Launch of Animal Merchandise at TANGS Orchard - 20th November

Noah's Ark Cares supporters are invited to celebrate the launch of Animal Merchandise at TANGS Department Store ORCHARD on 20th November. 

Complimentary drinks (wines as well as soft drinks) will be served and there will be special promotions all evening! Drop by anytime between 6pm and 9pm at Level 4 Christmas Gifts Section (by the escalator). See you there!

Old Mr Lim and his 22 cats

How does one label someone with many animals as being a hoarder? This is argumentative but simply put, we feel that the hoarder term comes about when the caregiver is unable to appropriately care for the animals under his charge. Do you remember the Ng Brothers case (http://noahsarkcares.blogspot.sg/2011/10/ng-brothers-and-their-cats-new.html) that we very fortunately managed to get the media's help with renovating of their flat while we tended to their cats? We were thankful for all the help rendered, eventually allowing the Ng Brothers a comfortable living space as well as a better environment for the cats.

Unfortunately, such cases are still occurring. When what started out as kindness and compassion results in an inability to cope with daily living, and this does not only happen with elderly folks though most of the cases we see of now are. We were alerted to Mr Lim, an elderly 78 year old man living in a two-room rental flat. Lotus Light Charity Society (http://www.lotuslight.org.sg/) approached us and we made a home visit to find out more about the circumstances surrounding this case.

Mr Lim greeted us at his door that evening. He looked like he was only in his fifties, a neatly dressed small built uncle who speaks English as well. Despite his age, he is mobile and still an active volunteer with Lotus Light in distributing food rations to other elderly. As we had honestly prepared ourselves to see the worst, Mr Lim’s flat was still considered to be in acceptable condition other than the ammonia stench. Mr Lim mentioned he cleans the flat whenever he can twice or thrice daily but as he is not able to afford cat litter, the cats pee into basins around the flat and he will wipe or wash up thereafter.

There are a total of twenty-two adult cats staying in his hall and kitchen, and Mr Lim has one room he sleeps in which he has to keep the cats out of. He told us every morning when he opens the room door, the cats will all be outside waiting to greet him and seeking affection from him. This is just so sweet!

We asked him about the origin of the cats and he told us he started out a decade ago with taking over ten plus cats from an old lady who passed on. The rest are subsequently rescued from the streets. To be honest, Mr Lim’s cats are surprisingly well fed. He does takes good care of the cats and we will say slightly more than half are affectionate and are used to human touch. Some of them will also come up to you and seek affection even from strangers.  Also, the cats at his place did not reproduce at all and he even spayed the cats in his neighbourhood.

Mr Lim is on public assistance of a few hundred dollars monthly and gets by with his friends chipping in occasionally to help with the expenses of the cats. Some of his friends are aware of his struggles over the years and have actually offered to help him release the cats elsewhere but he is still of sound mind to know that the cats are not able to survive outdoors having been domesticated most of their lives. He did try releasing one or two cats at his own void deck but in the end had to take them back in when they fell sick.

He also did approach other societies previously and was just told to put up adoption notices which he did at Cold Storage. A few nicer-looking/pedigree ones were adopted out at the beginning but that was it. There was unfortunately a HDB complaint last year and Mr Lim had to move the cats temporarily to a boarding place to avoid getting fined up to four thousand dollars. This move caused Mr Lim a few hundred dollars which might not be a lot to us but was more than a month’s expenditure to him at one go.

We spoke to Mr Lim matter-of-factly about the large number of cats and the course of action we are likely to take – to appeal for adopters and seek medical aid first and foremost, and plus Mr Lim’s firm promise about no further "accumulating". Mr Lim himself is also aware that he is not getting any younger and he ought to make plans should he suddenly pass on one day and his cats will be the ones suffering. His only wish for now is to relocate them appropriately and that they will be taken care of.

With so many cats in his flat, we did notice a few that were not feeling too well and we managed to bring a vet to Mr Lim’s flat for medical attention and treatment. My Family Vet was kindly enough to make a house call late at night after their clinic hours and some of the sicker cats were assessed during the first round. Overall, there was serious fur mites infestation – under the microscope, we could see eggs on the strands of fur extracted for examination. There was also another ginger cat who could not eat on his own and the vet gave a jab to alleviate the gum infection.

We hope to be able to find adopters at least for some of Mr Lim’s cats and will like to ask if any of you can kindly take in one (more) cat in your household. We are also working with the vet to slowly treat his cats and will deeply appreciate if we can get your kind help in supporting our cause. We are aware that eventually, if the cats do not get adopted after some time, we will be looking at sending the cats up to our sanctuary NANAS in Malaysia which we will have to raise funds to send them across the border too.  Within our own constraints and capacity, once we decided to take up a case, we will see to it that the animals have a place to live in for the rest of their lives, safely and with dignity.  Please email noahsarkcares@gmail.com if you can help in any way, thank you!

