My First Release...

[rpcrowe]

I wrote my first press release yesterday about a little 6 year-old Maltese who could not walk because she had been confined in a small cage all of her life. She suffered from atrophy of the muscles in her rear legs and her belly and feet were scalded by urine, she was left in the tiny crate wallowing in her own feces and urine. Her owner was turning her into a shelter to be euthanized "because she couldn't walk".

Little Bella was rescued by our Maltese Rescue California organization and has gone through many vet workups. The general prognosis was that with the right therapy, Bella could walk again. We are taking her to water therapy and she is progressing wonderfully. The therapy was donated to our organization...

I submitted the press release last night to local TV stations and a video journalist visited Bella's water therapy today. There was a 90 second spot on the evening news tonight and the station linked to our website. I documented the videotaping of Bella's therapy...










Shot through the glass of the tank




Bella is always exhausted after her therapy. Besides building up her muscles, the therapy is also building her endurance...

The video journalist said that crews at his station were fighting for the chance to film this story...

Anyway, our phone has been ringing off the hook with offers to adopt Bella and our website almost crashed due to the number of people accessing it...

Here is the link to Bella's story on Channel 10
http://www.10news.com/news/maltese-l...y-owner-020614

[tbob]

Glad to see Bella is on the mend. Keep us up to date on this.

i am pleased your first press release had such an overwhelming effect

[Shadowman]

Nicely presented.

[davidedric]

Very well done!

[mknittle]

Glad to see the pup is doing well and hope the exposure gets more adopted to good families. great work Richard!

[Downrigger]

Cool. Getting all that love is what's going to fix her.

[rpcrowe]

I just received an email from Craig Herrera, the Channel 10 videographer who did the coverage of Bella. It read in part:

"The story is posted on our 10News Facebook page as well. It was been viewed more than 200,000 times!!! AND COUNTING!
https://www.facebook.com/ABC10News?ref=hl There are three postings on it. The first posting had over 200K views and almost 700 shares. Later postings add to those numbers!"

Now that's some great exposure for our little organization...

[Digital]

Richard, what a fantastic story to share. Thank you.



Bruce

[travis4567]

Ad wonderful story Richard. As a fellow dog lover, congrats on the great work you do.

[David547]

Nice !

[bnnrcn]

Congratulations Richard,I have a dog too and I feel really sorry for Bella.I hope she will get a nice family which can keep her in peace and in good health..

[ClaudioG]

If you are not rewarded in this life my friend you surely will be in any other and forever thereafter. Great job!! There surely can be no better act than to protect those that can't protect themselves. Im a huge dog fan and find it sickening to believe there are pple out there that treat any living creature like this..i am one of those that believe those people should be treated in the same way..let them rot in there own faeces..my wife is madly in love with maltese poodles and cried when i showed her this.. Fantastic work Richard.

[davidedric]

Forwarded the link to my (92 year old) mum - she loves it too

[Colin Southern]

I was hoping for a happy ending Richard - you know, the one where police are happy to report that the owner will spend the next 10 year of his life is a similar sized confine with similar conditions.

I have several words for people like that, but if I used them I'd have to moderate myself!

[rpcrowe]

Unfortunately, the most important thing was to get the dog away from the piece of filth that was her owner.

The story does have a good ending, her foster mom is adopting her.

Now we are working with a cute little Silky Terrier who was dumped by his family at 5-years old because he is going blind. Some people consider their animals as part of their families but, some consider their dogs as items to be disposed of if they are not perfect.

We have had the Silky to a veterinary eye specialist who determined that he has a degeneration of his retina, probably a hereditary thing. He is just about totally blind but can see some light. However like most blind dogs he is getting along quite well without his sight. There is nothing that can be done to prevent the eventual total blindness but, he is in no pain and is not impacted any other way. We just have to find a understanding home that can offer him stability.

I am going to photograph this little boy today and will post his picture.

My wife is on her way now to drop off a Maltese, who has a great hernia the size of a small apple. The vet is going to rework the hernia and place a web mat to keep the intestines in place.

And then, we sometimes get puppies or other dogs who are perfectly healthy but, are just unwanted.

We began life as the new Maltese California Rescue upon breaking off from the American Maltese Association (who only wanted to work with pure bred Maltese) and accepted our first rescue dog on September 22nd, 2014. We have rescued 89 dogs since that date and have placed 66 in vetted furever homes. The rest are living in various approved foster homes until they are adopted.

[Colin Southern]

Out of curiosity, what happens to the "piece of filth" former owner?

[NorthernFocus]

That's an awesome story, Richard. I believe Ghandi said you can judge a society by how it treats its animals. I guess for the USA it's a good news/bad news report card.

[rpcrowe]

See the Malti-Pug puppies I drove to get tonight...
Careful Super Cute

[rpcrowe]

Out of curiosity, what happens to the "piece of filth" former owner?

Most of us are up in arms that the volunteer who got Bella did not get the owners name/address to turn her in for mistreatment. She says that she was so concerned about Bella that the person got away clean. I can seee how that might happen...

[deetheturk]

Thats outrageous Richard,but something that unfortunately happens only to often,fingers crossed karma is round the next corner!

David