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They came home to die

Those of us who work in animal welfare in Greece have seen many animals die of poison. I have lost count of those I have held in my arms, hoping treatment would save them and trying to comfort them and feeling helpless in the face of their terrible, terrible pain. It is a heartbreaking experience one never gets used to. Here is one story.

Bimbo and Mouchli came home to die

They were stray dogs that we adopted when we moved to the island of Aegina into a rented house. Scarlet, the mother, had been a local stray for many years and she and her mate Mouchli had a litter of puppies just before we took up residence. We began feeding Scarlet, realizing that she was also feeding puppies, and Mouchli was always beside her. But we could never find the puppies' location until one day they simply walked into the dirt road. There were four of them, big, fat, healthy darlings: one brown, one black, one white and one mixed; we called them Choco, Blackie, Bimbo and Fred.

The neighbours were all quite fond of the dogs; they had known Scarlet for years and she had given birth many times. What happened to those puppies you might well ask. Our neighbours were summer residents and had no idea; I did. How Scarlet escaped the annual culling of strays by poison is a mystery. She had a seventh sense about poisoned food I think; in any case, she never ate it.

We cooked all summer for that brood; in September the summer residents went back to the city and we remained the only people in that area. The dogs grew older and more adventurous and even though we had a walled-in yard, it was easy for the dogs to get out, following their parents to who knows where. By February, the puppies were nine months old and B-I-G dogs and we had made a sleeping area for them in the yard. Scarlet had been neutered by then so there was no danger of more puppies; and she seemed relieved and determined to enjoy time together with her last brood.

It was a cold winter day. I hadn't seen the dogs all day and it was almost dinner-time so I wondered where they were. My husband decided to look around the neighbourhood and when he returned he was carrying Bimbo in his arms. "He's been poisoned", he said. We rushed into action, salt and water to induce vomiting and after he threw up pieces of sausage, we gave him atropine injections, then covered him up and went out to find the others. A little further down the same road we came upon Mouchli; the two of us carried him home and repeated the treatment. Then my husband went out to find the others while I phoned the vet for more instructions and made the two dogs as comfortable as I could. Then Scarlet returned home, with no signs of being poisoned. She watched in silence as I continued treatment for the two boys.

My husband returned empty-handed and even though we looked for them in the coming days, we never found the other three puppies.

Bimbo was the first to die. We cried as we wrapped him up in a clean white sheet and laid him on the terrace. We continued to treat Mouchli but he was weakening. We had hooked him up to an intravenous drip and I was adjusting it when he made a noise, a low rumbling sort of sound. He was telling me to let him go. I removed the drip needle and sat beside him cradling his head in my arms. He opened his eyes and with one last look at me, he sighed, closed his eyes and went into a coma and died.

We buried them with honour. That was six years ago and as I write this article I still cry at the merciless murder of five sweet dogs. Scarlet mourned too; she sat on the terrace day after day, barely eating, never leaving the house. I would sit beside her and sing her songs, silly perhaps but I wanted to cheer her up. She stayed this way until May and then one night we had a party and everyone made a great fuss over her and she decided life was worth living. She continued to live with us for five and a half more years until her death from cancer last November. But she lives on, on the cover of a number of SPAZ brochures and we remember her and her family with great fondness.

Elizabeth Koubena for SPAZ, Society for the Protection of Stray Animals, Glyfada, Athens, Greece

Note:

SPAZ asks members to report the death of animals from poison ? report to the police, their local vet, the local mayor's office and to us (one of our members keeps statistics). And we give out instructions on putting together an anti-poison kit: activated carbon (to slow down the action of poison), syringes, atropine vials, packet of salt and small container, bottle of water and blanket.

Poisons commonly used in Greece: ground-up glass (mixed with ground beef), rat/mouse poison, insecticide and strychnine (these last three are diluted with water and added to food. I believe that Mouchli and the four puppies were killed with rat poison. As to who poisoned them, well, we believe it was a local woman that ran a taverna that none of us went to because it had a reputation of being dirty; she has since moved away; no one misses her.