for over five months while  Mom watched her get thinner and thinner until all her ribs and spinal column became visible and saw that she was not going to make it alone. She was here for three days and has now got a prolapsed uterus so she will be spayed on Friday i fshe is up to surgery by then because she is very mal nourished. Her uterus is visible and open to infection, so this will mean more money. Mom says we are all in deep, deep trouble and if we are all angels then we should all pray. We are doing all we can to help and we are eating less food to help although some like Cassie are complaining. I don't complain because I can see her suffering in the house and I know that she is also eating less and cutting back on everything. Although without a Guardian Angel it is obvious that we won't make it.  

We are worried

Well as you can imagine we are all very worried about the dire situation here. Mom has given up and sunk into depression and we all want to help her. It is only the humans who don't want to help. We can all sense there is something very wrong just like the first few moments after a human abandons a dog. We usually panic suddenly feeling very alone and begin to run frantically along the streets looking for the people we depended on. When that wears off we begin to get hungry and afraid. We know what mom is suffering. The only difference is she can't visit restaurants and sit looking at the clients wagging her tail hoping they throw a scrap of food her way like we can. The general consensus of opinion from friends and family is that she is stupid to have wasted her money on us. Some have even suggested get rid of the dogs.Well! of course, we despise this sort of advice and we know that mom loves us with all of her heart and won't abandon us. These people just don't understand what it is to love. We understand because loyalty and love are canine traits and not normally human traits.

Lost the house

well the bad news is mom and dad remortgaged the house and now can not afford to pay the payments so we are all moving hope they can find someone to accept all of us. Mom is crying and angry because nobody gives a damn not even those closest. Nobody wants to know you when you are down and out we know that because we were all in the street and down and out. They remortgaged the house to find a way of paying for our huge maintenance bills and bought a bakery but it is not makng enough to pay for everything we need. It probably will some time in the future but by then it may be too late. Mom tried everything to save it but it is not to be. Let's hope we don't lose the only two people who ever loved and treated us with respect. What a shit world we live in! Just because mom is not a registered charity nobody helps. Mom gets up at 5.30 to clean kennels feed and let us all out in rotation. Dad goes to the Bakery at 4.30 and does not return until 8.pm He does this seven days a week. They say God helps those who help themselves, but he doesn't. They do not have the money to construct all of our kennels in another location. Mom works all day until 6.30. She cooks for us because it is cheaper than buying food. She cooks vegetables, rice and meat, with dog ration. There are two new dogs here as well. Mom took one in that was half her normal body weight. She is really a sorry sight. Mom said to St Francis 'if I accept that dog, which I really cannot afford to with all of my problems then help me, but he didn't. She told us today to forget the big dog in the sky because he is probably just as indifferent as the human one, or maybe they are one and the same!

Emergency Leishmaniasis

We are all very frightened here. The neighbours dog has a disease called leishmaniasis which is fatal. The vet is doing a second test on her and should it prove positive she will be killed by the vet. We are no more than twenty metres from her. The disease is transmitted by mosqiutoes known as sand flies. There is a vacination for dogs but it requires three shots at 80 reais each, so mum needs 240 reais per dog times twelve now that poor Harry is dead. Totalling 2,880 reais. A huge sum of money here and impossible for her to get. She has been praying for a miracle but they are few and far between in todays harsh world even we know that. Mum and Dad can also get this disease as humans get it too. We are desperately hoping someone will help but still there has not been any response from any of the 'animal lovers' worldwide. Incredible!It is one problem after another for mum and dad they try so hard to do good things but without a proper income and infrastructure they are very vulnerable financially. Mum is still very upset about Harry we all miss him so much.

Really Bad News

Hi!
I`m Emmy`s mum writing because Emmy and the others are all too shocked and sad to speak right now. Harry died on the 19th July at around 11.15am Brazilian time. He came early in the morning to give me his usual morning nuzzle, which normally goes on for a full five minutes. He was in perfect health and ran to the gate barking as usual. Everything was totally normal. He ate his breakfast and hung around as normal. He even came into the bathroom with me because he always took a shower with me. We had noticed he was looking older lately and slightly thinner but he was just as fit as ever. He played with Misty like a young pup. We heard a weird scream around 11.15. He was in the bathroom, which also was totally normal for him. We went running to see what was going on and found him dead. I tried artificial resusication for more than ten minutes until a vet arrived but it was hopeless. He seemed to have suffered a massive heart attack. Since then I haven`t stopped crying. I miss him so much. Th house seems so quiet and empty without my beautiful Harry. We will never really know how old he was as he was a street dog from Copacabana. We reckon around 10 or 11 years. We tearfully buried him in a coffin and laid flowers on his grave. I can`t pass the grave without talking to him. I hate to think of him out there all alone he was so dependant and desperate for attention all the time. God how we all miss him. Misty is at a loss and Emmy has no one to hassle. This mission is very hard to bear at times. He was with us eight years and was one of our five house dogs. He like all the others was unique and irreplaceable. The only consoling factor was that he did not suffer like Tequila and Bonnie.

Visit Draw the Dog to see hundreds of delightful dog cartoons.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1991134,00.html
here are just a small percentage of the huge number of stray dogs in Brazil living in misery waiting for a miracle. Adoption here is minimal and large numbers are killed by traffic, starvation, and cruelty.

Well! almost two years since mum started this blog and the response has been amazing! Not a single donation or offer of practical help and only one comment so far. Mum and Dad have been working hard trying to make ends meet, but of course with such a large family it i a constant strugle. There is still one empty kennel here but not enough money to put one of the tragic street dogs there. Nobody wants to sponser one, so it remains empty. mum has seen another two dogs dead in the road and many more maimed and crippled on the streets. The Western world all profess to be dog lovers, but they only love their own personal dogs. There are ten dogs here that need teeth cleaning and Harry has another ear infection. Just to give you all out there an idea of the expense---teeth cleaning is 90 reais each dog. The medication for Harry`s ear is 40 reais and that is not counting the four vaccinations this month and our food. Fortunately there have not been any real big emergencies health wise here for a while. Jessie still has not had her other leg surgery done for the same reason. This is exactly why the a kennel remains empty and as each one of us passes on (we are all getting pretty old now xcept for Pluto and Gracie) then more kennels will be left empty. We all think it such a shame that there is no help at all out there for the few humans who care about us. Well we certainly are a bunch of down in the mouth depressed dogs at the moment. Above are two pictures of another abandoned horse. Mum is trying to treat the horse but can only borrow the abandoned stable for three days. So there isn`t much hope there because she has no where to keep a horse. She also doesn`t have the money for a vet or transport to a vet. the horse has a bad wound full of maggots. Not many humans around here give a damn about it. the horse is worth more money dead as meat than alive.