A tale of two doggies

First, there is Lester, one of the Dr. Dogs of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society, who passed away two weeks ago in a tragic accident.

Dr. Dogs are specially chosen dogs that PAWS’ people bring with them when they visit children in hospitals, to cheer them up.

Lester, a five-year-old poodle, was killed by a Pitbull-mix, one of the rescued dogs of PAWS in its shelter. "All of us who work at the Philippine Animal Welfare shelter are constantly in contact both physically and emotionally with abused dogs and cats," said Oscar Lei, head of the shelter. "We are no strangers to dealing with the death of some of the animals under our care."

It was very sad – and ironic – that Lester was killed by one of the dogs that the shelter was trying to help.

Lester had the habit of following Jojo, his guardian, wherever he would go in the shelter. It was on one of these trips around the shelter that Lester was attacked and killed by the Pitbull- mix. The Pitbull-mix was about five times the size of Lester and it took about a few minutes before Jojo was able to free Lester from the locked jaws of the Pitbull-mix.

Onyok, one of the caretakers in the shelter was frantically splashing water on the bigger dog hoping that it would let go of Lester. "All the while, Lester had his paws on Jojo and made no sound – the only shouts that were heard were from the terrified humans," said a sad Oscar.

When Lester was finally freed, both Jojo and Onyok had bites courtesy of the Pitbull-mix.

Lester sustained wounds on his body which resembled holes made by a puncher, shared Oscar. "The wounds were so deep that we could actually see inside Lester’s badly beaten body," added Oscar.

Lester made one more gallant stand and was up and about two days after the incident. Every one at the shelter was rejoicing and hoping that Lester would be back and recover from the accident. But the following day, a Saturday, Lester died.

"It took this tragic event for us to realize that the staff at PARC are not only humans, some of them have four paws, Lester was one of them," shared Oscar.

* * *

Merville, the stray we helped rescue a month back, is up and about. She was spayed by Dr. Enrique Santos, the resident of PARC. Surgery was also performed to remove a mass in her private part, which was very swollen. The swollen vagina was causing a lot of pain for Merville and had to be removed before it developed into a more serious condition.

Although she is doing well physically, the people at PARC are still watching and observing her behavior before they decide if she can be adopted out.