ANIMAL AMBULANCE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 229, 12 November 1943, Page 16

ANIMAL AMBULANCE

T was raining when I went to meet the animal. ambulance, but the streets were thronged with people just the same, and as I waited on the corner, I wondered, with the foolish egotism of most people, what they would think when they saw the animal ambulance arriving and a human being getting in. I had just worked myself into a nice state of self-consciousness when the ambulance unobtrusively arrived-a medium-sized red van with "Animal Ambulance" written on all sides and a slot for contributions by the door-and the traffic didn’t stop and the crowds didn’t gape as I hopped in and we drove away. There were two women in the van, a driver and an operator ostensibly, but both drove and both operated as the need arose. They wore slacks and coats and round their heads, brightly-coloured scarves. There was about them that strength of spirit that comes to people who work tirelessly for unselfish motives. It seemed odd to me that we had need of an animal ambulance, but I was told that New Zealand is ranked as one of the cruellest countries, so far as animals are concerned, in the world. So in 1941 the Women’s Auxiliary of the S.P.C.A. got working, and created and equipped the animal ambulance out of an old van, and already in two years they have attended to hundreds and hunfdreds of cases. "Our ultimate aim is to build an

+> we a> 2 =). (lee OD OD OEE eel animal clinic," they told me as we sped along. An Odour of Animals Was I mistaken, or was there really a curious smell curling up from the floor, seeping in from the back of the van, a penetrating, indefinable mixture of

animal odours? They agreed that there was a smell, an unavoidable smell, that the worst job of all was cleaning out the ambulance, but that no amount of cleaning and disinfecting could ever remove that badge of office. "All sorts of things happen in the ambulance," they told me. "The animals perhaps are sick or they throw fits. And we've had puppies born in there. quite a few times while the bitch was being driven to the vet. Part of our work is picking up strays, and sometimes they are in pretty bad condition." Sometimes they pick up beautiful dogs. They told me of one woman who bought a whippet puppy because it looked a woolly, cuddlesome bundle. She kept it as long as it looked a woolly, cuddlesome bundle, but when it sprouted long legs and grew thin, she turned it out, and made sure it never got past her gate. So the whippet joined the ranks of the homeless, and would probably have starved to death if the ambulance hadn’t picked it up and found a home forit at the zoo. Callous Owners I heard innumerable stories of people who calmly turn their animals out without turning a hair themselves. They grow tired of them, or they are leaving the district, or that type of animal is no longer fashionable, or this type is growing too big and needs too much food. A cat starts having kittens, so it is carted off to the bush or planted down in a distant suburb. A dog is diseased, so it, too, is pushed out to spread its disease and die in agony. "Our biggest fear now," they sighed, "is that this shortage of beef will see more animals than ever turned out." "There shculd be a law," one woman said, "to prevent people from owning any more animals once they have been cruel to one." _ And the other woman added: "There are lethal chambers where the animals (continued on- next page)

(continued from previous page) can be painlessly put away. There’s no need for them to suffer. But we feel like murderers sometimes, the way the dogs look at us on the way to the lethal chamber." A Customer in Khandaliah The ambulance by this time was heading for Khandallah to pick up a dog, and when we reached Khandallah there was the dog sitting miserably on the pavement, with a man standing beside it just as miserably, holding its chain. It was some kind of sheep-dog, the kind that children love. Saliva was streaming from its mouth, and its jaws were champing and twitching. It looked a very sick dog. The two women climbed briskly out of the ambulance and opened up the back, and the dog obediently put up his front paws and was half pushed, half hoisted into the ambulance. (The back of the ambulance is divided into compartments lined with straw). "You must have a job sometimes getting the animals in?" I asked them. "Yes, it isn’t always as easy as that," they agreed. Sometimes the dogs were heavy and troublesome, but somehow they managed to bundle them in, though I didn’t see them using a stretcher as our artist has suggested. We were sailing off down the hill to Wellington by this time, and what with the smell and the curving roads, I was beginning to feel a little squeamish myself. I looked at the other two, and they were the same. We laughed. Soon we'd all be lying on the straw. Then the dog was sick, and we decided to stay where we were.: At the Doctor’s Instead of giving in, we had a drink of strong coffee at a milk bar and revived and-irefreshed, drove on ‘to the

animal doctor. His clinic was in a house. He was grey haired, efficient and kind. He introduced us to a woman already there. "This woman is typical of women all over the world who live only for their dogs," he explained. And she smiled, pleased with the compliment, She had a‘ tiny puppy in a cardboard box. The doctor had just straightened its tail and given it a mixture, and now she was taking it home by tram. "They might object on the tram," she said, with a meaning look at the ambulance, but we ignored her remark. The doctor was now examining our dog. "The after-effects of distemper,’ he diagnosed, and wrote out a_prescription. The dog, we were told, had a vitamin Bl deficiency, and the prescription was to alleviate this. Distemper is widespread in New Zealand, particularly among working dogs, and when distemper cases are left too long, the muscles of the head cave in. : "What is needed is universal inoculation to prevent the disease ftom breaking out or spreading," the doctor told us. The dreadful jerking of the poor dog’s jaws went on, but he gave a tail wag when the doctor patted him lightly. So with prescription and dog once more in.the ambulance, we returned to Khandallah. There in the rain, he whole family was ~ waiting-husband, wife, little boy. They received the dog joyfully, gratefully; generously gave to the fund; anxiously listened to the instructions to keep the dog dry and warm, to have the prescription made up. "That’s one of the nicest things about this work," the two women said. "Meeting people and getting beneath the surface with them."

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