Tragedy strikes the Liverpool shelter

Well I have been without internet access for quite some time unfortunately. Its amazing how isolated I felt,anyhow I have changed service provifert(due to aol being so unhelpful) though it seems i still have aol email, well for the time being at least.
So much has happened the past few weeks and of course as it is almost Christmas many animals are being discarded, so much for the Christmas spirit, seems this is not extended to animals!In the past week I have been ORDERED to go and collect a f....g cat, a f....g puppy, both of which were dirtying in the house.The pup was 8 weeks old and was being fed on adult dog food, no wonder it wasnt clean , the poor little fellow couldnt cope with this rich diet.The cat was 5 months old and was being hassled by a brood of pre school children. not to mention the other animals in the house. 3 Half grown kittencats were taken to our Caernarfon shop by a woman who threatened to dump them if the shop staff refused to take them.2 shetland ponies have been abandoned by their owners who left them at a rented property telling the landlords that they could dispose of them however they wanted!!
We gave shelter to a young deaf dalmation which we were told was a stray, we found out later that the person who brought the dog here was in fact the father of the owner! No donation given to us of course.Dotty or Jasmine as she was originally called has gone to a loving home with 2 other dogs and the local newspaper has done a wonderful article on the shelter and Dottys supposed abandonment.It has resulted in some donations of petfood and other offers of help so its not all been bad news.However, just when I was starting to feel more positive, I had a telephone call telling me of a fire in the puppy block at the Liverpool shelter shelter which had resulted in the death of one of the dogs from smoke inhalation.Everyone is reeling from this devastating tragedy and as well as the distress caused by the loss of one of our dogs there is also the the loss of an entire block of kennels at a time of year it is needed most.Thankfully the other dogs were saved by the quick actions of the staff coming on duty that morning.There will be an enquiry into the cause of the fire though it is thought that it was an electrical fault.As can be imagined the morale of the staff is at an all time low, I feel for them, there is nothing worse than losing an animal which has been cared for over a period of months only to have this awful tragedy claim its life.
Our staff are all dedicated to their charges and this will affect everyone badly but life at a shelter has to carry on regardless which is not always easy after such a traumatic incident.It makes me think of how people often say to me that they couldnt do what I do as they are "not hard enough"!!! Believe me neither I nor the rest of the Freshfields staff are "hard".We all weep many tears over animals in and out of our care.