**Photos of some of Mr Lim's cats can be viewed at our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.656740587724441.1073741873.417707781627724&type=1&notif_t=like

Broken-legged Kenny (and friends) needs your help!

We had a couple of rescue cases flowing in these few days, of which two are female strays who unfortunately contracted Transmissible Venereal Tumour (TVT in short – http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/112500.htm) and Kenny who has a broken left front paw.

Generally, our cases at the vet clinic go by numbers for each animal we send in. We are fully aware it hurts not to even have an identity, but we have to practically trap, neuter and return. Ask around and you will realize that if not all, most of the local shelters are already brimming full. And in other countries, the situation is just the same. A rescuer can always choose to board the first couple of cases that comes along, but how about the rest that follows? This serves as a stark reminder and is one of the core pushing factors for Project Industrial Dogs (PID) which has been on-going over the years – to prevent unnecessary reproduction and to curb the stray population humanely.

Tri-coloured girl: We only have a faraway shot of her as she was supposed to be released after recuperating from her sterilization operation. She would never let anyone go near her and it was only after much difficulty that we finally managed to trap her. She was on heat at that point of time thus we assumed it was normal for her vulva to be reddish and swollen. However, the vet advised she was in the early stages of TVT, and we were only too glad we caught her early to render treatment to her. She is estimated to need about 3-4 vincristine jabs each a week apart for treatment. TVT is most commonly passed through mating but can also be spread through other contact like sniffing. This is only one of the many conditions that unspayed females may suffer from, and there is unfortunately no way to stop the males who do get infected too.

Ah Girl: Her feeder B (who also feeds the tri-coloured girl above) is an elderly uncle who goes on his feeding rounds on a motorbike. B had a leg surgery recently and when we met up with him, he was still limping slightly but being worried about the dogs, B still went on his rounds as usual. B is a compassionate feeder who is willing to unconditionally use his earnings to treat the street dogs. We are trying to lighten B’s burden for the two girls so that he can continue to help other street dogs as well.

Ah Girl has a more severe case of TVT as you can see from the picture below. On top of that, she also has demodex mange. Her sparse fur and crusty skin makes her look much older than her age and even scary to some people. However, this is all superficial. Ah Girl is actually very friendly and we know she is a beautiful girl who we will try to nurse back to health the best we can. Ah Girl is estimated to require about 6-8 vincristine jabs also each a week apart, and we will update on her recovery progress from time to time.

Kenny: A name we just gave to this black and tan boy, who unfortunately has lost the use of his left front paw. We spotted Kenny late one night near our usual feeding route and he was hobbling about on three legs. We asked around the factories over the weekend and located where he stayed. The factory employees told us Kenny was sleeping under a forklift when the forklift driver unfortunately did not see him and went over his left front paw. When I mentioned this to the vet staff, they said it was in line with his injury as his nails were already forcefully embedded in his paw. The factory employees did try to self-treat him by using a splint to immobilize the injured leg and the leg did heal a little but with his running about plus the filthy environment, the wound opened up again and got infected.

   

Over at the vet clinic, the vet advised that Kenny did not seem to feel anything on his left front paw any longer. Thus, we made the decision to fix a date for the amputation instead of him dragging his paw around which potentially will lead to an infected wound again. Kenny’s blood test turned out fine though his white blood count was a bit on the high side probably due to the infection. They had to wash his infected paw more than thrice before attempting to clean up the wound. When we visited him, his paw was all bandaged up nicely and of course we were not going to undress his wound just for the sake of taking pictures! The vet staff will kindly give him a bath before his surgery day, and we are sure everything will go well for Kenny.

We kindly seek your help in helping us fund their medical bills, but for sure the three of them are already undergoing treatment regardless of what might follow. To contribute in any way you can, please email to noahsarkcares@gmail.com. Any amount will be appreciated and if you can help foster, we will be most grateful. Thank you!

World Animal Day 13 – 15 September, 2013

Celebrate World Animal Day with Noah's Ark CARES!

Event Theme: Friends for Life

Where: United Square, basement Atrium

Date: 13 – 15 September 2013 (Friday – Sunday)

Time: 11am – 7.30pm

Discover Dogs - August 18, 2013

Join Noah's Ark CARES on August 18, 2013 for a fun-filled day at the Discover Dogs event. This special canine event showcases what dogs can do for us and with us, and what we should and can do for our dogs.

Noah's Ark volunteers will be hard at work, manning our booth and doing their part to raise funds for the animals. Come lend your support by visiting our booth and purchasing our merchandise. We have t-shirts, polo shirts, A4 files, memo pads and post-it  notes for sale.

