Monique Erasmus
I am not a rescue organisation, just someone who saw suffering and couldn’t turn a blind eye to a ruined life, which in her old age deserves a chance to be treated like the lady she is.

I found her next to the Delmas road, a scared, disorientated animal consisting of skin and bone with a collar and piece of wire sticking into her throat and the eyes of a soul already gone.

It took two hours to load her onto the bakkie (thank you to the kind man who also stopped to help) and another hour to get her off and into the kennel I have on my property.

She has calluses on the back of her body probably from being tied up and forced to sit on a cold cement floor. I cannot send her off to a shelter, not because I don’t believe the work they do is fantastic, but because I cannot bear the idea of putting her in a kennel where she has to sit on cement again and watch the puppies around her go to loving homes.

Once we had her in my kennel, which has a comfortable sleeping quarter and soft grass, she was shaking so much she could hardly sit in her cowering position against the wall. We brought a small bowl of food and put it down and she literally cleaned it out within 30 seconds. After that she finished two huge bowls of water.

Can you give her a home?

We eventually got her to allow us close enough to cut the collar off and pull the wire out of her neck but then she backed away again. We fed her small bits every few hours until midnight when she eventually ventured onto the cushion we put in the kennel and lay down, allowing me to cover her with a blanket.

I walked inside that evening committed to having her put down the following day, there was just nothing left to work with and ending her suffering seemed like the only way.

The following morning we walked out with a huge bowl of food, expecting it to be her last meal. What happened next was beyond incredible. There in the kennel was an old lady of skin and bones bouncing up and down and left and right like a puppy waiting for us to enter.

We walked in and she jumped up, playing and running around us like a pup that had not seen its owner in a long time. The food stood while she rubbed up against us, almost unable to stay on her feet, but determined to show gratitude and happiness to the first people in her life who didn’t take, but gave even if only from a distance.

Right there it was decided that this old girl deserves a second chance at life, a chance to experience happiness and love rather than abuse and cruelty.

I would keep this lady if I could, but I already have seven of my own and she deserves a special forever home because, regardless of all her suffering, she gave people a second chance.

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