CASSIE

Cassie came to us as she was unclaimed after serving her seven days in the stray kennels, and was due to be put to sleep. Nothing unusual about her apart from she was a little thin She was placed into a foster home and within ten days looked very egg shaped. yep you’ve guessed it she was pregnant the vet said that she was to far along really to do anything and that her poor condition had disguised the fact that she was expecting he felt that she wasn’t too far from D Day to cut a long story short D day took two weeks to arrive by which time she looked like she was going to pop, we had brought her to stay with us as our fosterer had no experience of whelping. And when the time came we were with her all the way, spending all night on the floor at the side of the whelping box, but unfortunately when the time came to push the first puppy became stuck and it was HUGE, there was no way she was going to part with it naturally so off to the vets we went, after a few hours of worrying by the phone we were given the news that we were the proud grandparents of five bouncing babies but that unfortunately the first puppy who was stuck had not survived.

It was extremely hard work helping Cassie to rear the pups and recuperate and the financial cost for the emergency c section alone was over £300.00 the personal cost to Cassie had she not had the right care would have been her life, she has made a full recovery and has gone to her new forever home where she is much loved as have her puppies it could have been so different.
Please do not breed from your dog it can and does often go horribly wrong.

SOPHIE

Sophie was found at the side of the road by the dog wardens having been hit by a car she was taken to a vet and diagnosed as having a fractured pelvis and torn ligaments she was given medication and transferred to the local pound where she was held for seven days in case her owners came to claim her, they didn’t, and no one else came forward to offer her a home because of her injuries, so she came here a wee scrap she was too with ribs and backbone showing her pelvis did not need to be operated on it just needed time to heal and lots of rest, though she was given steroids and painkillers for the ligament damage which also required rest, Sophie was with us for a month before being declared fit to rehome and it took a couple more months before she was completely recovered.
Her new owner is besotted with her and her with him

SUZI

Suzi is a sharpie/staffie cross and not technically a complete success as she still awaits her forever home but we are incredibly proud of the progress she has made, Suzi was abandoned and taken in by Pets In Need a local charity she was in appalling condition and had recently had a litter of puppies, she was traumatized and extremely nervous and we took her in, as she could not have coped in a kennel environment, her physical and mental improvement is wonderful to see though she is still very nervous and will require a special home as it is evident that she has been beaten in her past and likes a secure place of her own to take herself off to when stressed, we are not rushing to rehome as her next home really must be forever.

MILO

Milo was another pound dog who at 5 mths old remained unclaimed by his owner, after serving seven days and several frantic phone calls between Fireside Rescue and Rochdale Dog Rescue Milo was picked up from the kennels by Simon Day who had agreed to foster him, unfortunately less than 48hrs later Milo became lethargic and was sick and taken to the vets where he was diagnosed as having parvovirus a very serious life threatening illness, Milo spent ten days in the vets on a drip and a combination of antibiotics and it really was touch and go if he would pull through, he did though, the little fighter, and by this time Simon and his partner Emma had gone through so much worry that they couldn’t bear to be parted from him so he now has his forever home with them. Please ensure that your dogs’ vaccinations up to date not doing can result in vets bills in excess of £1,000 and contracting parvo can and does often result in the death of your dog.

ITCHY & SCRATCHY

On Thursday the 8th September I was presented with two very pathetic looking and bald five week old puppies, they had been bought by two neighbours who had seen an ad in a free ads publication offering them for sale for £150.00 as mastiff/staffie crosses.

They went to see them and bought them because they were “cute” despite the poor condition of both mum and pups, the breeder told them the puppies were suffering from fleas which had caused the hair loss and that they would be ok once they had been treated, however within a few days almost all of their hair had fallen out and the new owners were informed by a vet that it was in fact mange, both of these people were unemployed and neither had the cash or the commitment required for what could be a lengthy time consuming and expensive recovery so the puppies were handed over to rescue and quickly named itchy and scratchy.

The puppies were immediately taken to the vet for skin scrapes and it was discovered that it was demodectic mange and also that they were infested with worms and underweight, their treatment was started that night with injections and medicated baths every 5 days and were wormed a few days later, since then they have come on in leaps and bounds putting on three kilos in a fortnight and with homeopathic treatments being used alongside conventional medicine have even surprised the vet with their progress.

There is a worrying trend at the moment of people breeding their bitch in order to simply make money, the breeder of these two little bundles of trouble it turns out knew what was wrong with the puppies and the other seven from that litter who we have still not traced (his partner is apparently a vet nurse) and chose to sell them before they were even 5 weeks old so that he didn’t have to pay for treatment which would of course have eaten into his profits, he carried out no checks on the people taking them, offered no feeding guidelines, and had never wormed them, the bugs that he said were fleas were human headlice, they were simply sold to anyone, and ended up in rescue before they were even old enough to leave their mum.

Stray kennels across the country are bursting at the seems with staffies and staffie crosses, yet breeders continue to breed more, saying ahh but mines a purebred, well let me tell you it isn’t just crossbreeds that are in rescues and pounds there are staffies a plenty and it takes a purebred somewhere along the line to make a crossbreed, How sure are breeders that the purebred isn’t one of theirs, do they honestly know whether any of the puppies they have sold have been bred from, intentionally or not, to produce puppies like itchy and scratchy, their mum was a first cross Stafford /Bordeaux so somewhere there is a breeder responsible for providing the Stafford that has itself gone on to be responsible for at least two litters of crossbreeds, that breeder could be YOU.

To anyone thinking of breeding their dog take a look at itchy and scratchy, the reality is not always cute puppies going to live with a nice family in a nice house with roses around the door, these two puppies are not alone in what they have gone through they are a drop in the ocean, but they are the lucky ones they will now have a chance in life, unlike the hundreds of not cute anymore unwanteds being put to sleep every day in our animal loving country.

THINKING OF BREEDING? PLEASE THINK AGAIN