You are the miracle

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You found an injured animal: Now what?
I receive such emails every day of the year. They always appear on my in-box first thing in the morning.
They read like this:  Yesterday night when driving back home I found an injured dog. I took him to the vet but I cannot take care of him because ( insert random reason here). What can I do now? Can’t you take the dog?
Those kind of emails saddened me enormously for a number of reasons.
1.   I feel pain for the dog. Life on the streets is an extremely hard one and it becomes even more complicated when a drunk driver hits you and drives away without looking back. He wouldn’t do this to a person. Or maybe he would. But we are talking about animals here. So he drives away.
2.     I feel for the person that writes to me. The person has done something good. Now he doesn’t know what to do. He needs support.
3.    Most of the time I cannot do anything for either of them other than giving the person advice that he doesn’t really want anyway. What the writer wants is for me to completely take over his responsibility.

Most of the time people ask me for money to cover the animal expenses, the dog doesn’t belong to them after all, why should they pay?. Other times they ask me to take the animal and put him on a foster home or he will HAVE to dump him in a municipal shelter where he will surely die.
The word “animal shelter” does not apply in Turkey.  With two or three exceptions there is not a single “shelter” in this country that can ensure an injured animal will receive proper treatment and be subsequently re-homed in a good family.

As much as we love our country we need to accept that we have a long way to go, that our systems are not perfect, that municipalities are not really interested in taking care of human beings, let alone animals, and that, quite simply, right now, you are EVERYTHING that injured animal has.
We also need to accept that the average animal lover in this country doesn’t have the generosity of spirit to open his home temporarily to an animal in need. It is a sad reality that the so-called animal-lover here doesn’t love animals, he loves HIS animal. The rest is just empty talk which I find very irritating.
Destiny has made you an animal rescuer. It is YOUR responsibility to take that injured and suffering animal to a vet and pay for its treatment. It is YOUR responsibility to take care of him in your home and find him a good home. It is YOUR responsibility to find him a foster home or put him on a dog pension and pay for the bills.
Let’s Adopt! can and will support you and guide you through the process, but we cannot do the job for you.
Look at it this way. Today you have been given a unique chance. The chance to save a life, to become a hero. The chance to know that your actions will affect a life forever.
You can choose to perform and do what is right, or you can choose to clean your conscience by dumping the animal at the nearest animal shelter, a concentration camp for dogs where he will die of disease and starvation whilst waiting for a miracle.
Today YOU ARE THAT MIRACLE.

Viktor Larkhill

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14 comments on “You are the miracleAdd yours →

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  1. put him on a dog pension ……

    i have never heard that expression before i read your websites…… could you please explain?

    1. Viktor Larkhill says:

      dog pension.. dog hotel… somewhere safe where he can stay whilst he is rehomed.

  2. Paula Nelson says:

    Our rule has been if someone comes home with us, we better be ready to take of that dog or cat (or whatever) for however long he/she is with us. I have been bit to the point of needing emergency treatment but I have never given up on that animal because I knew she was afraid and hurt. Now she waits for me by in the window to come home and runs to the door to greet me. You are right, we are all they have in their time of trouble.

  3. Jon Soeder says:

    I certainly agree with the viewpoint. It means one has to step up and be counted! It’s tough, but the right things in life are not always the easiest. In a total different arena, there was a professional golf turnament here in the United States. The contest went into overtime. On the last hole being played, one of the golfers touched some debris in his swing as he took his golf club back. Winning meant 1,000,000. Second place was about half that. He had never won a tournament. This was going to be his first.

    He chose to be honest and call the foul on himself. He could have looked the other way but didn’t. A class act.

    Some could say, ‘Hey, he made $500,000 for getting second place!’ Well, he has been playing pro for about ten years. Never this close. It would have been easy to lie to himself and others and say nothing and do nothing.

    And that’s the point. Some times it hurts to do it right. But you save a life. What is that worth? It might be an animal today, but it might be you tomorrow.

    How would you want it to turn out?

  4. The reason we share our lives with so many dogs is that we took them in to help them, thereby agreeing by our actions to care for them until we found a proper home. That means that if they never find another home they are ours for their natural life, after all we CHOSE to help them and that does not end after the physical needs are met.

