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Abused animals
SPARE is the only animal shelter in Egypt accepting handicapped animals. If SPARE didn't take care of these animals, they would get killed or die in the streets. No-one else will help them, or give them a chance.
Here are some amazing stories...
Mashakels the Butchered Puppy
This is the story of Mashakels, a poor street puppy that was horribly tortured by a ruthless butcher in 15th of May City. The sick and sadistic butcher, known for his intolerance and hatred of street dogs, took this helpless puppy and decided to chop his little tail off!! The amputation was so severe, the puppy could not go to the bathroom!
Luckily he was rescued by Marie Antoinette Castelli, who found him in the street being prodded with sticks by young boys. Marie immediately took him in and started treating his oozing wounds. Once Amina took wind of this horrifying story, the puppy was rushed in to the shelter for proper treatment.
We are shocked and absolutely mortified to hear about this story; the kind of pain and suffering a helpless animal had to go through is something we face on a daily basis at the shelter. Despite the pain and mistreatment Mashakels had to go through, he is still upbeat and as cute as a button. He was aptly given the name "Mashakels" (meaning troublesome or mischievious in Arabic) and he will continue his treatment at SPARE until he is ready for adoption.You can see the anguish all over Amina's face in these pictures...
Progress update 13.07.08:
Mashakels has been adopted by a loving family, thanks to SPARE friend Julie Dodd. We wish you the best of luck Mashakels!
Breeding Horrors- The Story of Kooky
Kooky was saved from the clutches of an uncertified and heartless breeder, where she was found with horrible wounds from being chained for over a year.Please be warned, the pictures are very graphic.
SPARE is determined to uncover the sordid truth behind uncertified breeders in Egypt. Stories and pictures of unfathomable torture and abuse to dogs have been brought to light; our most recent case of such horrors is Kooky.
Kooky was brought to SPARE by Sahar (a good samaritan and animal lover) with horrific wounds around her neck as a result of being so tightly chained for over a year the chain was deeply embedded in her flesh!
SPARE's miracle vets operated on Kooky for over an hour and after months of healing and care, Kooky has come around and bounced back to life. What continues to amaze us is that even though Kooky has endured unspeakable treatment by the hands of a cruel human, she is still able to forgive and display affection and love to other humans.
Breeding is a seedy operation where hundreds of animals continue to suffer at this moment...please think TWICE beore you buy animals from a pet store or from one of those breeders; they run their evil puppy mill operations and profit greatly from the suffering of animals.
Kooky deserves buckets of love, especially after her awful experience. If you would like to give her another chance in a brighter life, please email Amina Abaza: amina@sparealife.org
The pictures speak for themselves.
Kooky Before Treatment
Kooky After Treatment
Roumi
Story told by Amina
This is Roumi. I found him in Giza area pulling a cart and barely able to walk. He was limping severely and was in terrible anguish; all the while the owner was completely oblivious to his pain and continued to beat him with a stick to edge him on!
I eventually discovered that his leg was broken for over a year and the owner continued to make him work and labour with the broken leg!!! I decided to buy him immediately and thankfully the owner relinquished ownership easily. Owners give us a really hard time letting go, on the most part.
I hired a truck and took him straight to the shelter where SPARE's Chief Vet from The Donkey Sanctuary arrived on the scene. He took one look at his leg and said,
"No way, I have to euthanise him...give him 3 or 4 days of happiness, good food and I'll be back to put him down after the 3 days are up".
I bought plenty of carrots, good food and gave Roumi a whole lot of love an care. Meanwhile, my husband asked his workers to start digging up a grave in anticipation for Roumi's burial.
Everything was perfectely organised, only Roumi didn't have the
quite the same plans! In fact he fervently decided to stay on this earth and put up one big fight! He recovered almost immediately, ate the carrotts and all the food.
His leg started to look much better and the swelling subsided considerably. He also began walking in the farm, discovering and making friends with the other donkeys!
Chief Vet from The Donkey Sanctuary came after 3 days (as promised) and was agog with disbelief! He just couldn't believe his eyes; Roumi was healthy, happy and ready for a new chapter in his life.
Roumi now lives with us on our farm running free as every donkey should live. He has since realized that I was the person that rescued him from his torment and in return, he loves me with an intense passion and loyalty. It's pretty incredible.
My So Called "Life"- by Ringo
Translated from doggie-talk by Amina Abaza
CHAPTER I
I am Ringo , and I am going to tell you my story. I will leave it up to you to judge whether it is a happy story or a sad one .
I am now no longer with you, I have gone to paradise, in the department reserved for dogs .
Here, I can run and play with my friends as much as I want , the land is so green…the space is endless…we can smell thousands of different smells. Every kind of flower, fruit, plant and tree is here. The air is so fresh, the water so pure.
Like I told you at the beginning life here is completely different .
