Eddie

Meet Eddie.  He’s the white one.

Eddie and Kibbim had just met .Kibbim had rushed home from school to meet our new (temporary) family member.

     Eddie has the use of only three legs, but moved faster than my Jack Russells. He loved to sprawl on our veranda and most of all, loved cuddles from me and the kids.  When we called his name, his bony tail would wag, click, click, click, like a stick against the timber decking.

     On Monday, 19 May, I received a panicked call from Hannah who, when she isn’t working full-time at Col Jones, is rescuing neglected animals in the Torres Strait and sending them to Cairns for much-needed medical treatment and the hope of finding a loving home.

     Eddie, it turned out, had history.

     In April, police had given Eddie’s owner a notice to provide medical treatment for his leg, useless since he was hit by a car in December!  

     On 18^th May, Hannah found Eddie, AGAIN, in a desperate condition; bony, limping and sporting some seeping wounds.  She called police and they had to convince the owner to sign Eddie over to Rescue Foster Adopt, the Cairns based group coordinated by Laney that helps neglected animals from the Torres Strait. 

     Eddie was then taken to a foster carer on TI, pending his transfer to Cairns.

     However, someone untied him from the clothesline and voila! Eddie was back where he’d come from.

     The police arranged to pick Eddie up, AGAIN, with the dog catcher.  Hannah figured if the dog catcher impounded Eddie till Saturday, he’d be safe, especially since council had tightened up security at the pound after assisted break-outs, say no more!  So Hanna asked the dog catcher to keep Eddie inside.

‘I’ll have to ask the council if I can lock the dog up,’ said the dog catcher, who, it appeared, didn’t get the opportunity to do much dog catching because he had no place to keep caught dogs.  This was when I received the panicked call from Hannah.

     So, to help her and reduce her rising frustration, I became a dog foster carer.

     First thing Tuesday morning, Eddie arrived in the cage of the dog-catcher’s ute, with a police escort.  He was cowering, was rigid with fear and refused to budge when the police officer tried to coax him out.  And it wasn’t because he had a fear of uniforms.  Eddie had to be carried to the backyard. 

     His hip and shoulder bones were prominent and I figured he’d been starved.  

     His rear right leg was withered and the toe nails and skin were white rather than pink which suggested something serious.  A weeping sore dominated the inside of his dodgy leg, probably from dog attacks.  The edges of his ears were jagged, like the lace hem of a dress, no doubt also from dog attacks.

     The police officer said he’d been told the ripped ears were from an attempted crocodile attack at Waiben.  A croc of … more like it and I bet the owner came up with that one.

     Plus Eddie was covered in fleas and ticks which, if you don’t know, cause severe anaemia in dogs, especially since the sort of dogs who don’t get de-ticked are often the sort of dogs who don’t get fed regularly.

     It took me nine hours to convince Eddie he was allowed on the veranda where he stayed until he flew out on Saturday morning.  And he scoffed two large bowls of dog crunchies when he’d finally settled.

     The kids fell in love with Eddie and no wonder.  He had a beautiful temperament.  He submitted to Ziggy and Gina Rose though I can’t imagine Eddie would ever claim the title of alpha, beta or even gamma male.  Omega male, perhaps.  My kids lavished Eddie with love which is how I have brought them up.  People who love animals are generally loving people themselves and have great capacity for empathy. 

     Eddie made it safely to Laney at Rescue Foster Adopt.  He needs to be desexed, have his shots and his leg amputated.  He has an infection in the bone of the injured leg which is being treated with antibiotics before surgery.  And there won’t be much change out of two thousand bucks, thank you very much!  That's not including the cost of the crate and flight.

     Without Hannah and Laney helping Eddie, he would have died a very slow and painful death over six months as the bone infection spread throughout his body.