Rural Animal Care

22/08/2024

Storm M (FA Fawn)
Compound Fracture of L Hindleg

20/08/2024

BOYKA M
MA Light Brown Greyhound

Dislocated L Foreleg with Nerve Damage

20/08/2024

A photo Revisited & Promise Fulfilled

Before our snapshot, let me fulfill my promise to post some individual pics of the dogs peering out of their satellite dishes in the rehab photo Adrianne posted earlier. So, herewith the photo revisited, along with another taken at the same time which will give you a closer look at some of the fortunate fur babies behind those bars.

18/08/2024

15/08/2024

This year’s flown and, overwhelmed by the dogs and the debts their treatment has/is incurring, I’m afraid I’ve totally neglected all of you wonderful, caring people who have encouraged and supported us in so many ways since Adrianne first opened a window on our world with the RAC page.
I know some of you are wondering whether we’re still working with the animals in Caledonia and the rural areas around us, and the answer is an emphatic yes – every day, because I simply cannot bring myself to turn away the desperate cases we see and am absolutely determined to find enough sponsorship to continue taking them into our vets, who’ve been incredibly patient with us, despite the fact that we owe them a fortune
Anyway, herewith my promised update - we'll be posting a belated collage of photos of some of the dogs and cats we’ve taken into town for treatment in the months since I dropped off the edge of the world – be they at the vet, in our little rehab or at their own homes - some of which are as far afield as Ruwa, Goromonzi and Cromlet.
One dog, and one day at a time, I know we’re making a difference in the area around us and, luckily for them, I’m better with animals than words, which are always too many, but never enough!! Having said that, it’s not easy to keep doing what has to be done, this is a battle against suffering that we’re not giving up on and, should any of you know of any embassies, organizations or individuals looking for a worthy community outreach program to support, please would you let us (and them) know!! With our love and thanks, as ever, April

09/08/2024

APRIL'S VISIT TO FRIENDS ANIMAL FOUNDATION

So fantastic to have April Thompson and her 2IC Tawanda from Rural Animal Care out to play with us yesterday....Just so wonderful to share ideas....!!❤️🐾

04/08/2024

Very important info!

03/08/2024

The best and most loyal and intelligent dogs...just love them! ❤

28/07/2024

Applies to dogs too!

14/06/2024

14th June 2024
A little note from April

Phew, life's been hectic, but herewith a photo of our rehab kennels taken on this one day, 14th May 2024, along with a list of the 15 dogs that were in at the time and a brief description of their treatments. This to show that nothing ever changes here - the dogs just keep on coming!! - and altho it goes with the territory, it's hard to stay on top of things and I'm sorry I haven't been keeping you updated. Thank God for Adrianne!! 🐾😜💛
Among the dogs pictured, we had the following:

1 dislocated leg (& nerve damage)
4 broken legs
3 broken pelvises
1 torn cruciate ligament
1 botched home neuter
1 mammary tumour
1 pyometra
1 haematoma &
2 cases of severe malnutrition.

5 of these were also sterilized and I'll soon be attaching a couple of photos to illustrate a few of their individual ailments.

05/06/2024

We had another wonderfully successful Spay and Neuter Day held at Caledonia yesterday! Thank you VAWZ and your very hard working vets 👏
50 dogs will lead happier, healthier lives as a result -
32 females spayed & 18 males neutered.
219 dogs were vaccinated against rabies too.
Thank you to ALL involved... without your help, we couldn't do what we do to help these needy little dogs.

21/05/2024

09/05/2024

ZVATANGA

*Bilary, injured foot*
This beautiful little brindle, Zvatanga, was brought into Tawanda on a Saturday morning dip day with biliary. He was also limping on his left hindleg but thankfully recovered well with treatment.

09/05/2024

BRUNO

* Infection then Parvo*
Bruno arrived with a nasty infection in his neck where he'd had multiple pudzi-fly maggots squeezed. Sadly he then went on to develop parvo which he didn't survive, despite intensive care at the vet.
Sad, sad story but this is to highlight how many sad cases we have, whereby animals have to be
PTS...however this doesn't prevent us 'trying' in every case we assist 😞

08/05/2024

REX

*Parvo*
Luckily, this little pup, Rex, came in when he'd stopped eating and his parvo was caught early. After 5 days on a drip in the isolation ward, he recovered fully and went home.