CHAPTER II
Now it is time to tell you what happened to me on earth…this cruel planet where so many dogs are so mistreated.
When I think of my life down there I ask myself : Why do some people treat us this way ? What have we done to suffer so much?
When I was born 18 years ago I was a nice white little puppy . An Egyptian family bought me from a pet shop . I think they chose me because they liked my colour , my coat and my tiny size ( I was only 6 weeks old ) . They took me home with them and put me in the bathroom .
When I recall my life on earth, the first thing I think about is a wash basin in the bathroom and the sound of running water coming from the tap. It took me some time here in paradise to enjoy the rivers and waterfalls, I had become so bored with the sound of running water. But here it is so different! When I am thirsty the water is cool and when I want to swim the water becomes warm, so blue ! I must keep remembering that I am in paradise after all!
I spent 14 years locked up in this bathroom. I was lonely and miserable. There was nobody to talk to me, no human contact and of course no animal contacr. I was becoming dumb…but what could I do ? It was my destiny …
I also had another problem: there was no-one to care for me or clean my eyes which began to itch all the time…they always had discharge which kept accumulating inside my eyes. Nobody noticed.
The Egyptian family that had bought me were only giving me food and water – nobody held me in their arms or looked at my face. I don’t even know whether they were living in the same flat, I don’t remember hearing human voices.
When I was young, I used to spend my time counting the tiles of the bathroom and on each tile I used to imagine something wonderful; the first tile on the left was my mothers’ face, on the second a huge garden where I could run to my hearts desire, the third was piece of land full of mud where I could dig huge holes.
This is how I spent my time but as time went by I couldn’t see the tiles anymore because my eyes were hurting so much ! But nobody knew or noticed. You know I cant talk your language, I was crying but nobody was hearing me. If only my eyes didn’t hurt so much!
The only person who took care of me was the groomer, an old man called Mohamed who used to come twice a year. When I was 14, I overheard Mohamed talking to my owners:
“ Where do you want me to take him ? Nobody would want to adopt a old blind dog 14 years of age “
Was he really talking about me? Had I already spent 14 years locked up in this bathroom ? Was it me the old blind dog? But yes, I feel so old and it is true , I cant see anything anymore.
I then heard Mohamed speaking on the telephone to an Egyptian lady who had just opened a shelter for stray animals in Giza not far from the Great Pyramids of Kheops , Khufu and Khefren. He asked her if could bring me to her. I think the lady was horrified by the story and was shouting at the other end of the phone. I could over hear some of the conversation:
-“Mohamed are you telling me that this dog spent 14 years locked up in a
bathroom ? “
“ Yes , of course I am sure because I have been grooming him twice a year for all this period. “
“ How did he become blind ? “
“ Because nobody cleaned his eyes or put eye-drops or took him to a vet for a check-up. “
“ Why didn’t you do this yourself ? “
“ Madame , I am just a groomer, I am a poor man. I was cleaning his eyes with water twice a year when I was called in to groom him. Now they don’t want him anymore, they want to buy a new puppy and throw Ringo out in the street “
“ OK bring him over immediately . “
CHAPTER III
Poor old Mohamed the groomer carried me all the way to the shelter. We had to take a bus to the shelter, my owners refused to send him with their car or pay for a taxi.
In the shelter, they gave me their nicest room, a large sunny room. But a sunny room for a blind dog does not make a big difference. My eyes were hurting me very much and I had a lot of pus in them. They immediately treated me for the pain which eventually went away but I could no longer see.
In the shelter, I heard a lot of unfamiliar sounds like barking and also many human voices. All this seemed so strange to me after living for 14 years in a bathroom with no sounds and no life, nothing but the sound of the water running from the tap.
This shelter is full of life, of noise, of love, of warmth. But I feltl so sad! A flash-back takes me back to the wasted 14 years and I realised how tragic my life was.
I was howling all the time because it was only after Mohamed brought me to the shelter that I began to understand what a complete disaster my life had been.
The Egyptian lady who owned the shelter was doing everything possible to make me happy, she was carrying me, cuddling me and giving me tasty pieces of chicken (I knew what a sacrifice this was as the shelter is not rich and relies on donations to survive).
She was always nice to me, I think I was her favourite, but I was still depressed and my long years of suffering were imbedded in my heart. I was not reacting to anything. It was as if I was dead from inside. The lady was very sad for me because she didn’t know what to do.
CHAPTER IV
Many people used to come the shelter to adopt dogs and as usual they only wanted to adopt puppies or pure-bred dogs.
The lady was showing all the dogs to the adopters but never showed me, she thought I was “ unadoptable “, I thought so too and the days went by.
One day a nice looking young Englishman came to the shelter and met the Egyptian lady. I am blind but I still have very good ears:
“ My name is Andrew and I want to adopt a dog . “
“ Of course , we have beautiful puppies , we also have pure-bred…”
He interrupted her .