  5. Viktor,
    You have brought tears to my eyes with your heartfelt words. How true and what a wonderfully written piece. I have spent thousands of dollars due to situations such as you have mentioned here. I could have had a new fancy house filled with expensive furnishings, but somehow “they” find me. Most needing not only your basic health care, but many times needing extensive and costly care. And the word is out that “she” will help them. To me, the most cherished and precious things are not what you lived in, but how you have lived. Life is a gift in itself. What have you done with your gift? Have you made a difference for the better while here? It is said a person receives the karma they earn. The true hero, is the brave creature that fought so hard to survive, and will love you with every ounce of their being even though your own kind has caused them the very suffering they endured. There is no greater reward than the love received from that of a “rescue animal.” So for those who think they truly are an animal lover, give it a try and “be a hero” by adopting your own “hero”. Or see that they are taken care of and placed in a good home. You ARE all that animal has, and it is more than likely the only chance they get. One last chance for life……………………………or death. You decide.

    1. Viktor Larkhill says:

      Thanks Cindy… glad to have you in our community.

  6. Since I am an American animal fanatic married to a “hesitant around animals” Turk, we had to reach a compromise.

    We keep a strict budget, and have budgeted in a certain amount for animal rescue. In addition, we each have an “allowance” that we can buy anything we want with. I use some of mine for additional animal rescue. With this money, I buy cat food to feed the street cats (there’s only one local dog, and the butcher shop feeds her). I also pick up any female cat I can and take them for neutering. I used to pay my vet, but am now using the services of the Kadikoy Belediye vet in Fikirtepe. They do FREE neutering of any street animal, with appointment. (If anybody wants the procedure for scheduling, let me know).

    For other issues, our vet treats and boards street animals for us at a big discout. We get the discount because we take our own three pets there frequently and buy our toys there. We frequently take in cats and kittens with eye infections or broken legs.

    ALL these animals come home with us after treatment/surgery and live with us for a week or two. INSIDE our apartment, NOT in the garden. We specifically chose our rental flat because it has two huge balconies with panjurs that we keep closed. (They’re open a tiny bit to allow natural light). On the balcony of my office, I have set up a litter box, scratching post, big dog crate with bedding. We have a cage-free parrot in the house, and the balcony allows me to care for adult cats without risk to the parrot. My office adjoins the balcony, and I can keep an eye on them and visit them many times daily. (We also have a space heater there in the winter). Young kittens are washed, de-parasitized, and allowed into the main flat during recovery.

    In most cases, we have found adopters. We have KEPT the animals while posting them on Let’s Adopt or http://www.MinikPati.com. We found local homes for just 1 kitten and 1 dog. We took 5 of the cats to adopters in America. (The American adopters paid for their adoptees’ plane fare). We neutered and placed two street kittens which we treated for eye infections with a local woman who cares for and houses cats in her garden. We neutered and released three other older kittens and an adult cat into our own garden, where we provided an insulated cat house for the kittens. We moved to another building in December, but I continue to walk to the old apartment daily to feed and visit those cats. And we adopted one kitten–who took 5 months to get over a respiratory infection–into our own family.

    Rescuing, treating, pension, feeding and neutering the 13 animals we fostered cost us a total of 2000 TL over 20 months, which matches our budget of 100 TL/month. On our budget we could not pay for major surgeries. We found two kittens with broken legs that had already begun healing in a slightly wrong position. Instead of 1500 TL to treat each broken leg, our vet recommended we simply bandage and give antibiotics. The kittens grew up to have a very small limp, but can easily run and climb trees. With this compromise, we were able to pay for antibiotics, parasite treatment, vaccinations and neutering for 13 animals instead of just fixing one broken leg.

    If anybody finds an injured animal, you may be able to strike a deal with your vet. The treatment may not be as expensive as you think. Our vet has fixed serious eye infections for about 50 TL, including pension. And broken legs in very young animals may not need expensive surgery. Also, many municipalities offer free treatment for street animals, as at the Kadikoy Fikirtepe clinic. And for people with ENCLOSED balconies (no open windows), this is a safe and easy way to do short-term care of recovering street animals that you plan to re-release.

  7. Banada çok tanıdık geliyor bu durumlar. Mahlesef bazı “hayvan severlerin” hayvan sevgisi benim kapımda sınırlarına yaslanmış oluyor ve bu sınırı aşamıyorlar. Ondan sonra “o hayvanı BEN kurtardım” oluyor. Ehhh hayvan şimdi nerede…… şu şahısa verdim o bakıyor. işte bukadar basit! am ao hayvanın bakımı, maması, ilaçları, aşısı vs. vs. o bizlere kalıyor ve onu getiren kişiden ne ses nede seda çıkıyor!