This was a happy ending...so many poor Parvo pups don't make it 😢

08/05/2024

SMART

*Abscess*
This little dog Smart had the most terrible abscess on the back of her neck which became badly infected. We took her into the vet and after treatment, she came back to our rehab... still with a drain inserted. Smart happily shared a kennel with Fox and stayed until her neck was fully healed.

07/05/2024

FOX

*Fractured Pelvis*
Fox was asleep under a car and sustained a fractured pelvis when it reversed over him.
He's now back home after a period of confinement with us.

07/05/2024

ROUGH

*Hot Spot*
Rough was brought to us because he had the most terribly painful hot spot on his face. This was cleaned and treated at the vet and, with follow up meds, he's now fine.

06/05/2024

LILY

TVT
Lily lost her pups to parvo & eventually came to us after we had her spayed. Also, after her spay, she had to have 6 chemos sessions for her TVT. Lily is a dear little dog who now lives happily with Tawanda.

06/05/2024

I will be posting a few of the dogs we've been helping over the last weeks...

BORIS

*Biliary & Malnutrition*
Passed onto one of 'our' dog owners, Boris was lucky to be given a new start in life.
Admitted for a few days of treatment at the vet, he then came back to our RAC Rehab for some weeks of TLC, after which we took him home to his delighted owners. They've since decided to let us take him in for neutering, he's in line for one of our kennels (which will fit on the veranda) and the future looks rosy for him.

11/03/2024

Appeal for Kennels please! 🐾 🐾 🐾

When we rehome dogs and puppies (of which we have so many at the moment!), we always like to send them off to their new homes, with a kennel for shelter... and most importantly for the dogs to have their own little safe space.
If you, or your friends and neighbours have any old, no longer needed, kennels in your backyard, please think of us? We, and the dogs would be so grateful 🙏

02/03/2024

We're still here!! ... despite the lack of posts... we've been so busy... with never ending, needy, injured or sick houndies 😥 We'll bring you their stories soon.

04/12/2023

If anyone has any resealable 2 or 5 kg packets for us... please may we have them by Wed ( we need to fill them before Spay Day on Friday) Thanks 🐾

30/11/2023

Please, please, please.... we need re-sealable 2 kg/4kg packets e.g Whiskas etc... for our forthcoming Spay Day...if you have any or anything similar, please drop them off with me in Highlands or I can collect?
Thanks
Adrianne
wa 0772 233 192

21/11/2023

Nada - A Black Princess, in Need of a Home.

Two months ago, an adult Doberman (or Dobie X) with an undocked tail was found lying on the road near our neighbour’s gate, blood pouring from two huge gashes that had torn her chest, shoulder and front leg open. Surrounded by several deep puncture holes that can only have been made by teeth, we can only presume that she’d been attacked by dogs because although we’re inundated with monkeys, baboons (which could conceivably have inflicted the same injuries) are very seldom seen in our neighbourhood.
Fortunately, she was rescued by Twala, who cleaned her wounds and stabilized her, and when I saw her story on the Gardiner WhatsApp group (and heard that she was going to be taken into the SPCA) I liaised with them both, offering to take her into our vet and bring her back here afterwards, which would give us a chance to try and find her owners. Sadly, we didn’t manage that, but Kam Vet did a fantastic job of stitching her up and before long, she was back in rehab with us, only going back in again to be spayed when she was up to it.
I’ve called her Nada, after a much loved Doberman we had when I was a little girl (named after ‘Nada the Lily’, the beautiful Zulu princess in Rider Haggard’s classic book) because this beautiful, affectionate girl has an equally sweet nature. If we can’t find her a wonderful home, she’ll stay with us and join our much loved waifs and strays but, knowing what a wonderful companion she’d make for someone, I’d dearly love her to have a forever home where she’ll be pampered and have more of a one to one relationship with her owners than we can offer her. If you think you could be that person, or know of anyone who might fit the bill, please would you contact us, bearing in mind that our home checks are probably as draconian as any!!
Please? 🙏