Get your tickets today! Early Bird tickets may be purchased online at a discounted price via the website www.discoverdogs.com.sg.

Thank you for your support and we hope to see you there!

Pet Abandonment

The last 3 months we have had brought into our sanctuary such older abandoned animals. Big Ben a middle age Bassett Hound was found abandoned at a car park under the hot sun in Malacca. We knew we had to bring Big Ben back and when we did we found out that he was peeing blood. He was promptly brought to the vet for an x-tray and we discovered that he had several stones in his bladder.

Rosie a young Cocker Spaniel too has a sad tale to tell, despite her youth she too was left by her owners and she required expensive surgery. She was abandoned at a vet's clinic with several large open wounds so large that even a golf ball could fit into them.

Topaz a Bull Dog was half blind and been sent to the vet to treat a very large open wound by his owner. However, when he was told that the dog had to be hospitalized so that they could treat his wound and a deposit was required - the owner simply rushed off and was never seen again.

Not surprisingly, Topaz started to display some very disruptive and destructive behaviour which included banging himself against the cage. The vets felt that they could not cope with such behavior and asked Raymund if he would take Topaz in. Raymund knew that he could not refuse such a request. And Topaz is now at the sanctuary receiving his much needed medical care and attention.

These are just some of the dogs that have newly arrived at the sanctuary that required urgent medical treatment and the good news that they are slowly making progress but we know there are still a long road to recovery. Often the physical wounds heal much faster than the emotional scars that these animals suffer and it takes a lot of patience, love and understanding before these animals learn to trust people once more.

To highlight the plight of some of our many animals, we had two students fromChapman University, Roy Ng and Jessica Chua present a video of the sanctuary as part of their final year graduation project on "The Streets is Not Their Home". In this video both Big Ben and Topaz are featured, so if you would find it of interest please click to view.


We hope that small insight of the animals featured you will realize that all animals are able to experience similar emotions and feelings of pain, hurt abandonment and love like all of us. And that it will serve as a timely reminder that an animal is for life and not a plaything to be discarded once it is old.

Day by day, he waits..

After our recent rescue case of Billy who had a huge maggot infected wound at the back of his neck (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.550952484969919.1073741834.417707781627724&type=3), our latest rescue has been named "Tian Tian" - literally translated as "day by day". He is named so, for a reason..

It was a regular weekend evening that one of our volunteers R was straying in an industrial estate. When R's friend drove past one particular factory, R caught a quick glimpse of a small dog loosely tied to a tree. It must be a puppy, she thought. But somehow, R felt something was not right. R asked the friend to make a detour and what she found was an old shih tzu sitting there blankly. The shih tzu's eyes were greyish, and he was on the thin side. R found out from the security guard that the owner did not want him anymore, and he was initially rehomed but returned. She was also quite upset to learn that he has actually been at the factory for a whole eight months, just sitting there aimlessly day by day.

First sighting of Tian Tian

R scrambled around for a fosterer and at long last managed to find one, but the fosterer sadly had taken ill and had to be hospitalized. On and off, R went back whenever she could to see and feed the poor boy. R found another temporary fosterer and off the poor boy went, at least to a home environment. It was ironic that though the owner no longer wanted the dog, R still had to wait for the owner to revert with consensus to give up the dog. Yes, he was the one who bought the dog and is somehow still providing for his very basic needs (food and shelter) but is this really acceptable? The dog was still being fed, but with leftovers.

Subsequent visits while Tian Tian was still at the factory

Unfortunately, Tian Tian’s eyes started to show signs of infection. He was brought to the vet and the vet advised he was already totally blind. However, his eyeballs were getting inflamed and enucleation (eye removal) of both eyes was necessary. His teeth were really bad and the vet could not exactly tell his actual age but R was initially told Tian Tian is about seven to eight years old only. The vet ran a blood test on him and his blood work was thankfully all clear. They made arrangements for eye surgery alongside with dental scaling and sterilization.

Tian Tian at the clinic

But alas, another call from the vet came. There were maggots behind Tian Tian’s left eye which were pushing the eyeball out of the socket. The maggots were not visible to the naked eye and they were between his eye bone and eyeball. His optic nerves had already been damaged. It was highly likely that there was already an earlier injury prior to this and Tian Tian was not properly treated. Our main worry now was whether the maggots already eaten into his brain. The vet advised it was hard to tell but behavior wise, he was functioning normally and eating fine. However, she did say he must have been in a lot of pain earlier.

The vet let Tian Tian settle down in the clinic for one night and started him on medication and eye drops before proceeding with the cleansing and maggots removal procedure the next day. The staff at the clinic commented Tian Tian has a very trusting temperament and he is a fuss-free boy. Tian Tian was subsequently discharged and he was to continue with his medication, daily cleaning and eye drops first before going back for a pre-op assessment on coming Wednesday (3rd July 2013). The vet also advised for Tian Tian to be slightly fattened up before he is good to go for the surgery.

