This is a rather long, but heart-warming story we want to share with you- our friends and family. Unfortunately, it’s not an unusual story, but it has touched our hearts and we hope it will yours to.
Bali, as most of you know, is a poor country which doesn’t yet have the same level of animal welfare that we are lucky enough to have in the UK. Although there are a lot of strays, there are also plenty of family dogs. The issue is that often families struggle to pay for proper vet care, which means that dogs that could have grown old living in a loving family home, are often abandoned on the streets.
On the Tuesday 1st October, we were in Bali and had decided to visit Lake Batur. What was supposed to be a well-planned out day of adventure, ended up being one of those days where everything seems to go wrong and you just don’t know why. We left late, the first two roads we took up the mountain ended up in gravel tracks so we had to turn back and when we eventually made it up the mountain we were three hours later than we expected to be. Then we got stuck in a funeral procession for an hour. We had a number of other issues that meant we sat down for some lunch at about 3.00pm. We saw a boat come from the other side of the lake and decided to drive there for a boat trip to make the most of what was left of the day.
As we were driving up a steep hill, suddenly we noticed a small very young puppy walk out of the jungle and lay down in front of our car, making us stop suddenly. We jumped out of the car praying that we had stopped in time and luckily, we had. We picked up the puppy who was about 5-6 weeks old and saw that the poor little thing was in an appalling state. It was almost unconscious, totally dehydrated, had a horrifically infected open wound just behind and in its ear, the ear was actually hanging off due to the rotting flesh. It looked like the puppy would only last 24 hours max. It was 4.00pm, so we jumped in the car, gave the little one some water and he licked SJ and buried his frightened little head her arm almost lifeless.
We drove to the local village to ask where to take the dog but nobody knew. We Googled vets and found one about an hour away. We drove through the Bali jungle and ended up in a chicken farm but no vet. Again we Googled, found another vet and drove for further 30 mins to find a cement factory. It was now 5.30pm, time was running out. Do vets open in Bali after 5.30pm? According to Google, they do not. The car was filling up with flies but the windows were shut and there was a horrible smell in the car. We later figured out that the flies were hatching from the little puppies infected ear that was filled with maggots. The security guard from the cement factory helped us find a dog sanctuary in Ubud called BAWA and we drove there, arriving at 7.00pm but could not find the sanctuary. We knocked on a few doors but again nobody spoke English and we don’t speak Balinese. Our phones were running out of charge and we became a little bit desperate. Our plan was to find somewhere to stay, buy chargers for our phones and try again the next day. We drove for a bit and found two teenagers on a scooter, we showed them the puppy and they led us to Sunset vets that were still miraculously open. Thank you so much to those two youngers!
We took the pup in and the vet started examining to poor little pooch. They confirmed our fears, the pup was very ill and would not survive without urgent treatment. So we asked them to treat him which they did straight away. They gave us the number for the BAWA dog sanctuary and we WhatsApp’d them but they confirmed our second fear. They were full. Devastated, we explained that our option was to leave the pup to die which was just not an option!! They asked for a photo and after a bit of persuasion, they agreed to take him, but he had to stay in the vets for 2 weeks. We agreed to pay for the vets treatment, which included, sorting out the infection, rehydration, sorting out the ear, worming, all vaccines and of course homing him. Only after this would BAWA accept the pup as they had over 300 dogs and did not want to cross infect which we understand. They have been incredible, what an amazing group of people.
The vet asked for name. Marley (from Bali) we suggested, BAWA already has a Marley, so Harley (from Bali), but they already had a Harley as well. They suggested Flash and this is how Marley-Harley-Flash (Flash for short) was named.
Flash is now in his second week of treatment and is well on the mend. We get daily “pupdates”. He is now playing with the vets like a little puppy should. We posted our story and the pupdates on Facebook and have had hundreds of comments of support from our friends, colleagues and families and almost all suggest that we bring this little miracle back to the UK. We cannot take the pup in as we have a blind 14 year old Chihuahua (also a rescue) who wouldn’t understand, but Philippa at the office has been looking to home a rescue pup in her new house and has said that she would love to take Flash in! However, we would like some help in getting him back to the UK. With this in mind we have set up a “GO FUND ME” page and are asking all of our friends, colleagues, families, clients and animal lovers to help us. It is not easy to get animal out of Bali as animals may not fly directly out of the island. So they have to go to a neighbouring country first by car and boat, then onto another country for customs clearance and another element of quarantine before they are flown to the UK.
We believe Flash was abandoned buy his owners who could not afford to get him treated by the vets. But Flash or the Hindi god of creation, Brahma, chose us and you. He walked out in front of our car, two westerners and massive animal lovers who could not see this little creature suffer. But its more than that, the gods made us wait by putting obstacles in our way all day until we were on that road at that specific time, to the second. If Flash had already been sitting in the road, we would not have seen him and he would have probably died under our wheels. This is no coincidence.
So please, we urge you, lets finish this fairy tale off and bring Marley-Harley-Flash to the UK where he will be given a home, loved by many people including all of you. Please donate on our go fund me page. Please be as generous as you can afford. Marley-Harley-Flash is gorgeous and most importantly, alive. Today is a good day and together we can do something great. We cannot change the lives of the many strays that suffer all over the world, but we can change the life of this helpless little pup together.
Obviously we are paying for all the treatment so far, costs to save Flash are highlighted below. Any extra funds raised will be donated to BAWA who do an amazing job every day with very little help. You can read all about them here.
We are going to set up a Facebook profile for Flash so that anyone who donates can watch his journey and also see him return safely to the UK where he is going to live the life he deserves. He’s going to become an office dog and possibly even show up to some events.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, we appreciate how busy everyone is, but we are determined to make this happen!
Your friends Simon & SJ ###x