  8. Silvia Özler says:

    Thanks for sharing, Viktor! This is a problem we all have to deal with. We need more people like ourselves to be able to foster our rescues, but here in Adana the only thing you can find is apathy! Fortunately a few of the vets we work with are willing to keep the injured or sick dogs until they recover. But even with their help we still need more space. In the last few months some changes have been taking place in this area: the municipality of Çukurova is willing to help us and allowed us to design and build a trailer and a small shelter where we can keep our rescues. It sounds like a dream, but it seems to be going OK for now. For the first time I have encountered people who actually listen to me. They are also planning to bring lots of street dogs here, and if they are healthy and friendly to the other dogs, we will let them free in the forest next to the shelter and we will provide food and water outside the shelter so they can live comfortably. As a result the municipality will be happy because they will be able to pick up the strays whenever they get a complaint, and we will be happy because the dogs will be free and reasonably fed. I am hopeful it will not turn out like most shelters in Turkey. Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions, feel free to share them.

  9. DEBZ POWER says:

    if were I who found the injured animal it would come home with me and I would do all I could to integrate it in to my family

  10. Silvia Özler says:

    That’s what I did and now I’m a +1!
    But there are so many out in the streets who need help, it’s exasperating!

  11. Karen Gyles says:

    Hi, we picked up a puppy off the road in Ruse that had been hit by a car probably. Some people in front of us picked her up from the road and just put her on the road side, she was crying very loadly, she was about ten weeks old. We picked her up, took her to the village doctor as you do in Bulgaria when you don`t know where the vets are. Anyway, we fell madly in love with her, Bulgarian street dogs have the most gentle way about them, ( until food is around and then they just go for it, so always mind your fingers when giving hand outs ! ) Now Elffie has her passport ready and has just to wait until January the 1St then she can come home to the UK. IF ANYONE IS COMING TO THE UK ANYTIME AFTER THE 1ST JANUARY AND HAS SPACE FOR OUR ANGEL PLEASE GET IN TOUCH. OR IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE ELSE WHO MIGHT HELP, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO GIVE A DOG A HOME WITHOUT ACTUALLY KEEPING A DOG, SHE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY NO TROUBLE, SHE WILL ONLY MAKE YOU SMILE, GUARANTEED !

  12. We came to Bulgaria with our own staffie 4 yrs ago, and then kept one of 4 stray pups a friend found in 2007.
    We then gave away our staffie, after 9 yrs of her being our family pet, to a friend whose 17 yr old staffie died and she was devastated. Our thoughts were that we had more than enough dog with the new stray, and our friend goes to Spain each winter where our staffie who has bad arthritus would be better off.
    Earlier this year a 4 mth old German Shepherd cross found us and was only supposed to be temporary, and is a big part of our family.
    But on saturday the brother and sister from the 4 original pups from 2007, decided to come to us from the poor Bulgarian man’s house to let us know they weren’t very well.
    Emaciated, hungry and scared the male dog decided enough was enough.
    We hardly recognised him and when we called to the house the next day to see his sister, she was in a worse condition and both dogs were chained on a 3 ft chain.

    Normally, we sadly accept this is part of Bulgarian village life, but as these two are brother and sister to our 1st stray, we could hardly turn a blind eye could we.
    We now have them in our garden, but we cannot cope with 4 dogs permanently, so will foster the 2 until we find a new home.
    Maybe someone here can help eventually.

    Yes, it seemed it was fate, and we chose to do something about it, but we can only do so much as our future here is uncertain anyway.

    Karen you are spot on about BG street dogs, we have had quite a few rescued dogs in the UK and not one of them as loving and as devoted as the strays we have found here.
    I hope you have sorted the transport for your little girl.

    In Yambol the municipality and a local vet is supporting a local Bulgarian animal shelter, we have been there with some other English people to help socialise/walk the dogs and publicise the need for homes, and there is much work happening to improve the facilities but it needs more.
    This is a very positive step, which we hope will continue but it can only do so with the help of others.

    Just a little can go a long way to a brighter future for man’s best friend 🙂