At TOLFA, we aim to support every animal through their own personal healing journey from rescue to release by providing them with everything they may need to be able to recover. The strength and resilience of street animals never ceases to amaze us and every day, we see animals that we think couldn’t possibly survive because their injuries seem just too severe or they are so overwhelmingly sick. Thankfully though, they so often prove us wrong and become yet another one of our thousands of TOLFA miracles. We give every animal that enters our door a chance to heal.
When TOLFA rescued Alice, the first Covid lockdown had just happened and the streets of the city were scarily quiet. At that time food sources were scarce and we started to see a lot more fighting between the dogs as it became survival of the fittest. TOLFA started street feeding at this time but unfortunately for Alice, she had already got caught in the chaos of the lockdown. She was so sad and depressed from a huge wound that she had on one side of her neck that had become infected with maggots.
The infection was so deep into the tissues of her neck, that we knew it was going to take some time before we could get the infection under control. We immediately stabilised her with IV fluids on arrival and put her under general anaesthesia to remove as much of the dead tissue as possible, as well as starting her on IV antibiotics and pain relief. Unfortunately though the infection had already spread over her neck to her other side and her leg started to show signs of gangrene. We had no option but to amputate her leg to save her life. Alice never looked back though and after the operation, went from strength to strength. She has become a favourite shelter dog with the TOLFA staff.
Looking at Nandu’s sheer size and strength, you might be quick to reach the conclusion that he could be dangerous but that is the absolute opposite of who Nandu is. He is the softest most calm gentle giant you could ever wish to meet. Sadly, though in the area that we rescued him from, he wasn’t given the chance to show his personality and instead fear took over and someone threw scalding hot water on him to try and scare him away.
By the time we were called to rescue him, all the skin on his back had started to blister and peel off and the wounds were infected. His treatment consisted of pain relief and antibiotics, removing all of the dead tissue, flushing the wounds with saline and dilute betadine solution and applying aloe vera to cool down the inflamed skin. Even throughout his treatment which would have been uncomfortable, he remained his peaceful self. Nandu is now a permanent resident at TOLFA so that we can sure that he safe and no one will ever harm him again.
One evening, when our staff were driving home after a hard days work, they came across a baby camel, who was obviously suffering from some serious health issues. Not only was he a skeleton but he had hardly a hair on his body and was covered in sores. We weren’t sure how he had ended up on the same road as our hospital but we guessed that someone had dumped him outside of our hospital but then he had just wandered off.
Our Veterinary Doctor diagnosed him with camel pox and mange and treatment began right away. As well as the medicines given to treat his specific diseases, he was also kept regularly hydrated with IV fluids and a good quality diet to help him gain all the weight that he had lost. So dire was his condition that we weren’t sure in the beginning if he would pull through or not. Suraksha is a fighter though and when you see the magnificent camel he is today, you wouldn’t recognise him from his pitiful beginnings. He is a favourite with volunteers often planting them with a soft camel kiss on the ear.
Seeing Lilly when she was brought into TOLFA, literally broke our hearts. Absolutely terrified and in so much pain, she really was a pitiful sight. What made it worse was that her injuries occurred at the hands of a human. Someone had thrown acid at not only her but her brother and sister. Unfortunately doing all that we could, we still weren’t able to save her siblings because their condition was just too serious but with Lilly their was a small light at the end of a dark tunnel.
It wasn’t just her physical pain that needed treating, which consisted of IV fluids, cooling washes, aloe vera, pain relief and antibiotics but it was also her emotional pain that needed attention. It was weeks before she learned to trust us and that we were only trying to help her and not hurt her. Slowly over a period of several months both her physical and emotional wounds started to heal and although scarred for life, she started enjoying life again, helped along by her best friend Minu.
At only 3 months old poor George was brought to TOLFA with a really terrible case of mange. He had bald patches all over his body and horrible scaly skin on his face and ears. He did look a sight! Mange can really deplete a young animal’s overall health and immunity, so George was treated with anti mange injections as well as extra vitamins and minerals. He also had antiseptic dressings at first to soothe the crusty dry scabs on his skin.
He was also de wormed and put on a balanced diet and within a month George’s skin was showing great improvement, but it took some time for his fur to become the beautiful shining coat that he has today. George is an incredibly friendly and laid back cat and it wasn’t long before he was fostered by a friend of TOLFA along with his fur friend Jerry. Eventually he was adopted by a local family who love him dearly and comes to visit us at TOLFA when he is in need of vet care.
This older calf was sent in a tempo to TOLFA by a concerned care person in the community. They had seen that the calf was suffering from a very nasty infection in their left eye and wanted to help relieve some of the pressure on our ever busy rescue vehicles by arranging to send the calf themselves which was very kind of them. The infection had become so severe that the calf was unable to open their eye at all (which can happen very quickly with eye infections) and had to be admitted to our hospital for a course of treatment.
Although the infection was bad, just five days of saline flushes, eye drops, antibiotics and painkillers reduced all of the swelling which allowed our vets to properly inspect the eye ball itself, which fortunately had not been damaged. The infection cleared and this beautiful calf’s eye returned completely back to normal. They were now fine to be released back to a community of loving caregivers ready to take care of them. We rely heavily on the animal lovers in our community who we call our ‘Street Animal Heroes’ to inform us when an is hurt so that we are able to take prompt action to help them.
Milo was picked up by our rescue vehicle with no owner in sight. He had a badly broken right front leg and with such serious injuries, his owner knew that he would never be able to work again and so was cruelly abandoned to fend for himself. We believe his injury was probably sustained while carrying heavy loads of rubble up and down the steep roads around where he was found. With Milo only being a young donkey, he may have just not had the strength in his legs to carry such heavy weights and they buckled under the pressure. His age was in his favour though when it came to the healing process which tends to be much faster in younger animals.
Back at TOLFA he was immediately given pain relief, calcium supplements and his leg was plastered to support the multiple fractures. Thankfully the leg healed fairly well considering how badly it had been fractured and Milo has never looked back. This year he celebrated his 10th year as a shelter donkey at TOLFA and he has climbed the ranks to become ‘Top Donkey’ bossing around the other donkeys in our enclosure. We never release our rescued donkeys, all of which are disabled, as we know they would be straight back to a life of servitude and hard labour, which would break our hearts.
