Saturday 21 August 2010

Someone is interested in our ponies







What a weekend. Friday and Saturday seemed to be the days everyone in Wales decided to get rid of their pets, well at least that is how it seemed.The phone never stopped. I spent the best part of Saturday afternnon/evening trying to trace a man who had gone into our Barmouth shop with a tale of someone he knew who was going to throw 4 pups aged 6 months in the river!!!!The phone number he left was unobtainable and I started panicking about the dogs. Anyhow as luck would have it I then thoughtI may have taken down the wrong phone number so tried ringing a similar number and lo and behold it was not the man I wanted but it WAS his next door neighbour! How lucky was that?I now have his full address so am waiting to hear from the person who is going out to see him.It is not too local to me so I have had to rely on someone closer to the address.When answering the telephone at an animal shelter staff become used to all sorts of threats made like this but the fact remains that whereas many will be bluffing there will be one who will carry out the threats.With that in mind every call has to be taken seriously.

Sunday saw several abandoned kittens arrive - accompanied by humans of course! One was found near a factory locally, she is a beautifully marked tabby but seems full of worms and looks as though her rectum is about to prolapse so its the vets for her.An unwanted gift was how the lady described a black and white kitten around 8 weeks and 2 kittens are on their way here having been taken off a man in Abersoch threatening to throw them in a river!! What is wrong with people who even say this?It is a form of bullying, a way to make people react .Whether they mean it or not it is so incredibly distressing for those who try to help, the lady who rang me was terribly upset and more than willing to drive the good hours journey to bring them to safety here.

It has not been all bad news , Far from it. There is a reservation today for Pepsi the dog pound pup, someone coming to see the pound collie Sadie tomorrow and Gismo the shi tzu has already gone off to a new home. The lady who has taken him has been on the waiting list for one for several months having a shi tzu already and the two dogs who are the same age sat happily in the back of her car as though they had known each other forever. Buddy too has left us permanently, clearly the two dogs were fine together and he has gone back with them to Stoke on Trent this morning.
Without the nice incidents, the bad ones would be far harder to cope with but they usually manage to balance each other out.
Oh and there is a lady coming tomorrow who is interested in giving a home to two ponies. She has 3 and a half acres, natural woodland shelter and stables so it sounds as though she has the right facilities and she doesnt mind what age they are which is even better.having said that It would be lovely if some of our younger ponies went out, ponies like Melba and Marigold who would benefit from more one to one attention.They are only 12 years old and very handsome animals.They should not really spend their lives at a sanctuary.However they are a handful so may not be the right ponies for this lady. Marigold is very shy and Melba can be very naughty, they need an experienced owner/carer. Pictured here are some of our ponies available for homes on our loan scheme. Sam the shetland aged 6 years pictured when he arrived, overweight and laminitic, he is now a lot slimmer and only has bouts of laminitis infrequently nowdays showing that the condition he has can be managed fairly easily.Then there is Ken, at 20 years of age he is one of the oldest suitable for loan but he could also benefit from having more attention and he has not really bonded with a particular companion here at the shelter. Of course there are our lovely youngsters too, Merlin , Celt and Shamrock.Not many people want them at this age (2 years) they either want something old enough to ride or older to keep as placid gentle pets or as a companion to an older horse.They are at that difficult teenage in between time. It would be nice to find somewhere for a couple of the ponies, then if there was an emergency over the winter(and there often are) we would have room for another rescued equine. We will see.

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