A  couple of days ago a new member left a question in the wall of our Facebook Page.

She was considering contributing to the Simba Fund but wanted me to give her a detailed explanation of how our organization works…

I could have done that, but I felt it would be better if the community answered instead..

This is what happened… I think we must be doing something right… . Please read.. and be amazed… if what you read convinces you, please contribute to our Gas Chamber rescue Fund.. it is currently completely depleted and this has forced us to stop rescuing from the Nashville Gas Chamber..

Anyway… I leave you with this… amazing reading!

Mims Dot Mosby

Hello Viktor, I am a newcomer to your page and I have much exoerience in animal welfare and the seconding of finacial support for their help. I have just had a quick look through your posts and I have to ask you a couple of questions before I assess my willingness to finance a rescue organised by yourself or your volunteers. What are your motives apart from the obvious of a rescue? How do you hous…See More

You are going to have a very difficult time watching this video.

It’s going to be difficult not only because of what you are about to see, but because of what you can only imagine.

Her name is Lady, and this is the state in which she has come to our clinic. The  injury took place many days ago. Possibly weeks. During that time, the mangled leg decayed and rot, miraculously infection did not spread to the rest of the body.

We do not know what kind of accident she went though, but we suspect she must have been sleeping inside the engine of a car in a cold winter night. In the morning, when the engine went off it tore her apart.

But for days, possibly weeks, Lady crawled along the streets of Istanbul, trying to find water to drink, some crumbs to eat. We know for a fact that she ate during this time, probably fed by animal lovers that, incredibly, didn’t think of taking her to the hospital urgently, until finally, miraculously, someone did.

Lady’s remaining bits of leg need to be amputated. Her recovery is going to be a long and painful one, but this is an incredibly cat, a fighter, brave and resilient like each and everyone of the animals we rescue.

Many vets around the world, and most rescue groups would not hesitate to kill her. Why making any efforts for a cat in this condition? Why treat a cat that will never be perfect?

Well… precisely for that reason… because we are a rescue group, not a mail order catalog of cute puppies and kitties, and because rescuing those that truly have no other chance is right at the essence of what we do.

This is why Lady is going to have the very best treatment an injured animal can have, and after the treatment is over she will have a wonderful home, where she will forget about all of this, and will go on to have a wonderful life as a tripod kitty.

Lady needs your generous support. Please, if you can, contribute to Canela’s Chipin… Look at your cat, or your dog, sleeping quietly next to you and help Lady on his / her name… because she matters. Please SHARE this post across all social networks. Lady needs our help.

Thank you.

Viktor

P.S.  If you are an amazing human being and are willing to adopt Lady please don’t hesitate to contact me on viktor@myletsadopt.com . Sadly, chances are she will never find a home in Turkey, we will be delighted to send her to you if you meet our adoption criteria.

You are born but at first you don’t see. It’s suddenly too cold and not damp enough. You are on the concrete, waiting for your turn to be licked clean. Mom cleans you up, things start looking up but it’s still dark. You snuggle up to mom, maybe it’s not that bad after all. You decide to sleep on it for a few weeks in between milk time.

Then you open your eyes.

All the voices have a shape, shapes that pass you by. Mom is still around though, and it’s October.

You wake up on October 30th, mom is not there. It is unnatural, you assumed she would always be there. She’s gone. You watch the shapes, hear the voices. It starts raining. You have a place to go, but you always followed. There is noone to follow. You take the leap, not of faith but of death, a shape with a creaking sound runs you over. No, it’s not painful, it’s beyond that.

You open your eyes, like you did in September for the first time. Shapes move around you, they talk about you, not for long, because they always have something more important to do. They decide on a date, next week on November 10, you will be put to sleep. If you knew about them, you would hate euphemisms. But you’re asleep already, and you are just a kitten. Your hind legs don’t work. You can actually move one of them. But they don’t see that. You are happy, though, you are happy it’s warm, you are happy there’s food and water, you are happy because someone touches you once in a while. Actually, you are happy because sometimes they look at you and that’s good enough. It’s November 9, you open your eyes to another day of happiness. It will end in two days. You start purring.

It’s November 10, you see a new shape, loud voices, you start purring. That’s the only argument you have against your own execution. The new shape approaches you. You are covered in your own shit. That’s why noone touches you, but you purr for the prospect.

You are placed in a box, it feels bumpy. You fall asleep.

It’s November 11. One of your hind legs work. You have a home waiting for you in California. You almost died. You have no idea. You open your eyes and you purr.

