Quote

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. Mark Twain





Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Ark Has Landed

Dear Friends and Supporters of Zeus

In July 2012, I had to decide whether it made sense to retain the dogs at the shelter in Singapore or whether it would be much better for them to move to Johor.  

Whilst, it had been nice to have a shelter in Singapore as it was closer to home and therefore more accessible to both visitors and volunteers – the high operating costs that continued to rise due to inflation did not make sense. After every fund raising effort, most of the funds had to be used to cover rental, pet food, medical and operational costs with not much left for our rescue work.

As most of the dogs at the shelter were rescued by individual rescuers, I extended to them, the invitation to join me on the journey to Noah’s Ark.

After giving them time to consider, some decided to stay in Singapore and they are still trying to find a home for their rescued dogs.  Please note that Zeus Communications did not leave any dogs behind, except for the following dogs, *Mei Mei, Xiao Hei, Nokia, Jelly Bean and Big Bobby as these are the dogs that the volunteers requested custody of, feeling strongly that these dogs stood a high chance of being adopted.


Big Bobby - the sweetest and easy going Dude.

 

Xiao Hei

Nokia and Jelly Bean and sisters. The siblings are very close and they will stand by each other.

Mei Mei has been staying at the shelter for almost 3 years.
Every dog would love to have their forever home, we hope that someone will grant them
their Christmas wish.
*Note:
Mei Mei, Xiao Hei, Nokia, Jelly Bean and Big Bobby were rescued from the neighboring shelter at Ericsson Pet Farm, when the tenant could no longer afford to maintain her shelter and decided to call it quits.  If however these dogs do not find a forever home in time – I believe they will always be welcomed at Noah’s Ark where they will get freedom to run free and to be just a dog.


Two months have since passed and the dogs: Tiger, Lady, Emerald, Crystal, Friday and Angel have settled in well at Noah’s Ark.  If you can recall, Tiger –  when he left Singapore he weighed 35 kg, grossly overweight for a medium cross breed dog.  All that additional weight had taken a toll on his limbs.  Today, Tiger is getting all the TLC (tender loving care) and special treatment from Raymund – and he is staying near the clinic which had just been renovated.  But even better news!  Tiger has slimmed down and he is now able to run around with ease (he can even do the bunny hop now)  – I feel so happy for him as he is now able to lead a better life than to just lay down and sleep the entire day away .


From left: Friday, Tiger and Crystal.
Tiger no longer spends his days laying down - he is now walking about and playing with new friends.
As for Crystal, she now has her full coat and her skin problem has recovered,
she must be sun tanning at The Ark.

Visit to Noah's Ark by Rosina

Rosina giving Wayne,
 a Border Collie all the attention.
In September, Rosina was in town to teach Animal Communications.  Every time, when she has a rest day, she will take the opportunity to visit Noah's Ark.  Rosina has a special love for white horses and she will stop to visit Melody, the white pony who is almost 30 years old this year and still looks good for her age.  I wonder what is her secret to staying youthful.

After visiting the horses, Rosina will visit Jasmine, a cross breed who is the resident dog at the Wisma (the cat house).  Jasmine stays and gets along with 100 cats at the Wisma – All those who say dogs can't get along with the cats – Jasmine has proven all of them wrong! And she is not the only special dog.  I just found out that Max a Cross Rottie also gets along with the cats at the Wisma too - well done Max!

By the way, Jasmine appeared on the front cover of Noah's Ark 2013 Calendar a tribute to a loving nature - we are so excited that she has made it to the front page.


During Rosina’s visit to  the Wisma as she sits on the floor, about 20 cats will queue and take their turn to sit next to her – a really amazing sight, it is as if they are queuing to  see a doctor.  What was even nicer to know is that  they had no complaints - they are contented and looking forward to Rosina’s next visit in April 2013.

Before we left Noah's Ark, Rosina presented a gift to Raymund, a hand carved replica of Noah’s Ark, it felt like a home coming.  She had bought the Ark from a Catholic church in Hong Kong and personally  hand carried it to Singapore.  The Ark was assembled in Singapore by Clement and myself. 

Rosina presenting The Gift of Ark to Raymund
From left: Clement, Lynda, Angeline, Raymund, Rosina, Choo Yan and Yew Seng.
 
Bronze and Cycle checking out the Ark.

The Ark sailed from Hong Kong to Singapore to be assembled before it finally “sailed” to Noah's Ark in Johor to its final destination.  And few weeks later – our dogs from Singapore arrived and made Noah’s Ark their home.

Mr Teo, 71 yrs old held two jobs to save Bobby Brown

 
Rescue work never ends here,and we do what we can within our limited resources.

