Pray for Chloe

We write this with great sadness.

Chloe was rushed to the vet this morning after she collapsed on the floor. The vet has confirmed that she has suffered a stroke and she is now completely paralyzed. She can only lie down, blink her eyes, and look helplessly at us as her eyelids twitch continuously in discomfort.

Chloe’s paws are stone cold due to poor blood circulation; her right eye can no longer see as a result of the ulcer in her right pupil; and her poop is wet and bloody. The vet suspects she has renal failure and internal bleeding.

She was feeling very cold

An ulcer in her right eye

While we spoke to the vet this afternoon, Chloe went into a seizure. The vet told us to brace ourselves and be mentally prepared, as she may not make it through the night.

Chloe sedated after a seizure

She had some visitors

Volunteer Tze Ying talking to Chloe




Praying for Chloe




Sweet Chloe. Life has been tough.

According to Chloe’s foster, Chloe lost her appetite since three days ago and she had to hand feed Chloe to make sure she eats. Over the past few days, her health continued to deteriorate and she started vomiting yesterday, refusing to eat anything at all.

She also seemed to be in great discomfort last night as she cried and whined through the night. This morning, her health seemed to have taken a dive. Her walking was weak and laboured, and she could barely stand without falling every few minutes. We suspect she might have suffered the stroke overnight.

Chloe is currently warded at the vet and we are evaluating our options to see what is best for her. She has been through so much suffering it pains all of us here to see her go through another painful episode.

Happier, healthier times

We can’t help but ask, “Why can’t life have mercy on her?” Is Chloe never going to experience happiness again? Or is liberation the way to happiness?

Please keep Chloe in your prayers during this difficult time. We’ll keep you updated on her progress.

Email : hopedogrescue@singnet.com.sg

Chloe's updates (She Is At A Foster Home)

Chloe has been discharged from the vet and she was visibly relaxed when we picked her up, as if she had been waiting for this day. We sent Chloe to her foster home and she is settling in well.

Leaving the clinic

On the way to her foster's home

Chloe taking a stroll before going to her foster home

Chloe is a quiet dog - she doesn't bark or whine and spends most of her time sleeping, perhaps she had been wandering the streets for a long time before being picked up by SPCA, and is now finally catching up on lost sleep. Sometimes when we rescue dogs, they spend up to many months just sleeping, simply because they have been so tired roaming the streets for years.



Exploring her new foster home

Settling in slowly

Chloe prefers to be alone, which could be attributed to the series of negative experiences she had had with humans and dogs.  Nonetheless, Chloe loves food, especially cheese, and enjoys her daily walks. In fact, she walks very well on leash. She loves sniffing and being out in the fresh air.

Chloe's wounds have healed but she is still traumatized by the recent dog attack. When you are around her, you have to be careful not to have sudden movements or raise your hands in front of her, she panics and gets defensive. She dislikes being confronted.

She feels more secure hiding under tables in the corner

Eyes that have not seen happiness in awhile

Chloe has a very deep sadness in her, one that has been there for a long time, way before the attacks. It will take a while before she opens up and learns to trust humans and dogs again but we are sure she will get there eventually.

HOPE makes happy dogs and Chloe will be no exception; she just needs her space and time to open up when she is ready. And when that happens, it will remind us of why we do what we do every day, endlessly. To see that precious smile on a dog’s face!

If you are keen to adopt Chloe and are committed to helping Chloe regain trust and confidence, please contact Fiona at fiona@hopedogrescue.org.

Written by Lynne Chue

Ah Girl. A Tired, Lonely Soul

We first got to know about Ah Girl from a Malay lady who reported a white dog loitering at a service station. The lady’s husband was a taxi driver who frequented that area and often saw Ah Girl in the same spot. Ordinarily, he would not have paid much attention to the dog except that he observed that Ah Girl appeared to be injured as she was limping badly, and had lost an eye. Worried, he shared his observations with his wife, who decided that something had to be done to save the dog. She then contacted HOPE Dog Rescue and informed us about the dog. 



Eyes that have never seen happiness



Concerned about the welfare of Ah Girl, I contacted the Malay lady the next day and she met me so we could go to the service station together to assess Ah Girl’s condition. We found Ah Girl sprawled on the cold, hard concrete floor of a cramped storeroom, unable to move. It was a heart-wrenching sight. She had lost her left eye, probably in a previous accident, and her eye had been stitched up. Her stomach was unnaturally swollen and there were multiple wounds on her legs.  She was famished and looked sadly at us as we pondered what to do. We tried to get her to move but her legs failed her. When we tried to lift her up, she shrieked in unbearable pain, and our hearts broke at what she might be going through.

