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This blog reflects my personal experiences and opinions and does not represent or reflect those of DierenAmbulance Nederrijn.

Home coming for a cat

We had the luxury of 2 teams today, and officially bringing a cat to a shelter should have fallen to the other team. Although the co-driver was keen to go as she hadn’t been to the shelter before, the driver wasn’t up for a long journey for personal reasons. This meant either a team reshuffle, or we could go. We went for the latter option, and to be honest, I was happy about this!

The cat was old and tired looking, and we took peace knowing she’ll be looked over by a vet at the shelter, and hopefully a loving home found for her.

Sally parked up in the busy car park, and we made our way to the reception area to check whereabouts in the building we should bring our cat. She was helpful; took the finder’s form from us (and allowed us to take a(nother) picture of it for administrative certainty), and redirected us to the other side of the building. This made sense; if cats brought in carry diseases then it’s wise to keep them separate from the healthy animals already in the shelter.

We made our way through the rain around to the back of the building, walking past the outside enclosures of other cats, some miaowing, and another turning out to be a worker there playing a little game with us! 😉 . We should have had a key for the door, but for some reason it had been removed from the ambulance keychain. We waited under a very small shelter before we were let inside.

We handed over our cat who was taken away; the worker eventually returning with our pet caddy. In the meantime I peeked inside one of the cupboards there as the doors were open. I saw some gloves made from chain mail which not only offers outstanding protection against scratches from cats (and maybe other animals) but also shows what kinds of states some animals are brought in and need to be handled in a safe way. I couldn’t help wondering though, that these gloves wouldn’t have offered any protection against a cat bite. From my conversation with someone at the DierenLot congress a few months ago, it’s a case of either or when it come to protective gloves and cats.

Limping Pigeon

The next rescue was nearby; a pigeon who’d been sitting still in a garden for 4 or 5 days and was unable to fly. The finder noted she limped when she tried to walk. We were met on the street as we parked up, and lead around to the back garden via a small alleyway covered in crunchy acorns. The oak trees were home to other pigeons; I’m not sure about squirrels.

The pigeon cowered in a corner of the fenced garden. She was the size of an adult, but Sally and I thought she was a juvenile, judging from the fluffiness of her feathers. There was thin poop around her so I made a note of this in the admin. She was easy to pick up, but I couldn’t see any obvious sign of injury. Perhaps she was dehydrated; she didn’t want to drink any of the water the finder had laid out for her.

On the way back to the ambulance the finder let us know she’d called us before about a pigeon she’d found, but we hadn’t turned up. Both Sally and I were surprised, but it turned out the pigeon hadn’t been captured so the centralist didn’t want to dispatch a team to a location only to find the pigeon might have ‘escaped’. Sally explained really well that it’s a harsh rule, but it’s enforced because of the payment conditions from the local council.

We brought the pigeon to the wildlife rescue centre and headed back to the base.

Back at the Base

For the first time in a long time there was a large chunk of time at the base with no rescues. I took the opportunity to have a chat with a chap I’d seen wandering the grounds a few times, and to look at a turtle that I’d been asked to bring to a turtle and tortoise sanctuary tomorrow.

It sounded like he hissed when I picked him up, but I put it down to water flow as I lifted him out of the water.

Dog Emergency

An emergency call 10 minutes before the end of shift. The following team hadn’t yet arrived, so we picked this up. A dog was in trouble so we were to pick her up and bring her and her owner to a vet.

The centralist called the local vets to see who was still open. None 🙁 This meant bringing the dog to a 24 hour animal hospital a ‘good’ 40 minutes drive away. At the tail end of rush hour.

It turned out that we could bring them to a more local vet where we remained until the dog and owner were ready to be brought back home.

Private Notes

Pony entangled in a blanket

A lady standing next to a field waved to us when we passed her on the way back to the dog owner’s chalet. Quite often people wave to the ambulance or give us a thumbs-up in appreciation of what we do, and this is really heart-warming. But after we passed the lady, Sally and I wondered whether it was something more.

I stole a look at the admin, and indeed there was a new rescue on our list for a pony that was entangled in a blanket and was walking on three legs as a result.

Obviously this was terrible for the pony – and also for the lady who waved us down only to have us drive straight past her. We didn’t know what the centralist told her when she called, for example, that we may be some time, but in any case my heart went out to the lady.

I wanted to give her a phone call and explain we were in the middle of something (the sad dog story) and we’d be with her as soon as we could. But we were nearly at the destination and I wanted to make sure the dog’s owner had our full and undivided attention.

Once we had left the dog and her owner at the chalet I rechecked the admin. The pony rescue had been removed; presumably it had been given to the other team. In any case, we doubled back to see if the lady was still there. We didn’t see her – but we did see the other team driving in the opposite direction!

We gave them a phone call to find out what was going on; strangely enough they didn’t seem to know either! We couldn’t see the pony, the lady, or the rescue on the administration, so we headed back to the base.

Closing Thoughts

This was a really late finish for us, but my heart was in it. Dreadful circumstances with the poor dog and her owner, but it felt like a real rescue. And it wasn’t just about the dog, it was about her owner too.

As for the pony – that would have been exciting, though also scary as they’re huge creatures and I’ve got zero experience with them. Safety first – in all likelihood we’d have called the police for assistance. More excitement, but thankfully for the pony, not needed.

I hope…

One-Way Trip with a Turtle

This was going to be a separate blog post, but events conspired to bring the adventure down to just these couple of paragraphs.

A couple of days ago I was asked whether I’d like to bring a turtle to a turtle sanctuary.

In fact, I will make this a separate post after all…