April 7 update… As it turns out, when it comes to animal rescue, sometimes, you need to Have More Than A Little Faith. Sometimes you need a Whole Lot of Faith! At the end of my last story, I was safe and clean and fed in my foster home. My journey there had been traumatic and scary, but everybody rejoiced in my rescue. My happy ending hadn’t quite arrived, though. Stressed, malnourished, and at a landfill, I was vulnerable to having been exposed to the dreaded Parvo virus. The first 10 days in care are a stressful time for foster homes as they watch for signs and symptoms. I was only here a few days when I got sick. Thankfully, because I was in care, I got to the vet really quickly. It is just an awful virus, and when you are little like me, it can be deadly. I am beginning to think they should have named me Lucky, not Faith, but either way, I am a survivor. Saved from the machine at the landfill by an attentive operator. Saved by the skill of a Veterinary team from Parvo. If I were a cat I would have used up a lot of my 9 lives by this time. The great news. I have been released from the Veterinary Hospital. I hope my next post is about my availability for adoption!
April 1/24 – If you follow SCARS, you know rescue is built on Faith. On the deep belief that our actions make immeasurable differences … every single day.
It is cold, noisy and smelly. I am alone in a municipal landfill. It is scary, I don’t know how I got here, but it is awful. I am little, and right now, I am terrified. There is ginormous equipment, belching black smoke, crunching down on the bags of garbage. I cry, but no one hears me. Instinct tells me to hide. If I bury myself in the refuse, maybe I can save myself from the roar of the machine coming straight at me……
It is a normal day at a municipal landfill. Workers clock in and go about their jobs managing the waste. They need to move and re-pile. It takes patience and big equipment to get the job done. Up in the cab of the big machine, the puppy’s cries are not heard above the engine noise. The driver, although constantly on alert, has no way to know the presence of the pup.
I can smell the diesel fumes, feel the heat of the engine, and the force of the machine shifting the garbage around me. With the machine seconds away, I know this is the end…..
And then…
Silence.
The machine suddenly stops.
I hear steps. I hear a kind voice ask me what I am doing here. I had no answer for them, I just don’t know. Calloused hands reach for me and pick me up out of the garbage. This is no place for you, little one. You were seconds away from being crushed.
The rest is mostly a blur. One set of kind hands to another. Phones were ringing. Can SCARS help? We don’t think she is injured, but we need your help. Driver’s dispatched. A foster home gets ready to open their hearts to another lost soul.
This is animal rescue. We get through each day by having a little faith.
Today, we are so grateful because we have exactly that … a little three-month-old bundle of Faith. Saved thanks to the watchful eye of an equipment operator doing their job and a network of people who believe each life is worth saving.
Welcome to SCARS, Faith.