“ No , I have come for Ringo the blind dog “
“ How do you know about him ? “
“ I saw his picture and read his story on your web-site . I want him . “
“ Are you serious ? “
“ Yes , and I want to take him now ! “
She immeadiately called Mahmoud , one of the workers and told him to bring me to Andrew .
Drew took me in his arms and walked out of the shelter. The lady and her staff must have been speechless and did not move because I could not hear a sound as we went out of the shelter.
CHAPTER V
Since that moment my life changed completely. Drew was bathing me regularly , and I was groomed regularly . He took me everywhere with him. He had plenty of other rescued animals in his house and they all became my friends . My life was so full ! I was so busy , so happy … I prayed God to grant me time to live to enjoy all this.
Andrew gave me a role in a play he was organising for his students (he is a teacher). I became a star….Can you imagine ? !!!
A year later we went to visit the lady in the shelter and she could not believe that this lively, happy, beautiful dog was really me … I was reborn, I was playing like a puppy and as happy as one .
I lived with Andrew for 4 years before being transferred to paradise -dog department-
( Old age was the reason for my transfer ) .
This is the story of my life…I just wrote it to say :
Thank you Drew from the bottom of my heart … You are the only human I regret, the only person I miss, you are the one who changed the bad impression I had about humans.
By the way , please say hello to the lady of the shelter .
GOD BLESS YOU
THE END
Butch
Butch squeezed himself between two iron gates trying to follow his owner out, he does not have any broken spine but his nerves were affected. As SPARE is the ONLY shelter taking in handicapped animals the owners came to us for his treatment and later waivering him to us as they cannot keep care for him.
Butch was a real case dog ; we worked on moving him out of his depression state to his very happy content state he is living now , he made a very special bond with his keeper Mohamed who initially after hearing me talking to the vet about how to get a wheel chair for butch made up a very primitive one two days later. That was quite a great surprise for us and made Butch a real happy dog, later on after putting his story online through Best friends in USA, Eddie wheels donated a wheel chair to Butch.
Butch in his old wheel-chair
Butch in his new wheel-chair
Sadly, Butch recently passed away. He was on the verge of being sent to Germany to meet his loving new family but his life gave up before he could experience that.
It was incredibly heartbreaking for us to lose him; Butch could have had a chance for treatment in Germany, especially there is no experience in dealing with handicaped animals wth spinal injuries in Egypt. The usual decisions for vets faced with such a case is to put the animal down, something which we simply do NOT accept at SPARE. We try to find every which way to save the animal before it is deemed necessary for such a decision to be taken. Butch was a very special case for us and he will be sorely missed
Habiba and her adopted son Shahin
Here is Habiba our second handicapped dog, a female found in the middle of one of mohnadesseen busy streets in Cairo, lying in the middle island separating the two lanes.
When I noticed her and was about to cross the street to pick her up, there came a boy carrying something wrapped up in a newspaper and dropped it in front of this handicapped dog that I had just noticed. When I approached the dog I discovered that what was dropped was a puppy. I got horrified expecting that the puppy could be attacked, but she was sniffing and licking him. By the time I crossed the street to the area where they were both in, both were picked up very easily and I hurried to the shelter. During the drive she was keeping the puppy close.
I got to the shelter and started feeding the puppy and the first check up showed that the female dog was paralysed and this confirmed the story I was told by people out on the street from where I picked her up where they said she was hit by a car.
The biggest surprise is that she approached me while feeding the puppy and started pulling herself up to sniff and lick him. After finishing bottle feeding him I put them both together in one place to see how things will go, strangely he went to her, sat there for a while beside her calmly and then strangely found her breast and started sucking. I called the vet and asked him to check if she has milk, the reply was negative, she has not, but still she let the puppy suck on her and she remained on her side all the time till he slept, and from then on they never separated.
Habiba the broken dog with her adopted son shahin
Mona feeding the rescued puppy Shahin
Habiba in her wheelchair done to her by our worker Mohamed
Habiba and Shaneen
Habiba and Shaheen have both been adopted by loving families.
Doris
This is Doris, beautiful Doris. She was found by one of members, and she was in bad skin condition, very weak, bitten in several places, and hardly standing on her feet. When she was picked up it
was thought she was a lost case, but arriving at SPARE we had another opinion! We first work our utmost efforts and give all the chances, and the miracle happened and the abused bad looking malnutured dog to a beautiful Doris. Doris is now a happy dog with her new family
The picture below in on her first day. The blue tinted medication on her back is a topical antibiotic covering her wounds.
Doris when she first came to the shelter
Months later, after intensive care and lots of loving attention, Doris is a completely different dog. Yes, the picture below is the same dog who arrived at the shelter on the verge of death. The deep wound along her spine still requires treatment, but today Doris is a happy and playful dog
Doris months later, a happy and playful dog
