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Mabel - A Greek stray left blind after being shot
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Mabel's story. by Paul Loader.
Mabel was a Greek stray who we first encountered when we went to Greece with our wonderful vets last October. Mabel was amongst a pack of feral timid dogs who we found impossible to catch for spaying.
She was eventually caught in a humane trap along with her pack.
After a couple of days we could see Mabel's incision had healed and it was time to put her back on the street as there was no room at Julie's (Halkidiki Animal Rescue) and sadly the number of strays and the lack of shelter spaces mean that it's only the ones who aren't coping with life on the streets or have accidents that can usually be helped. As sad as that is, it is the way it has to be.... So Titch and I took her and the rest of her pack back to the mountains to release them. The first couple of dogs we released fled and never looked back but when we let Mabel out she ran a little way but then stopped and turned around. Step by step she slinked her way back to us - although scared, like so many of these dogs she also desperately craved love and attention. We sat feeding her and stroking her for 20 minutes sobbing our hearts out. It wasn't fair of us to try and dump another dog on Julie who already had a waiting list (as she always does) of dogs waiting to come in, and as if her hands weren't full enough with the dogs in her care but she also feeds all the stray cats and dogs that she can't take in. So we couldn't add another dog to her woes. We apologised to Mabel, telling her we would love to take her home and look after her but we just couldn't, and that if things changed and the chance came we would ask Julie to pick her up and get her ready for us. That was October 2010.
Julie then went out looking for the mountain dogs. We were so upset at the threat of them being poisoned we considered trying to get a flight out to find Mabel, but it had been months since she had been seen so who knew if she was still alive? We were heartbroken that we had let her down so badly. On day two of her hunt Julie phoned to say she had found Mabel just sitting down as if she was waiting for her. She didn't move or struggle as Julie picked her up and put her into the car. It was like a miracle. We were again in floods of tears, we just couldn't believe that she was safe and that our promise to her would come true.
And that is Mabel's story. She touched ours and Julie's hearts. And now at last, after all this time she is finally here. We are not going to waste one minute of our lives together now we have been reunited...... Mabel is home xxx |
They were all very scared and our intention was to spay them as quickly as possible and return them to the mountains where they came from
where we knew they were fine. When it was Mabel's turn to be spayed the vet could not find a uterus. Had she previously been an owned dog who had already been spayed?
In February Julie got a tip-off that the mountain dogs we had neutered and spayed were going to be poisoned. Julie went mad, immediately filing a police
report of these peoples' threats and informing her local villagers if anything happened to these dogs she would not let it lie.
When Julie got Mabel back to the shelter she realised that she was now blind. We were unsure how she could have gone blind so quickly - she'd been fine just a few months before.
Julie immediately tested her for leishmania and ehrlichiosis as we could not explain the blindness but she was negative for both. We worried she may have been hit by a car, so many
things ran through our heads. Then some time later Julie noticed that part of Mabel's ear was missing and closer inspection revealed something protruding from her face. She was rushed
off for X-Rays and Julie's fears were confirmed....Mabel had been shot head in the face. The X-Rays clearly showed 3 shotgun pellets embedded in the back of one eye and one in the other.
We think she may possibly be able to see an outline in one eye but very limited. We will of course get her to see an eye specialist but it is very unlikely she will ever see again.
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