Ah Girl's home, a cramped store room

A broken right front leg, from a previous accident

An extremely distended stomach

When we spoke to the service attendants, they said that Ah Girl was about 13 years old and lived in the area around the service centre. In the day, she would typically move around on her own but would always return to the storeroom in the evenings. The attendants let her sleep there and would feed her whatever biscuits or leftover scraps they could find. Several years ago, she was involved in a car accident which led to the loss of her left eye. She had also been in another accident which broke her right front leg. The attendant remarked that Ah Girl was a good dog and didn’t bother anyone at the centre. Instead, the sweet girl was often bullied by a pack of stray dogs in the area and also abused by humans who would walk past and kick or hit her. As she was too weak to move, she would just bear the brunt of it. The storeroom was her only refuge from the harsh world outside.

Unable to move from traffic

I often wondered if dogs could commit suicide

Seeing how bad Ah Girl’s condition was, we decided that despite our limited resources, we could not refuse a dog crying for help. The next day, even on short notice, we managed to get a few of the volunteers together to rescue Ah Girl. The poor girl was too weak to put up a fight so she laid limply in our arms as we lifted her into the pet carrier. However, as we were making arrangements to take her to a vet, we were shocked to discover that Ah Girl was not a “stray” and her “owner” was a Chinese lady who ran a business nearby. Clearly, Ah Girl had been severely neglected by her owner. In fact, the owner was not even aware that Ah Girl was seriously ill. Imagine our horror when one of the employees insisted that we brought Ah Girl back to the service centre once she had been discharged. He even claimed that Ah Girl was licensed and microchipped.

Not a lot of teeth left

At the vet, blood tests and x-rays were carried out. Ah Girl’s breathing was terribly laboured and she was diagnosed with tick fever, anaemia, heart murmur and heart failure. X-rays revealed that her stomach was so distended with fluids caused by her heart failure that the vet needed to do a needle aspiration to drain out the fluids. That explained her difficulty in breathing. Despite the bloated stomach, we could feel her ribs protruding and the vet commented that she was extremely malnourished.

  

The nerves in her hind legs were poor, possibly from old age, past accidents or both. She was also severely arthritic. Each time she stood up, she would lose her balance and fall flat on her face, it was a sorry sight. She would then bravely pick herself up and try again. After a few rounds of struggling, she would manage to stand and she had to walk quickly, to build the momentum so she would not fall again, much like riding a bicycle.

The vet put her on a drip as she was severely dehydrated and scanned for a microchip; she had none.  

Fluids in her extremely distended stomach, caused by heart failure

The vet’s words gutted us. To hear that a dog that lived such a miserable life might have such a miserable end was heart wrenching. When we tried to cheer Ah Girl up, she just looked at us with eyes that had never experienced happiness. Even if we were to heal her ailments, there was no way we could put her back onto the streets, not when we now know that she might one day die out there alone, unwanted, unloved. While we were waiting to take her to the vet, we had witnessed many cars driving dangerously around Ah Girl as she could not stand up to move away from the dangers of the traffic.

Caring for Ah Girl is not a lot of work. She spends her days sleeping, goes for short walks 3x a day just to do her toileting. At times, she may pee in the middle of the night as she is old and unable to hold her pee for long hours. She loves cooked food and has been eating well. She needs to go to the vet for a review every two weeks, just to check her blood count and ensure no fluids in her stomach and lungs. Once that has stabilized, her visits to the vet will be lessened.

Ah Girl is such an amazing dog. Despite having been through years of neglect and abuse, she still remains friendly, gentle and trusting. We are urgently looking for someone to give Ah Girl a permanent home in her remaining years. She asks for nothing more than decent meals and a roof over her head for her to live out her golden years.

If you would like to adopt Ah Girl or make contributions to help defray the high cost of Ah Girl’s treatment, please email fiona@hopedogrescue.org 

Written by Lynn Chue. Video by Esther Low. Photographs by Esther and Lisa Goh.

Note from Fiona :  One can never imagine the hard life of a stray. When I first laid eyes on Ah Girl lying in the middle of the car park, I instantly felt that she needed to be taken to safety. Thirteen years on the streets! I can’t even begin to imagine how strong she is to have survived 13 years of hardship. The tiredness of the same old daily struggles. Strays generally don’t live past 7 to 9 years old before they fall prey to illnesses and accidents but 13 years for an old arthritic dog who had heart failure, one broken leg and just one eye, she sure deserved a good loving home for all that she has gone through.

Ah Girl is one of the gentlest, sweetest strays I have ever met, undemanding and grateful. (But then again, I say that of all our rescued strays!) When I held her in my arms, I could feel her loneliness and sadness. It’s not often we come across dogs with such deep sadness. Her sadness was indescribable, a lifetime of abuse, neglect and loneliness. She didn't know what love was. Her sadness also stemmed from the fact that she was unwell, she felt her body failing her and yet there was nothing she could do, but to continue to struggle and survive day by day. As I kissed her forehead gently and promised her everything would be alright from today onwards, I felt her heave a sigh of relief. And I thought I heard her say Thank You.

