"Free to a bad home"

As a vet nurse, you work through a range of emotions on a daily basis. There are wonderful highs, and tear-jerking lows. We think we've seen it all before, but then we come across a case that takes our breath away.

Daisy arrived at a practice where one of my friends, a fellow vet nurse, works. She was found straying round a notorious area of Birmingham. She sits and gives paw and loves having her tummy tickled.  She's sweet and gentle, and was clearly a much loved pet at one point. But somewhere along her timeline, her fortune took a turn for the worse.

She's not a pretty sight now; her weeping open wounds cover her neck and face, she's covered from head to toe in scars from previous attacks, and her boobs are almost dragging along the floor from producing one litter after another.  This is all guess work, but the evidence is quite compelling.

Daisy was used as a money machine. She produced many puppies which took a toll on her body and her heart. Then, more recently, she's been used as a "bait dog". Bait dogs are used by the organisers of dog fighting events to wind up the attacking dogs and get them in the bloody thirsty mood. Bait dogs are usually quiet dogs that can be easily set upon by the others. If Daisy were wearing these scars and being highly aggressive, it would be safe to assume that she was a fighting dog.

But even now, after all she's been through, there's not an aggressive bone in her body.

Dog fights still go on undercover, much like puppy farming. So organisers prowl the internet and newspapers for cheap puppies or "free to a good home" advertisements. There's a wide range if reasons why people have to give their dogs, but if they ever witnessed the fighting ring their dog might potentially end up in, they would never part with their dog under any circumstances. There was an incident of a dog being purchased from Gumtree in 2012 and being murdered days later by the evil man who bought him (article here) so your pet could be unlucky enough to simply be adopted by a psychopath.

Please please, I beg everyone, everywhere, never sell or give your dog away over the internet or through the classifieds, you never know you'll be giving your dog to. There are numerous petitions and articles that seek a total ban of online pet sales, and I for one strongly support this. A brilliant new website: www.dog2home.co.uk is doing a wonderful job of advertising dogs for re-homing/sale for and uses a network of volunteers around the country to perform home checks on those applying to buy/re-home any of the dogs - the PERFECT way to try and avoid your beloved pet ending up in heart breaking circumstances.

If you have been touched by Daisy's story, she's now looking for a home, her wounds still need time to heal, but many re-homing centers are full so she's being looked after by the kind vet and nurses at the practice.