A month ago, I received a call from a boarding house asking me if I could help Mr Teo, a 71 year old man who was ill and had been in and out of hospital a few times with respiratory problems. When I received the call that same week, Mr Teo had just called the boarding house asking them to send his dog Bobby to SPCA because Mr Teo wasn’t sure if he was going to recover – uncertain of his own health and if he would be able to work to upkeep Bobby.

I went to visit Bobby that same week, to check on his temperament and when I saw him there was sadness in his eyes because he knew that he was on death row.

To Mr Teo who has not had much formal education, SPCA was the alternative he knew for animal welfare issues so I decided to visit Mr Teo to find out more details about himself and his dog to see how we could assist him.  I felt that even though Mr Teo's health may be failing we would like to see what we could do to help Bobby have an alternative life even without Mr Teo’s upkeep of him.

I was told that Mr Teo rescued Bobby 5 years ago after the construction of the condo at Clementi was completed, feeling sorry for Bobby Mr Teo took the dog and housed it at a boarding house.  Mr Teo held 2 jobs to upkeep Bobby at the kennel, but with  Mr Teo's advanced age and ill  health he is aware that his days maybe numbered.

As such, we feel that the least we can do for both of them is take care of Bobby so that Mr Teo will no longer have to worry about Bobby’s welfare and need only concentrate on getting better.
With the support from Noah’s Ark, we took Bobby to the vet for a check-up and discovered that he had heartworm.  Bobby is now receiving treatment at Mount Pleasant (Bedok). To date, he has received 3 treatments and in a month’s time – Dr Chan will do another test in mid December to check if he has been cleared of heartworm.  After Bobby has recovered sufficiently , we will arrange to have him sterilized.
Bobby was unsure
of his fate when his
caregiver fell sick.
Sponsorship of Medical Aid for Bobby
The vet estimates Bobby’s vet bill to be about $800 , if you would like to support his medical costs, please write a cheque to Mount Pleasant Animal Medical Centre (Bedok) Pte Ltd and mail to: Noah’s Ark CARES, 42 Cairnhill Road #02-01 Singapore 229661.  Please indicate on the back of the cheque that it is to be used for "Bobby Brown".

Sponsorship of Bobby Brown Boarding
If you wish to help Mr Teo with Bobby’s boarding fees which is $374.50 a month please write a cheque to Noah’s Ark CARES or you can arrange a fund transfer.  Mr Teo has been unable to pay for Bobby's boarding fees for the last 3 months since he fell ill.

 
For more details about Bobby Brown please email to dogstalk@starhub.net.sg

Cookie, The Cocker Spaniel

Cookie was abandoned by a father and son 2 years ago but had been rescued by Yi Hao, a student who knew about Cookie's plight.  As such, Cookie has a behaviourial issue through no fault of his own. Sadly, these behaviourial issues are the result of owner’s bad treatment but with the pet suffering the aftermath.

One of the problems was that the family used to tease Cookie whilst he was sleeping by poking him and when they fed him, the children would try to annoy him by taking his food away. As a result  Cookie tends to display very aggravated and agitated behaviour  whenever he sleeps and eats.  A not too surprising outcome.

Suddenly, last week, Cookie lost his sight and we immediately sent him to the vet on Saturday afternoon to investigate. Dr Chan was worried that Cookie might be diabetic and therefore it was necessary to do a comprehensive blood test on him.

When the blood tests results were out – we have happy to hear that his kidney and liver blood counts were normal, both heartworm and tick fever were negative – but to our horror his red and white blood cells count were way below the normal count. His bone marrow is not producing enough red and white blood cells. 

Update on Cookie
On Monday, 26 Nov morning Cookie was rushed to Mount Pleasant (Redhill) and he had to be hospitalised because his left eye was bleeding.

A full comprehensive test was done again and we discovered that Cookie had tick fever.  We started to contact friends to look for a blood donor that was positive blood type and we were thankful to Ms Leng for allowing her Cross Breed who is also named Cookie to donate his blood.
The blood transfusion took place on Tuesday morning and Cookie is recovering well.  When Cookie's blood count is stablise, Dr Heng will attend to his eye. We will update on Cookie's progress when we get more details from the vet.

Yi Hao is a student and he is doing his best to provide for Cookie, please see if you can find it in you to support Cookie’s medical aid which is now estimated to be $1,000.

Yi Hao would be most grateful. If you do wish to support this,  please write a cheque to Mount Pleasant Animal Medical Centre (Redhill) Pte Ltd and mail to: Noah’s Ark CARES, 42 Cairnhill Road #02-01 Singapore 229661.  Please indicate on the back of the cheque that it is to be used for "Cookie".

