05/08/2022
The Sad story of Chipper the Chinchilla and the Soldiers Turtle 💔
Chipper was surrendered and his previous owners were told he’d be well taken care of and find a great forever home.
Draco’s isn’t legally able to accept animals that are not reptiles. Yet they have fostered multiple. Just in the last few months they’ve had A dog, rabbit, hedgehog, and Chipper in their care.
Chipper was given to a Foster that had a flea and roach infestation. The President of Draco’s knew this, and still approved her to Foster. She was given Chipper, a Turtle, and a dog.
The turtle had no filter for her tank, and no basking spot. She smelled disgusting and her tank was filthy. She was freezing with no tank heater as well. When she was taken from the neglectful Foster, her new foster had to pay for everything to make sure she was properly set up. This turtle was originally a SOLDIERS pet. He was devastated he had to surrender her due to his job moving him into barracks where he couldn’t have her. This man gave Draco’s a 200 gallon tank and two others for her. He had her from a hatchling and gave Draco’s everything she needed to be well cared for.
The turtle was removed from her normal tank and put into only a 20 gallon tank. The President of Draco’s kept all the turtles supplies and didn’t put her in her 200 gallon tank, or keep her as her personal pet, as promised to the soldier.
When the Turtles new foster quit Draco’s…No one bothered to ask for her back, so she adopted her.
This new Foster, let’s call her Sarah, was also the Social Media Manager for Draco’s. She was advised one day that an animal had died and the others in this persons home needed to possibly be removed and replaced. So Sarah stepped up and offered to handle the situation for the President.
At this point Sarah had helped with conflict multiple times within the Rescue and didn’t mind assisting.
Sarah was told by the President, that one of the Volunteers/Employees that handled Draco’s finances, was negligent and we needed to quickly get all her fosters from her. Sarah was VERY confused as she had recently been to this persons house and saw 0 issues.
The President told Sarah that the Finance person had a foster dog that was covered in fleas, matts, and her nails were growing into her paw pads. Sarah had just held and played with the dog days before this, and asked where these accusations came from. The President advised a new Foster, let’s call her Marie, had received the dog from Financial Person and was complaining that it was literally THROWN at her, and severely neglected. AND that BECAUSE the dog was THROWN at her, Chipper was then attacked by her Husky. She also then had to euthanize her dog. On her birthday.(Confirmed with NHS that no aggressive husky’s we’re called in and euthanized for this situation as they were completely unaware of it.)
Sarah immediately asked to handle the situation as it sounded very strange. She knew the Financial Person and knew they’d never throw an animal. So she was allowed to reach out to Marie and deal with the whole situation.
Marie had a completely different story.
Sarah was told that FP (Financial Person) came over to drop off dog, and Marie asked for help setting up the Chinchilla’s cage she had already had for a few days. The cage was supposed to have ledges for Chipper to climb, but the cage only had one small area Chipper could move around in. FP, concerned, got the cage set up for her and watched the Husky and Foster Dog play together, then left. After that Marie said out of nowhere her Husky attacked Chipper’s cage and killed him. Marie also mentioned her bug infestation and said the President “understood”.
Sarah let the whole team know what she found out and gets the process going to get Marie’s fosters away from her. Sarah took the turtle and Chippers body. She looked over it and there was not one mark from a dog on him. He may have had a heart attack, but Sarah was told the dog GOT to him. Makes no sense.
The President never acknowledged her fabrication of this story, and brushed it all off quickly.
Chipper was burried at a beautiful park, and is visited often.