Before Dolores can go home, she needs intensive care and treatment for her infected wounds and the nerve compression in her leg. After a final operation in two weeks, she will have a wonderful life where she will be able to open her eyes every single day for the rest of her life. But this is only possible if you give us a hand. We cannot let Dolores down.

Please help us with Dolores’s treatment and flight expenses. She needs you.

Two weeks ago we made a promise… we would fly to the jungle outpost where Otto had spent so many months languishing in agonizing pain, we would rescue him, fly him to Lima, fix his DESTROYED leg and fly him to a wonderful home in the USA.

What follows here speaks by itself… and it could only happen because of YOU.

Otto, leaving Madre de Dios…

A quick hop in a car and the drive to the airport…

With Kari… ready to fly!!

Arrival at his new clinic in Lima

Everyone he has met tells us OTTO is the most amazingly sweet dog…   ALL LOVE

HE LOVES to have his belly rubbed!!!

Now.. have a look at this.. this is the picture of Otto’s leg AFTER his accident.. the bone was broken…

What happened afterwards was a tragedy.. Otto was not operated by a veterinarian but by some local healer.. this is the state of Otto’s leg after that first operation in the jungle… check this out!

He has been in this condition for MANY months.. can you imagine the pain?

Luckily for him… his bad luck is OVER!!!

He has now been operated and his leg has been fixed!!!!! A new external fixation has been applied..

Everything is looking MUCH BETTER .. and Otto is now happy again!!!

Meet the team!!!!!

Amazing right? Well… Otto has been moved to Kari’s home in Lima. He will be there until he is in a condition to travel… and the good news is that we know where he will fly to from Peru!!!!… He will go visit our friends at K.9 CARE INC to continue with his rehabilitation with the best team in America. What? You don’t know who they are? Well.. check them out HERE… Amazing people..

THANK YOU all of  you that are making this rescue possible… if you are reading this and you can please spare the price of a coffee (or two) and contribute to Otto’s rescue Fund)… he still has quite a way to go…

Best

Viktor

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Update, November 21.

Our volunteer, Kari Ureta flew this weekend to Puerto Maldonado and rushed to see Otto and evaluate his condition.
This is the state in which he has been found. 5 months after his horrific accident and a series of blotched procedures by the local veterinarians Otto is in a pitiful condition.
When Kari entered the room where he has been confined for months Otto lifted his eyes and his tail started wagging. He was inside the cage in terrible state, malnourished, dehydrated and in obvious pain from his infected leg. The injuries created by the external fixations are infected and are oozing pus. His entire leg is inflamed and swollen. He has lost most of the muscle tone due to the lack of activity and the pain he feels when he stands on his leg.

It’s a disaster.. horrible and infuriating.. but at the same time we are happy because finally Otto’s ordeal is about to finish.
We are working on booking Otto on his flight to Lima where he will be rushed to the best vet in the City for an evaluation and the beginning of treatment to diminish the infection on his leg. From there, he will fly to the USA for his necessary therapy.
We will keep you posted… right now, we can only wish him strength for the coming days..
Don’t worry Otto, this nightmare is about to end.

Please, if you can, contribute to Otto’s Rescue Fund.. the logistics of this rescue are extremely complicated and costly. Please Chipin whatever you can… even if is only the price of a coffee… this baby needs to start a new life, and he will only do so with your help…

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This is how Otto, a once mighty and proud German Shepherd looks today….
Otto is  trapped in one of the most isolated places in the world, deep inside the amazonian jungle, in the Peruvian region of Madre de Dios, bordering Brazil and Bolivia. If you are lost already, don’t worry, so did I, I had to use Google Earth to find the place.
His condition right now is as dramatic as you can see.

A few months ago Otto, was playing with some of the kids in the village when one of his legs got stuck into a wire trap of sorts. A painful muted “crack”, and the leg was badly broken.

Otto was taken to a village vet, who, operating in conditions I will leave to your imagination, fixed the dog as best as he could.

Sadly, he couldn’t do much…

I have been informed the external fixation used to repair his broken leg is infected and needs immediate removal. We hope infection has not spread through the bone, in which case, an amputation would be necessary. The veterinarian that has cared for him doesn’t have the right antibiotics or equipment and has recommended for him to be killed. Otto’s condition is critical.

We are coordinating Otto’s urgent rescue and his transfer from the jungle where he is right now, to Peru’s capital, Lima, where he will receive emergency care in the city’s best clinic. Once his leg is fixed, and regardless of the outcome, Otto will fly to the United States or Canada, where he will be adopted by one of the amazing families within our network.

This is going to be an extremely complicated and costly rescue, completely out of reach for a normal rescue or a private individual.