Tian Tian at E's place

Over at E’s place, Tian Tian seemed contented to keep to one corner and curled up to sleep most of the time. E’s rescued mongrels were curious about him and they have had their greetings but Tian Tian still has to be cordoned off in case the big dogs accidentally hurt him. Tian Tian sleeps a lot but is becoming slightly more active now. He keeps his area clean and makes noise to alert the humans whenever he needs to discharge himself. He loves his food but is not greedy. Tian Tian also loves neck scratches and for people to touch him. He actually surprised E’s husband on the second day by letting out low grunting sounds when E’s husband took a bit longer to prepare his food! Tian Tian had already smelt the aroma and was getting all excited. It did sound like grumbling though!

Tian Tian's close-up

Tian Tian also has extremely bowed legs. Somehow, we might not want to know what he went through even during his prime or when he was just bought and still a novelty. To some people, a dog is sadly just a possession. The bill for Tian Tian will no doubt be a hefty one and at this point of time, the thought of euthanasia might practically be on some of your minds. We have weighed the pros and cons ourselves but Tian Tian is fully healthy other than his damaged sight, and we see no reason in not helping him.

Tian Tian waking up from a nap

We can understand the insecurity Tian Tian is currently feeling but we do believe he knows he is being rendered help now, as E managed to sneakily snap a photo of him sleeping very soundly just on the second night. We constantly have to remind ourselves and tell friends and supporters that our sanctuary NANAS is always our topmost priority as we have to ensure the thousand over animals are adequately provided for but for sterilization work and rescue cases, we will always try our best to take them on within our means.

Tian Tian sleeping very soundly!

We hope to get your help to help poor Tian Tian go through this tough period and we strongly believe a blind dog can have quality of life too! Your support keeps us going, please email noahsarkcares@gmail.com if you can help in any way – be it financially or fostering for this sweetheart. Thank you.

Thank you for donating food!

Dear Friends of Noah's Ark, 

Thank you for supporting the food donation drive organised by Pet Station in April '13. 

Your support has helped to feed the numerous dogs we have at Noah's Ark. Thank you! We hope to see you at the next tour to Noah's Ark. 

Regards,
Noah's Ark CARES

Shop for a Cause - 8, 9, 15 and 16 June

Pets Station is organising a warehouse sale (8,9, 15 and 16 June) and shoppers are encouraged to purchase items tpo donate to the 3 animal welfare organizations.  It's their "Shop for a Cause" event.

Shop at Pets Stations' warehouse sale and purchase items for Noah's Ark (while you're at it)!

Singapore's largest dog adoption drive is back! 

If you're looking for a new furry pal, or a best friend for your current furkid, or just to mingle with dog lovers alike, head on down to the National Geographic Channel Free Pet Shop next weekend at East Coast Park!

MISSING DOG!! PLEASE HELP.

POSTING ON BEHALF OF MERYL KOH/WILLE LOO

Please help us find our poor 10 month old Mongrel doggy, Walker. Our active little boy slipped out of his collar on 14 March 2013 around Yio Chu Kang Road, Cactus Road area and despite all our efforts, we have not been able to find him. We adopted him from the streets through stray rescuers last year when he was just a little puppy. We miss him dearly and have been searching tirelessly for him the past 2.5 weeks.

Walker looks like a little german shepherd, with pointy ears and a long tail, lanky figure. He is black with brown face, light brown underbelly and brown legs. He sits like a proud price and is very friendly with  humans and other doggies. He has been sterilised, microchipped and licensed with the AVA. However, as he slipped out of his collar during his morning walk with our aged parents on 14 March 2013, he does not have a collar.

As such, we are appealing to all animal lovers in Singapore to keep a look out as he may have been picked up.

Please help us take note of his little face and the following microchip number. Please let us know immediately if you find him. We would also be extremely grateful if you could help to post the attached ad at your shelter / website so other animal lovers will keep an eye out. We are offering a $1000 reward just as a thank you for his safe return.

MICROCHIP NUMBER: XXXX-XXXX-003-6438, Male, Mongrel, 10 months, Neutered, Pointy ears, Black/Brown

PLEASE CALL 97384126!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,

Meryl Koh & Wille Loo (Walker’s pawparents)

Thank you for your donations + Adoption: Jill

The dog in the photo is up for adoption :D

Name: Jill

Age: 9 months

Breed: Mongrel; not HDB-approved

Jill is a very friendly and active dog. If you're interested to adopt, please send your name, age and experience with dogs to spice3dog@gmail.com.