About once a month, someone sends a message asking Animal-Kind International to help them save a dog or cat in Jamaica. When I receive these messages, I get in touch with our Partner Organization, Kingston Community Animal Welfare/Deborah, and Deborah is always ready and willing to do whatever it takes to get an animal the help he or she needs.
This time it was a request from Tara to AKI:
"My son and I are spending time in Jamaica and a stray dog (puppy) has attached to us. We have been giving her shelter and food. She is really friendly and a nice dog, but it’s not possible for us to give her a long term home at this point, when we don’t know where we will be staying in future. Could you help us to find a good home to the dog? We named her Ocean. Kindly, Tara (from Treasure Beach)"
Deborah went into action and it took a team effort to get the puppy from Treasure Beach to Kingston (about 4 hours), where Danielle agreed to foster her because the KCAW kennels were full. Cindi sent out an SOS to Jamaican animal groups on social media telling everyone that Ocean needed a good home, keep their eyes open for one.
And then Cindi sent us this message:
"Recently a couple expressed an interest in adopting Ocean and so it has now happened.
Their son is a vet so she will be spayed in due time and well taken care of. She is a happy girl. Just look ! Thank you for saving this precious life. Cindi"
Cindi wrote, "Little Ocean adapted to life away from the sea very quickly and with medicated baths she stopped scratching, her skin cleared, she ate heartily and the ribs that used to stick out disappeared into a solid little body. She was spayed. Gradually, her eyes lost that hopeless look, as she began tentatively to believe that she might after all have a future."
Kingston Community Animal Welfare has been an AKI Partner Organization since 2007, the start of AKI. Your donations cover about 90% of their operating costs, which means these rescues are only possible thanks to you!
From Deborah: "I went to an auto place to repair my car yesterday [early May] when I saw two very hungry cats standing near a worker who was eating his lunch. They looked so desperate hoping something would fall from his plate. Thankfully I always carry dog and cat food everywhere I go. I fed them and they ate nonstop. I added them to my 15 page list of places to visit to feed. They are on my Tuesday and Friday roster." [Since that 1st meeting, they have been spayed too!]
From Deborah (early June): "This is Chester. I picked him up from under a tree where he was lying down motionless. I could tell he was very sick. I didn't know for how long or what was wrong so I took him home to look after him. He improved for a while then took a turn for the worse. It didn't take long for me to rush him to the vet. He stayed 3 days, getting fluids, rest, a round of pills, and then I took him home, feeling much better."
Another message from Deborah (mid-June): "Was driving down my hill and as usual it can never be just a regular day like some people have. There in the bushes I spotted something moving, very slowly. I slowed down and it was a little emaciated pup hiding in the trees. He tried to run but didn't get too far. He was so weak I suppose he just gave up. I got him into the car and dropped off another dog, Sadie, I already had in the car taking to spay, him in the front and Sadie in the back. I dropped Sadie at the vet and took the pup home. He hasn't stopped eating lol. Am not kidding. I named him Stretch."
Here's Stretch a few weeks later with his new mama who renamed him Burma.
Deborah sent this message in May: "Meet little Tubby! He lived on a construction site across from this lady. She is very poor and is deaf and mute. But loves animals. Fortunately or unfortunately lol she gives them all to me when she rescues them. And it's a lot sometimes. She doesn't work and has no source of income. Her little shack is barely any shelter so I give her money each time she rescues a dog or cat. This time she stopped me when I was driving up the hill to go home. She stood in the middle of the road when she saw me coming, holding this little pup. He was in such terrible condition I wasn't sure he would make it."
"Now you must be wondering why if she is giving him to me that I stopped to shampoo him in the trunk of my car. Well, there is a twist to this story!"
It turns out the woman who handed the puppy over didn't really rescue him. One of the construction workers across from where she lives found him in the bushes near the construction site, he was all alone. So he took the pup in and fed him, but barely fed him, and left him to fend for himself.
Deborah's rescuer friend watched this puppy scrounging for food, mostly ignored, and tried to hand him over to Deborah. But the man saw this happen and refused to give the pup up. So Deborah bathed the pup--he had mange. She dewormed him--he was full of worms, and she left tins of puppy food so the woman could feed him daily.
A few days later, she stopped Deborah again. The man who refused to give the pup up was with her and he said the puppy stopped eating and now wasn't moving. Deborah checked him out, heard the rattle in his chest....pneumonia!
Deborah told him, "the only way I will help is if you give me the pup." And he agreed.
Tubby spent 2 nights at the vet until he was sent home with Deborah to recover at the KCAW kennels. When he was well, he happily spent his days at the KCAW kennels with Tubby 2 (rescued by Deborah from the middle of a busy road looking very lost) and Kenny, another puppy rescue.
The best was still to come. Tubby and Tubby 2 were adopted to the same home and at the end of July went home with their new dad!
From Deborah, mid-June: "I was asleep in the middle of the night when I heard a loud whimpering outside. I knew that sound immediately.. a PUP! Was so tired I just couldn't bother to change so there I am walking up the road in my jammies and there is this tiny thing all by herself covered in shrubs and leaves.
She got her bath the next day and dewormed and her own little safe cage with soft towels
She is too small to be adopted now, but one day soon like hundreds before her Tulip will be off to her new forever home."
From Deborah: "This little mama dog saw me stop to feed yet another mama dog down the road. She waited and watched, smelling the food. She was so patient. I fed her when I was leaving. She was so happy for the meal. I went back several times to see if I could find her but never did. I keep trying. Sometimes they walk for miles to find food. Bless her little heart."
More from Deborah: "My car trunk isn't big enough to carry all the food to feed the mama dogs and pups I see every day. All I can do is feed as many as possible and if they are tame enough I will mark their location and leave food there to make sure mama sticks around. When she has weaned them I will spay her. So grateful that we can spay as many as we do (thank you to AKI donors!). Or else I can't even imagine."