We are Otto’s last chance. Crazy as it may seem, there really is noone else willing or able to help this beautiful dog that is suffering so much.

Once again, we need the Let’s Adopt! community to come together as one, and to help an animal that in a cruel twist of life has found himself at the end of the road.

Please contribute to Otto’s Chipin… let’s get him out of there.

Many thanks for your help…

Viktor

A couple of months ago I came in touch with a small group of animal advocates,  Nash County Animal Friends in Nashville (North Carolina). I could immediately see how that small group of volunteers (as usual, no men in their rank) had a drive and passion comparable to ours. They were no phoney couch animal activists, they had no egos and their leader, Carol Vierela, had been able to create a well organized working team. Those people had been gathered together by a twist of fate and they had one mission, to save as many animals from the cruel mouth of an ever hungry gas chamber that was, literally, devouring thousands of animals a year.

Those ladies had no agendas, they were there, saving lives, day after day, just like us!.

I was specially moved by one picture depicting Carol Vierela, the team leader, surrounded by kids holding handful of kitties, playing with them, embracing them. The idea was to give those kitties some love, to allow them to experience some human warmth so that, in the case they wouldn’t find a home and they would end up killed at least they would have experienced kindness for a few minutes.

I tell you, watching that picture I felt a fist in my throat.

I then looked at one of their albums… and in those albums I saw this…

Those are the faces of some of the animals killed since Nash County Animal Friends started working at the shelter. I was haunted by pairs of eyes that were no longer among us. I couldn’t be more horrified when I heard that those animals had been killed using the cruelest of methods, one specially abhorrent to Europeans because one of us invented it, asphyxiation in the gas chamber.

My mind went back to those kids holding the kitties, imagining the impact that this brutal state-sanctioned barbarity would have in those baby’s psyches. We used to speak of childhood as the age of innocence. In Nashville (North Carolina), those children had been robbed of their very souls!

In a way, what we have been doing in Nashville (NC) for the last month and a half has been as much saving animals as saving human beings. I am, on behalf of Let’s Adopt!, committed to achieve No Kill in Nashville. We have sworn to do whatever is necessary so that that long list of animals mercilessly killed doesn’t continue growing. We are going to show everybody in the United States and the world what a group of courageous people can do working as a team.

We have created an imperfect system that works. With every animal we save the system gets better, the logistics more efficient, and, amplified by social media our work reaches the world and sets a direction for others to follow.

We are building the most formidable network of volunteers, but in America, to put it simply, money talks. Right now every animal and transport to his home is costing us an average of 700 USD per dog, 400 USD per cat, much more if we include the costs of neutering each and every single animal. The numbers are frightening in their enormity and I wanted to share them with you because without you we will not be able to continue.

The animals and children of Nashville need your help. Please continue to our Gas Chamber Rescue Chipin… this is important… this matters…. Thank you. Viktor Larkhill

This is a story of kindness, love, cruelty and neglect all rolled  into one.

The woman found a stray dog. He was paralyzed and blind in one eye. It was obvious to her he would never heal, so she took him home.

But the dog never had the chance to experience love or a family life, instead he was carried down to the basement of the home and left there. In the dark and damp place he would be fed and given water. That was it. That was going to be his life.

In the meantime, outside the property, the woman took care of another paralyzed dog, but this one never entered the home, instead she took care of him on the street!

Last week’s heavy rains made the situation untenable… both dogs were at risk of drowning. In a scene worth of a Gothic novel both dogs, paralyzed and freezing were dumped at the infamous Shelter of Hell in Istanbul and were left there to die surrounded by filth and disease.

When we were told of this story we couldn’t believe it… we waited for a few hours to see if anyone in the animal lover community in Istabul took action and assumed the responsibility.

Noone did.. so we had to.

In all honesty, this is the kind of story that makes me despise most animal lovers, whose lack of vision, resources and wit ends up creating untold amounts of pain. Stories like these are also the reason why this group exists. Without us animals like Tom and Jerry (yep!, they have been given names for the first times in their lives) would die the most painful and miserable of deaths.

Tom and Jerry are now with us… they are staying in one of our clinics. They are in intensive care recovering from the ordeal. We need to make sure they don’t develop massive contact sores so typical of dogs in their condition.. we need to buy them wheelchairs… and we need to find them a perfect home, two perfect homes.. FAST!!!!!

Tom and Jerry will fly anywhere in the world where those perfect homes are found. Those two dogs would die in the hands of many so-called Humane Societies. We are their only hope, their only chance to living the live that was denied to them here in Turkey.

This is your chance to truly do something truly great, the ultimate gesture of generosity for a fellow living being. Your chance to truly become a hero.