AVA Road Show 2012 with Noah’s Ark
 
Lawrence giving Happy (a Beagle) a Reiki treatment

For the first time, a group of Animal Communicators and Reiki Practitioners were at the AVA Road Show to help raise funds for Noah’s Ark.  We met new friends and we were happy to share and explain to them their animals’ feelings and emotions. The main concern pet owners had were the well being of their pets.

At the same time – we took the opportunity to educate first time pet owners on the importance of:

a) Micro Chipping – on how to register with Pet Call and AVA
b) Sterilisation
c) Raising a Puppy for the first time

Jacky and Tina - the Brindles
made a Special Appearance at the AVA Road Show
Jacky our Animal Comm. Mascot was a hot favourite at Noah’s Ark Booth, many visitors stopped to say "Hi", patted and took pictures of him.  We think he is just as popular as Jacky Chan but definitely a much younger and more handsome canine version J.

For the team, the roadshow was a great way to network and to spend quality time with the dogs at the show.






Lost & Found

Dazzle is now safe at home

Dazzle, a young puppy was missing from her home on 27 Oct, during that time, together with her rescuer and fosterer,  Angie and Clement our Animal Communicator tried to help find Dazzle.  The team was so committed that they searched for her everyday regardless of the weather despite the mailrain. The worst thing was that Dazzle was lost at Punggol Park Connector  - which is extremely challenging as there are no distinctive land marks with everything looked very much the same. One week before the newspaper article appeared, Dazzle was picked up by someone and a friend read the article and recognised Dazzle to inform his friend to return the the dog to its owners.  Dazzle was finally reunited with her mummy on 19 Nov.  We are so glad that a kind soul did the right thing by picking her up and taking care of her.

We do hope that they are more people like them who will help lost pets reunite with their owners.

Ms Winnie decided to go for a walk to get some peace

On 13 Nov, I received a call from Ruth that someone found a standard Poodle in Bukit Batok – thankfully the caller did the right thing by stopping to take the dog home so that we can find its owner.  The dog did not have an micro chip, but we knew it had an owner and we did all we could to find her owner back. Winnie’s owner pasted posters in her estate and residents who saw FB alerted the owner that the dog was with the finder.  We are very thankful that we were able to locate its owner in less than 24 hours and Winnie was reunited with her family the following day.



Buddy who went for an adventure
On 19 November, we received a call from Leonard, a medical student based at SGH, that he had found a Cocker Spaniel at Outram Road at about 5pm., He then called us for assistance to help him locate the dog's owner. With the help of Facebook we managed to retrieve some information about what had happened  Buddy earlier and how he ended up walking along Havelock Road and then Outram Roadf. Luckily with the help of SPCA we managed to locate Buddy's owner on Tuesday morning.

During his escapade, Buddy almost got knocked by a car because he wasnt very street smart but we are so thankful that nothing happened to Buddy.

Buddy finally went home on Wednesday evening and received a rousing welcome from all his relatives who came over just to wish him well

We would like to thank Leonard for doing a good deed by stopping to help Buddy and Lina for helping to house him for 2 days.

The importance of micro chipping and licensingOwners, micro chipping is a means to  identify your pet and you need to register it with Pet Call and have your dog licensed with AVA.  In the event that we find a lost dog, we are able to trace its owners should it possess a microchip .  For more details about micro chipping please visit 
Pet Call  and AVA for licensing.

Animal Communication Workshops
Rosina will be back in April 2013 to teach Animal Communication in Singapore and July 2013 in Malaysia.

What is exciting for us in 2013, Rosina will be leading a group of volunteers from Singapore to help at the Elephant Sanctuary in Chiangmai. The trip will take place in April - programme and details will be available soon, if you are keen to join us, send us an
email and we will be in touch with you.

Jasmine putting her paw on a cat and giving comfort.

A Big Thank You

I would like to say a Big Thank You to our supporters and friends for purchasing Noah’s Ark 2013 calendars.  Your support will help towards the purchase of food and medical for the following residence at Noah’s Ark:
 
(a)  600 Dogs
(b)  400 Cats
(c)  Melody, Apache, Whatsmore and Bloomerlake (the 4 horses)
(d)  Latte and Starbucks (Marques)
(e)  Huggy Boy (Gibbon)
(f)   Rabbits


I will be here to continue my work for the animal kingdom and 2013 is going to be a fun year for all of us.

Once again, thank you for your support and contribution towards my work for the animals.

Best wishes and season’s greetings.




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"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."- Unknown