Ah Girl is presently fostered by Sooh Yee and we thank her for her kindness. We thank Emilia for informing us of Ah Girl's plight, Lisa, Lynn and Esther for helping with the rescue, Lynette and Amy for giving Ah Girl her very first hair trim and bath as she was very badly matted, and volunteers who had cooked for Ah Girl daily during her stay at the vet.

We appeal to your kindness to help Ah Girl with her vet bills, as she needs to go back to the vet for reviews and to please open your heart to Ah Girl. Show her there is love and happiness after suffering for 13 years, that her struggles were worthwhile.

Holly - A Tad Too Late

It was during one of our factory rounds that we were told about the puppy.The security guard at one of the factories mentioned offhand of an injured puppy he saw, claiming that it had been attacked by its own mother. We tried looking for the puppy but the guard claimed that the wound had recovered and we didn't have to worry. But worry we did and we couldn't keep the puppy off our minds so we went back over a week later to look for it. Armed with industrial sized torch lights and a lot of gumption, a bunch of the volunteers combed the area looking for her. We finally found her, cold and scared, hiding under a pile of metal sheets and planks. She had a huge gaping wound on the back of her neck but we couldn't reach her at all, as much as we tried calling out to her.

Bitten by bigger dogs

One of our volunteers, Fiona, couldn't sleep all night thinking about the injured puppy so she went back alone the next day. Armed with her usual tools of trade; a pet carrier, dog leash, food and towels, she was determined to rescue the puppy and bring her to a vet before it was too late. She headed back to the same factory and found 6 other puppies, but the injured puppy was nowhere to be seen. When the puppies saw Fiona, they came running out and jumped on Fiona as excited puppies tend to. No more than 3 months old, the puppies ate the food that Fiona fed them. She asked one of the factory workers if he had seen any injured puppies but he said he had not seen her for two days. 

Holly's siblings (we were just informed by the workers that the left black pup just passed away this evening, they found him under a car)

With the worker's help, the both of them searched the compound, looking underneath heaps of wood and metal, where injured scared animals tend to hide when they are in great pain. It was with some luck that they finally found the puppy hiding under a stack of metal beams. They tried to coax the puppy out by gently nudging her with a stick but the puppy was afraid, not realising that these were people who were trying to help her, not injure her further. The puppy squealed and barked aggressively at the both of them and refused to come out. Both worker and Fiona squatted there at wit's end, staring at the puppy while it stared back with fearful eyes.

Just when she thought that the coast was clear, the puppy tried to make a run for it. She dashed out and went under another set of metal sheets. This time, Fiona blocked the puppy in with wooden planks, leaving it only one way out, towards her. By then a group of wokers had gathered to watch the commotion. Some stepped in to help Fiona keep an eye on the puppy in case it tried to run out again. The puppy was as determined to escape as Fiona was to rescue it. Every time it stuck its head out, Fiona would try to grab the puppy with a towel but with no success as the puppy was all teeth. Puppy teeth can be really sharp but even though she tried to bite Fiona a couple of times, she didn't manage to draw blood. A feisty little pup she was.

They decided to try a different tactic instead. Since the puppy couldn't be lured out, they would try to nudge the puppy out from under the beams instead. With the workers gently prodding her towards Fiona, Fiona waited for the moment when the puppy stuck its head out to slip a leash over her head. For a good 45 minutes, they kept trying and trying. Sometimes the leash slipped off the tiny puppy. Other times the puppy would fight back and hide back under the beams. It was harder than playing the UFO catcher machine. 

It slowly became a battle of wills, Fiona vs the puppy. But Fiona was all heart and determination. She was not about to give up on the puppy when she was THIS close to rescuing it. At the very last moment, the leash caught itself around the puppy's front leg and Fiona jumped on the opportunity and tightened it. She quickly pulled the puppy out, scooped her up and placed her into the carrier. In a blink of an eye it was done. Everybody heaved a sigh of relief. 

Such a sad life for a young pup

The puppy was still fighting when Fiona loaded the carrier into her van, barking madly and even tried to chew her way out of the carrier. This went on for a good 5 minutes before it suddenly went silent at the back. Worried, Fiona turned to look behind her and found the puppy sound asleep in the carrier. It was as if she decided, "why fight it? I'm going to take a nap."

On the way to the vet

In great pain and fear

Like most of our rescue cases, the puppy's wounds were severely infected. The stench of her maggot infested wound, coupled with the blood, was nauseating in the afternoon heat. The poor puppy must have endured more than a week of pain, with the maggots crawling in the blood, like a bubbling volcano about to explode. 

Severe maggots infestation

Maggots plucked from Holly's wound

At the vet, they weighed the puppy at 5kg and was estimated to be about 3 months old. When they tried to take her out of the carrier, the puppy tried to fight her way out of the caring embrace of the vet and the clinic assistants, growling and biting at anyone who got near her. 