16/11/2023

Fox & Rex M - Rehomed

It’s always nice to have a story with a happy ending and if you remember Fox and Rex, the 2 dogs surrendered at our last Caledonia Spayday, you’ll be glad to hear that they now have a wonderful new home!! Wracking our brains to think of someone we’d trust with them, we contacted a family who’d lost their much loved dog to cancer earlier this year, leaving them with just one dog. Unfortunately, they were out because she’d befriended a dog who’d all but moved in with them, but they told us about a neighbour who’d been devastated to lose ‘his baby’ when the dog he’d been looking after had to go back to her owner.
It was a month since the 2 surrenders had come to us – they’d been de-wormed, bathed, brushed, walked, well-fed and socialized and, with Fox’s ear infection behind her, they were now more than ready to go out into the world and start a new life. And so Tawanda, accompanied by our friend, popped next door to speak to the neighbour, who was over the moon at the thought of having his own dogs. He’d proved himself to be a gentle, caring owner, despite the fact that he hadn’t had dogs of his own before, so Tawanda went through our animal care information leaflets with him and started taking the dogs to visit the family on a regular basis so they could get to know each other. It was a match made in heaven – we delivered a wonderful big kennel that accommodates both the dogs with room to spare (another generous donation, refurbished by Angus in the shed) while their owner informed us that he’s going to build a little shade port above it for extra shelter.
On Saturday - 5 weeks and 2 days after they came to us - Fox and Rex went to spend the morning with them while Tawanda was dipping dogs at the Chigayo and when he went to fetch them, the dogs were so relaxed, reclining in their kennel after running around with the children (who absolutely love them and were pleading for them to stay) that he decided the time had come to leave them there. Their new owners have quite a large plot and are affluent enough to be able to feed and care for them properly, so we’ve left them there with glad hearts, knowing that they’re 2 lucky dogs.

09/11/2023

The Chigayo Dogs have an Uncertain Future

Bokkie, the little dog that pushed RAC into existence, used to live at the Mukadota Chigayo - a little mill near the Gardiner/Arcturus junction where many of the local subsistence farmers used to take their maize for grinding while they settled in for a Scud (a big brown plastic jar of traditional beer) at its conveniently positioned little tuck-shop and shebeen. Ten years ago, I followed this little boy back here to ask his owners if I could take him to the vet, and once their regulars had witnessed his transformation from a ribby little cur with mange and a painfully raw chest to a fine canis Africanis specimen, our fate was sealed, with people bringing their sick and injured dogs to the side of the road, where they’d wait for my car in the hopes of an equally happy ending - something they’re still doing to this day - as they wait for Tawanda’s ‘doggy ambulance’, albeit in far greater numbers.
Sadly, Bokkie and his owners are no longer there. Charles, the landlord, had a stroke, after which he and his wife moved back to their original musha, and while Bokkie survived several misadventures over the years (including being stolen and recovered twice) he finally disappeared completely last year, along with Liza, his hard-headed mistress, who followed suit a few months ago after suffering a massive heart attack. Having said that, 3 of their dogs are still living at the Chigayo with a caretaker (2 of which are very attached to us after various stints in rehab for lacerations, burns, a broken leg, cut eye and sore back) and when I got the same negative response from their son as I’d had from Liza when I asked if we could re-home them, I was devastated to see the little covered outhouse which housed their tyre beds crumble to a mound of mud bricks after its roof was blown off in a storm.
We had to do something, and it was like manna from heaven when we had a sudden influx of kennels generously donated for the dogs earlier this year – some in need of repair, but many new ones too - 3 of which were immediately assigned to the rather forlorn Chigayo dogs. What a blessing they are for them, and what a joy for us to witness their delight, knowing that each of them has a place of their own to retreat to!! Once again, we can only thank you, the caring people who follow the occasional stories, like this one, that we put out on Facebook from time to time. We have literally thousands of photos and altho only a tiny fraction of them are ever seen, I hope the fleeting glimpse they provide is enough to give you some insight into the lives of these special dogs, whose days are now so much better with our help and yours.
This was a post I wrote some months ago, intending to put it out, but events have since overtaken us and as the huge fig tree next to the Chigayo was ripped out of the ground by a bulldozer last week, it’s important that you get it now. The scar left in its wake demarcates one of the roads for a new urban development in the area and, for the subsistence farmers that have had plots allocated to them in that very area over the years, it’s an absolute disaster. They’ve put their all into building their homes and developing their small fields, such as they are, only to find that they now have to move. 😥 Sadly, many in our midst have experienced this trauma first hand over the past few decades and know just what an impact this will have on them and their animals – it’s heart-breaking but, at this stage, all we can do is try our best to help them with their animals when they’re relocated.