Picture this. The harsh African sun is beating down on four very young puppies lying listlessly on dirty ground. The puppies are too weak to move, so near death they have given up struggling. They are infested with so many fleas it seems their fur is moving. Bloodthirsty ticks suck the puppies’ blood and their little tongues stick out, seeking life-giving water where there is none.
This is the sad sight we saw when we and our partner TEARS braved the streets of Lavender Hill in Cape Town. Thousands of dogs (and cats) living there need food and urgent medical treatment. This is why we need your support today.
Lavender Hill is a slum so dangerous that we were never allowed to go there before because both the police and the army said gangster activity made it too risky.
Almost the first things we found were four puppies lying in a garbage-strewn backyard. One of our team members leapt over the wall to check on the pups. A woman appeared at the door of the house. “I don’t want them, so I left them there,” she said.
When we told her they would die without water, she shrugged and said: “You can take them if you want.” Just like that, we had four more souls to care for.
Usually, the puppies we rescue make some effort to say thank you with a wag of the tail or a lick of the tongue. These four just lay there… inert, so very, very weak. Mandy Store of TEARS took one look at the puppies and surged into action, saying that without immediate intervention, all four would be dead by the end of the day.