Upon closer inspection of her wound, her wound was upsettingly huge, especially for a puppy her size. To see something so painful and deep on such a tiny little body was heartbreaking. Not only was this the youngest puppy we ever rescued with such a wound, it was also the first time we had a female dog with such a wound, and a wound with the worst maggot infestation ever. Even though she was fighting everyone who was trying to help her, Fiona could see the fear in her eyes and a quiet wish that someone would take the pain away. 

Huge wound on a small dog

The vet had to sedate the puppy to remove hundreds of maggots from her wound. By the time vet was done, it was late and the clinic was closing so Fiona left for the night. The next morning the vet called to say the puppy's poop had a funny colour and was pasty looking. Lab tests showed that the little one had whip worms and hook worms. 

Whip worms are parasitic worms that live in the large intestine, causing parasitic infection primarily in the tissue of the cecum, appendix, colon and rectum.  The whipworm is named as such as it looks like a whip with wider "handles" at the posterior end. Whipworms develop when a dog swallows whipworm eggs, passed from an infected dog. Symptoms may include diarrhea, anemia, and dehydration.

Hook worms are parasitic worms that live in the small intestine of its host, which may be a mammal such as a dog, cat, or human. These worms hook onto the insides of the intestines and suck blood voraciously and damage the mucosa (lining of the organ). The most significant risk of hookworm infection is anemia, secondary to loss of iron and protein in the gut. This explained why the puppy was all skin and bones when Fiona rescued her. 

Fiona named the puppy Holly but the puppy did not live long. Two days after the rescue, Holly passed away in her sleep. The vet tech found her dead by the time they got in for work. Such a hard life at so tender an age. It was then that Fiona found out that the puppy had Parvo Virus. She returned to the factory to try to take all the puppies there for tests and get them vaccinated so they won't get sick and die, the way Holly did.

Holly passed away 2 days after she was rescued

She was found dead when the clinic staff came to work

When Fiona arrived at the factory, one of the workers informed her that one of Holly's brothers just passed away a few hours before she got there. When she saw the body, rigor mortis had already set in. They tried to catch the remaining 4 puppies that she met the first day, but they could only catch one, a black female pup that they named Gorgeous.

Holly's sibling who died shortly just before Fiona arrived

Gorgeous is a friendly puppy. She played with the workers every day as they also feed her with food that the HOPE volunteers provided. Since she was the only puppy Fiona managed to find, she brought Gorgeous to the vet to test her for parvo. The test came back negative but she was placed in isolation as a precaution for another 2 weeks before it was confirmed again that she was clear of parvo. 

Holly's sister - Gorgeous the puppy

Gorgeous is as her name describes her, a beautiful black puppy who is calm, well-behaved and very sweet. She loves affection and will gaze at you with her soulful eyes until you pat her on her head, her tail thumping against the ground with happiness. She is currently boarding at a pet shop as we do not have anyone to foster or adopt her and give her a loving home. 

For those of you who came by our Kembangan pet event would have met Gorgeous, the striking black beauty who sat quietly by her handler and watched excitedly as anyone came up to pat her. For those who missed the chance, do let us know if you want to meet Gorgeous and you will understand why she is thus named so.

Gorgeous, the little black beauty

Meanwhile Fiona will continue searching the grounds for the remaining puppies, to save them and bring them to the vet for checks before its too late; the way it was too late for Holly. It is a very tough and sad life for the strays, who live day by day in dismal conditions. They do not get a regular supply of food and have to scavenge for themselves, sometimes going for days starving, other times fighting with other dogs for what little there is to find. Strays find whatever shelter they can. WIth the monsoon season upon us, they hide under makeshift tents or loosely piled planks and try to wait out the rain, lying on the wet ground. Shivering and cold. 

Holly's brother (just passed on today)

Their home and playground

Wee little pups who knows not the suffering that awaits them

Those that survive the storms are the lucky ones. That is if they don't get into a fight with another stray and get wounded. Or get infected with parvo or worms, that if left untreated, will lead to certain death. 

I watch these dogs with a heavy heart. Dogs do not ask for much except for a full belly, a warm hearth and somewhere safe where they can rest their heads at night. If they are lucky, they get to live with a loving family whom they can show their undying love and loyalty to, like any dog would. How is it that such simple creatures can't even get a simple life like that?

The next time you duck out of a heavy storm, or are sitting nice and dry at home with the rain pouring down outside, think of the strays who are also sitting out there, waiting for the rain to go away. 

We can't save Holly but we can still save Gorgeous. Please give her a home and a fate different from that of her unfortunate dead siblings. (To adopt Gorgeous, please email alicia@hopedogrescue.org)

Written by Elaine Quek