This is not going to be an easy one. Please give Tom and Jerry a hand by contributing to their Chipin.. They need you. Please SHARE

Update: November 1st

We are on week 7 of the Operation No-Kill Nashville and we are close to reach the number of 100 animals saved!!!
As the time progresses we are facing a new number of challenges to which we are trying to find creative solutions…

1. We have a shortage of foster homes in Nashville and around. The volunteers there are amazing, and I cannot think of a better partner than our friends at Nashville Country Animal Friends but we need to find ways for them to grow their network locally so that we can rely on more short term fosters.
2. Winter is here. The arrival of winter is complicated things from a logistical point of view. Some airports are closed to animal transport, airlines request acclimatization certificates, snow and ice closes airports completely. Circulation and transport by road becomes somewhat unreliable. A possible solution I see here is to try to find more fosters and adoptants in Florida and California. Sadly, this will increase our costs significantly.
3. We are rescuing a number of animals that need more than just simple vetting and health certificates. In order to best deal with those cases we need to increase our network of veterinarians across the USA capable of offering the level of service we expect from our partner clinics. If you know an outstanding vet in your area please don’t hesitate to email me and give me his details. We will get in touch with them.
4. Funds: the total cost per life saved, including vetting procedures, transport and kennels/carriers is right now on average, close to 700 USD per dog, and about 400 USD per cat!, at times much more. We need to figure out ways to get our community involved, and to involve them in our fund raising efforts. For now, our Chipin is the only way we have to pay for all of this, and sadly, we are nowhere close to raising enough funds, which means we are permanently operating in the RED. We don’t know how long we will be able to sustain this rhythm, it basically depends on our community to make it happen. To this effect we have just started our November Chipin.. all our expenses will come out of it… Please, if you are in a position to help, please do… YOU are making this miracle happen. Many thanks!. Viktor

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It’s been a month since we started our Rescue Action from the Gas chamber in Nashville. I cannot begin to tell you how hard we are working on this..

Here are some numbers:

- In the first month we have rescued 62 animals in total, 22 dogs and a whooping 40 cats!.

- When in Kill Shelters around the USA dogs and cats die for lack of adoptants in Nashville this month only 1 adoptable animal died, and this happened on the first week of our campaign, when we were not yet organized. Since then, no animal has died in Nashville. Each and everyone of them has been adopted, either by us or by other rescues. Whomever says that there are not enough homes for all animals in shelters doesn’t know what he is talking about. No-Kill is possible, if a group with as few resources as us can achieve this everyone can.

- The shelter, however, has killed many animals that we never got to see, many of them feral cats and animals handed over by their owners with the precise instruction to be killed. The gas chamber has not stopped working in Nashville. This is completely unacceptable and we are starting talks to be able to rescue each and every animal delivered to the shelter, including feral cats and animals needing medical treatment.

- In the first month we have set up the bases of a formidable nation-wide network of foster homes. The search for fosters continues every day. This map will give you an idea of how far we have gone in just one month.

View Let’s Adopt Foster Network in a larger map

- Our two biggest challenges are:

1. To increase the number of short term fosters in/around Nashville. Short term foster homes are crucial, they are the ones where they animals go whilst definite transport arrangements to their long term fosters or final homes.

2. To increase the number of available Funds: After a month rescuing we have made a quick calculation. On average the cost-per-life saved in Nashville, including basic vetting and transport is 180-200 USD. This amount doubles in cases when we have to spay/neuter and can become much much more if more veterinary treatment is needed.

The cost of saving those 62 animals has been close to 12.000 USD. Sadly, we have only been able to raise 4.000 USD. Still, we are managing.

As you all know Let’s Adopt NEVER applies an adoption fee to the adoptants. This is a matter of principle. We will never be put in a position where anyone gets to say that they have bought a dog from this group. We believe in creating a relationship of partnership with our adoptants and Fans instead of one based on a fee transaction. Many organizations can’t understand this logic and continue applying absurd adoption fees. Adopting our animals is not a right, it’s a privilege that cannot be bought by payment of an adoption fee.

We need to find a solution to those two problems. The team of the Nashville County Animal Friends is working hard on increasing their network. From our part we need to be able to continue raising funds in a systematic way otherwise sooner or later the rescues will stop and that gas chamber will start killing animals again.

Let’s Adopt Global is committed to continue saving lives and together with NCAF achieve No Kill in Nashville.

We don’t make promises in vain, but the only way to achieve this is to do it together.. please continue supporting our rescue program in the gas chambers of North Carolina. Thousands of animals are counting on us…