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Rescue File 2008
Mrs. B. and Toto’s last night together was a Friday. On Saturday morning they had their last walk, their regular 8:15 that, for years, neighbors had joked, you could set your watch by. Later that day Mrs. B. was a block from home, pushing her wheeled grocery cart when she suffered a massive heart attack. She died in the street The police had sealed the apartment and were carrying a shaking Toto out when a neighbor heard the news. “Please,” the man said, “this dog meant everything to her. Let me take Toto to a place where I know she’ll be safe.” The Humane Society of New York receives many calls about animals left behind when a caregiver dies. We help whenever we can. That day we opened our doors to Toto. Eleven years old, Toto is a terrier mix and once she must have barked, jumped and hurtled through her days like a furry meteor. But her muzzle is gray now and all she wants is to walk by Mrs. B. as she did for so long. When we retrieved her things from the apartment and put her own, familiar basket into her kennel the terrier climbed inside and closed her eyes as though she were home. We can’t explain that the life she knew is gone forever. But we can do what Mrs. B. would have wanted – we can reassure and protect Toto, and find a new future in a caring home for the little dog that she loved. Each year we care for 32,000 animals throughout New York City’s five boroughs in our full-service hospital and Vladimir Horowitz & Wanda Toscanini Horowitz Adoption Center. Many depend on the Humane Society of New York for the care they need to survive. Here are the stories of a few more we have helped... At first the gray cat in the frayed green collar was different from other strays in the neighborhood. She didn’t fear people, she liked them. She’d walk up to strangers, bumping their shins with her head if they petted her, then following them hopefully. No one ever let her inside so she became a familiar sight on the Bronx street, a thin cat with a question mark for a tail. One day she made a mistake. On a midwinter afternoon she walked up to a young man who turned and kicked her, hard. The blow sent her flying. The cat needed medical attention desperately but now she’d learned fear. She suffered for days, hiding, growing weaker in the cold. Finally, when she couldn’t walk anymore a local woman who’d seen the attack picked her up and called the Humane Society of New York. At the Society our doctors examined the cat who we named Buffy. She was about two years old. She had three broken ribs and bruised lungs that made each breath she took a torment. She’d been pregnant and x-rays showed the shadowy image of kittens, dead and turning her womb septic. She began receiving pain medication and antibiotics right away, underwent surgery then spent long weeks in our hospital while her body and spirit healed. When she was ready we microchipped her and transferred her to our adoption center. We’ll never know why somebody once abandoned Buffy but the green collar and all traces of her cruel past are gone. Today she’s living with her new family who treasure her. She bumps her head against their legs often, telling them, they’re sure, “It’s good to be home.”
Sarah’s coat started thinning before her first birthday. Then skin infections set in. For six years the cocker spaniel suffered, scratching and chewing herself bloody. Her local vet gave her cortisone injections that would help for a while, until the pain came back, worse than before. Her doe eyes reddened and swelled. When she was six, blood tests showed that her thyroid was failing. When she was seven, the man she lived with died. His “She’s sitting in my lap right now,” said the voice on the phone. “Listen.” The voice belonged to a receptionist, the snuffling noises were a curious Sarah and they were calling from the Brooklyn clinic where Sarah had been treated all her life. “The family’s given me two days to find a place for her,” the woman said. “She’s such a good girl, everyone’s friend. Can you help her?” We did help. That afternoon, with the family’s approval, we picked Sarah up and brought her to the Society where our doctors examined her carefully. Tests showed her underlying problem is environmental allergies. Just as in humans dust, pollen, nearly anything can trigger a violent allergic response. Sarah’s condition was complicated because cortisone, which she’d received for years, is not an effective treatment for chronic allergies. Overuse of the drug had left her skin grossly thickened and densely infected with bacteria and yeast. Her ear canals were damaged and her eyes, which at some point had stopped producing tears, were puffy slits. Worse, the cortisone had skewed Sarah’s thyroid levels. She was being medicated for thyroid disease that she didn’t have. Sarah isn’t suffering anymore. Months of care at the Society, including oral and topical medications,
Eddie C. thought his apartment had been burglarized when he came home one day after work to find his front door wide open. Then he saw water everywhere. It was inches deep, his possessions in ruins. A main pipe had burst, flooding the basement flat. “Where’s my cat?” was his first question. He asked the landlord, the emergency workers, but no one had seen P.J. Twenty-four terrible hours passed. P.J.’s face gazed out from posters that Eddie taped all over the neighborhood. Finally he got a call. “I found a cat that looks a lot like yours,” the woman told Eddie. “It was hurt. I brought it to the Humane Society of New York.” The tabby had come to the Society sodden, bleeding, in respiratory distress. When his home flooded and strangers came pouring in P.J. must have panicked and bolted into the street where a car hit him. Our doctors administered emergency treatment for pneumothorax, a leaking of air into the chest that often occurs after trauma. When he was stable he underwent surgery to close wounds on his abdomen and flank. Eddie couldn’t speak at first when we brought him into the hospital and showed him the cat. It was hooked up to tubes, bandaged and stitched but he nodded “yes”, it was P.J. For the next two weeks Eddie visited P.J. every afternoon. A construction worker, he told us he’d always liked dogs, the bigger the better. He’d never thought about having a cat. When he’d found a scrawny kitten on a building site two years earlier he’d planned to give it to a friend. But that night the kitten had purred warmly in his pocket the whole way home and climbed from the box he’d set up, scaling his bed with the determination of a Sherpa conquering Everest. He woke to find it curled on his pillow. They’d been together ever since. Eddie lived on a tight budget and we knew it was going to be hard for him to manage while his apartment was repaired and he replaced his belongings so our Animal Emergency Appeal helped, underwriting his medical costs. When his cat was well enough to go home Eddie thanked our doctors and staff with quiet dignity. “I lost a lot,” he said. “But thanks to this place, I didn’t lose P.J.”
Each day we at the Humane Society of New York are faced with animals who need our help to go on and, in many cases, to survive. Please give, as each donation makes a new beginning possible. Sincerely, Virginia Chipurnoi President Photos by Advisory Board Member, Tammey Stubbs © 2007 |
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Home :: Our Mission :: Services :: Adoptions :: Donations :: Humane Issues :: Contact © 2001-2009, The Humane Society of New York. PRIVACY POLICY
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