Are You a Rescuer? ~ Pawprints and Purrs, Inc.

Have you gotten up in the middle of the night, driven 30+ miles to a subdivision in a pouring down rain in a borrowed van, fear thick in your throat and heart that you would get caught trespassing and stealing a trio of dogs from an abusive owner's backyard? Large dogs that weighed less than half the body weight of a healthy dog? Did you climb a 6 foot chain link fence with padlocked gates and try to figure out how to get those full-grown dogs over that fence once you used wirecutters to free those dogs from 4 foot chains? Were you terrified that those dogs would take off an arm as you reached for them? Did you have to literally carry them in your arms to the van because they were so weakened they couldn't walk on their own? Was your buddy in crime freezing and shaking with fright as she stood at the end of the drive as your look-out for neighbors who couldn't report months or years of animal abuse but who would call the authorities in defense of their "good" neighbor? Did you and she sit up the remainder of the night holding them while they shook and trembled with fear, thirst and hunger, as they whimpered and cried and couldn't hold down water or tiny amounts of dog food? Did you pray with all your might that the dogs would make it to the vet by the time the clinic opened? As those hours crept by, did you and she have to dig maggots out of their skin and wipe mites and lice from their eyes and nostrils? Did you and she miss a day or two of work camped out at the vet's office while your vet labored for hours trying to get those dogs in decent enough health to not have tubes running from limbs and mouths, so that they could be carried out the clinic door to be transported to your home while you nursed them back to health for months afterward? And if they died, you knew you'd still be stuck with vet bills of dead dogs that didn't belong to you?

Or, have you crawled under people's houses, sheds, and barns pulling out weakened, starving mother cats and kittens in the heat of summer or dead of winter due to irresponsible people? Did you find dead kittens no larger than your thumb, or worse yet, a dead mother cat with her tiny almost dead babies burrowed against her body hanging on for dear life? Have you had to take those babies home and be up around the clock every two hours feeding them for two and three weeks as they hung onto life?

Have you shed oceans of tears for the abused, the neglected, and the homeless as you held their lifeless little bodies in your hands or arms, knowing you did everything in your power to save them, but they died anyway? Have you screamed out loud in anger and frustration, wanting to plummet every irresponsible pet owner with your fists until they were bloody and down on the ground? Have you questioned your faith in your God when you attempted to rescue or did rescue innocent, defenseless animals that the evil part of mankind has deliberately abused or unmercifully tortured because "It's only an animal and I own it, so I can do whatever I want to it?"

If you have, then you are a rescuer and my hat's off to you.

Essay by: Susie S. Bachman, November 19, 2000
To all those animals who are neglected, abused, and homeless,
But especially for my rescuees Bach, Preston, and Celeste.
You are special dogs, forever embedded in my heart.
You have a great life now; your abusive past is behind you.
This one's for you.