Warm Hearts and Wet Noses
Erika came to us from a friend's farm. Having been born in a barn, put
in a box, and brought to our home, she had never been outside. The
first time we took her out into the back garden, she looked up,
realized that there was no ceiling, and had a panic attack. She had
never been outside before, had never been in a place without a ceiling,
and had agoraphobia. She eventually got to enjoy going out to the
garden, but it took two summers for her to feel completely relaxed
about it. Click here to go to
Erika's page.
Bubastis
wandered
on to our street from the greenbelt, a wooded area surrounding some
sections of the Ottawa region. She had probably been dumped there to
starve to death. Some people are so stupid that they think domesticated
house pets are capable of living quite nicely in the wild. Others are
simply vicious beasts who think cruelty to animals is fun. Her former
owners were probably from one of these two groups. Their cruelty and
neglect almost killed her. She had wounded and infected paws and was
skin and bone, dehydrated and starving. From the moment I offered her
cat food, she started purring and has rarely stopped for almost 14
years.
She was so delighted to have humans to take care of her again that she
even purred straight through several vet exams. Click here to go to Bubi's page.
Hannah is a sweet and loving beagle
mix. Her mother was a pure bred show dog, a prize winning Beagle. Her
father leaped over a fence. Hannah and her litter mates all had long
bodies, short legs, and dark colouring. Since they were not pure bred,
the mother's owners did not want them. This was their loss as Hannah
has the most gentle and loving personality of any dog I have ever had.
We found her through "Friends of Abandoned Pets", a charity which
rescues and finds homes for unwanted dogs and cats. Click here to go to
Hannah's page. 
Tamerlane
arrived on our doorstep one January midnight when the temperature was
-30 C, saying, "I'm cold. I'm hungry. Let me in." He was a mess: matted
fur, scalloped ears, half healed scratches and bites, very skinny, but
full of attitude. I tried to pick him up and he bit me and took off.
Fortunately he knew a soft touch when he met one and came back the next
morning hoping for breakfast. By then I had set up a cage and had a can
of tun close at hand. I put the tuna in the back of the cage. When he
walked in to eat, I slammed the door on him. After his meal we took him
to the Humane Society for quarantine. From this inauspicious beginning,
our relationship has developed into something special. Click here to go
to Tamerlane's page.
One
early morning in Beit Hanina, the
Palestinian neighbourhood where we lived in Occupied East Jerusalem, I
was walking Hannah through an alley near our home. In the dawn
stillness we heard a kitten yelling its head off. There was a pack of
wild dogs running around the neighbourhood that morning and I knew that
we had to find the kitten or it would become an appetizer. (From the
sound of its voice, it was too small to make a meal for a hungry,
homeless dog.) We were standing at the edge of a construction site. We
searched until we found the infant kitten cringing under a stack of
rusty pipes, a scant handfull of spitting, hissing, tabby fluff with
concrete stuck all over its baby fur. The vet guessed it was no more
than four weeks old. Click here to see Pizzicatta's
page.
Five days after we adopted Pizzi the kitten, Hannah and I were again
enjoying our morning walk. As we rounded the corner at the top of the
hill, I saw an open plastic garbage bag at the side of the rubbish tip.
A bag on the ground was not uncommon. Garbage collection, one of the
many city services paid for by all residents of Jerusalem and regularly
scheduled in Israeli neighbourhoods, was so rare in the Palestinian
neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem that the rubbish bins frequently
overflowed. What was unusual was that the bag appeared to be shivering.
As I approached it I saw, to my horror, a tiny baby puppy inside. Of
course I picked her up and brought her home. She was cold, hungry and
thirsty, and was crawling with fleas, ticks and lice. We didn't intend
to adopt another dog, but as Jerusalem is not a good demographic for
pets, we were unable to find a home for her. The religous nut-cases on
both sides consider dogs to be ritually unclean, and because of the
economic problems caused by the Israeli Wall, many Palestinian families
who might otherwise want a dog cannot afford to have one. Click here to
see Valkyrie's page.
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This page was updated on 26 November 2007.Contact me at: patti.primeau@sympatico.caThis site was edited using Nvu and Style Master. |