by Geesche Neuberg
We had another emergency for the AKI-HAH Emergency Fund. A Have a Heart team member received an urgent call for help about 4 cats (see below 2 pictures) on a property near Usakos. A kind person found 4 very skinny and injured (2 of them) cats. He asked for help as the cats don't get any food or medical attention. He first thought the cats were feral as they were afraid of him and the "owners", but it later turned out they are very friendly and tame cats and are most likely abused by their "owner".
Of course we said: AKI Emergency Fund will help with the medical attention, but we still had to make a plan for the transport to the vet and what to do with them after their check up? We had two options for them: find a lift to Omaruru to the state vet who doesn't have an xray machine (one cat had a broken leg and the bone was visible) or find a lift to Swakopmund to the vet clinic. The problem with Swakopmund was that Usakos is outside the coastal lock down area, so we needed to find a person with a permit willing to take the cats along.
This happened surprisingly fast, within a couple of hours! So the next step was to make an appointment at the vet clinic (took 2 minutes) and find a safe place for them to go to. This was also sorted quickly with the Swakop SPCA.
As soon as all was sorted, the kind man went to catch the cats (he got in an argument with the "owner" but luckily he won). The next morning all four went to the clinic. The SPCA requested the cats to be vaccinated before being booked in, but the cats were in such a bad state, so skinny and weak, they couldn't be vaccinated! Poor cats! The cat with the broken leg had sadly to be put down (picture below), she was in too much pain and her leg was already septic, she was too weak to be operated :-(
The other three got dewormed and the vet care that each needed and off they went to the SPCA where they finally got a warm bed and lots of food and attention! They are tame and love being cuddled.
They now get the time they need to heal and gain weight and hopefully find a loving home soon. Thank you so much AKI for the Emergency Fund! To know we don't have to first find funds to help animals in urgent need of help, but instead can immediately start organising the rescue, makes it so much easier for us and gets the help needed so much faster to the animals and stops the suffering within a much shorter time. THANK YOU!!!
Geesche & Sarah