Capricorn Animal Rescue
Welcome to the website for Capricorn Animal Rescue, a registered charity based near Mold in North Wales. From this site you can find out information about Capricorn and the animals that they care for. You can make a donation online, or find out how to contact Capricorn if you want to help out in some manner.
Capricorn's website currently receives around 3000 unique visits each month. That's almost 55000 page views! Thanks to its visitors, Capricorn have been able to rehome many animals, a lot of which were spotted on the website first. So be sure to bookmark the site and come back soon (but don't be in a hurry to leave just yet, there's plenty to read).
NEWS
Rescued Ponies
Here are some photos of the rescued ponies that we recently saved from slaughter. There are twenty-one altogether, all colts, all 18 months old and of various colours such as bays, black, dapple grey and chestnut. We brought them in from auction before Christmas and although some were booked to go to homes we do not home animals during the Christmas period until after New Year, then we had the bad weather so it is only now that we are about to get the first seven out to their new homes.
We have been going down to the fields in Wrexham every day, taking hay (£30 a day in hay), giving fresh water and clearing up their poo. 21 ponies make a compost heap a day! The ponies are being offered for permanent loan, with an adoption fee of £100, and what with chipping costs, feed and petrol costs it is going to cost us more than we will be getting back in donations. The ponies will have an adption form, which states that the ponies cannot be sold on or given away. If for any reason they cannot be kept they must come back to Capricorn, they can not go for slaughter for the food chain.
To have one of our ponies you must be experienced, have a field, paddock or good sized orchard. Be prepared to gentle him, castrate him and generally care for him.
Firework Cruelty and Abandonments
On Bonfire Night, we had a call from a lady regarding an elderly cat whose owner had died. It was sleeping in gardens and neighbours were feeding her. It did not take long for the local children to realise that this cat did not belong anywhere and started throwing stones at her and generally making her life a misery. For a couple of nights before Bonfire Night and on the night itself they were seen throwing fireworks at the cat. This kind lady took the time and trouble to bring the cat into Capricorn. The children, all boys, were aged from about eight to twelve.
A lady came to the gate with a terrified little kitten. She had noticed a group of 4 boys of about ten or twelve years old with a cardboard box and a bunch of fire works. When she asked what they were doing they ran off dropping the box. Inside was the kitten. They had been about to drop the bundle of fireworks into the box with the kitten. The kitten is now settling down at Capricorn.
The last story is about a Yorkie. It was early evening on Sunday when I received a telephone call (withheld) and a woman said that she had left her dog in my yard. I went out but there was no dog. I went out onto the road and there running up and down, very close to the main road, was a little Yorkie dog with a note tied to his collar. He was absolutely terrified. It took me nearly an hour to calm him and coax him off the road and into the yard and another twenty minutes or so to get him to let me put a lead on him. The note said "My name is Lucky, I am 3 1\2 years old and I like kids."
How this woman could have put him through this terror, I do not know. Abandonment is abandonment, whether the animal is abandoned at a Sanctuary or elsewhere. This woman obviously has no regard for the safety or wellbeing of Lucky. All she had to do was ring the bell and ask us to take in the dog. As it happened, we had a space available. We like to know if the dog is inoculated, when the boosters are due, what diet the dog is on, when he was last flea treated or wormed and we also ensure that we do not home the dog in the area he has come from. With no information about Lucky we could even home him next door from where he came from without knowing it. The only Lucky thing about this dog is that he is now with Capricorn and will be vet checked and found a good, caring permanent home.
Dog Day Celebration
Everyone had a great fun day. We had over 130 dogs enter on the day and we had great fun, especially in the Musical Mats and Retrieve the Sausage classes. The Fancy Dress class was very popular as usual.
We would like to thank the Pat & Colin Werner Dog Training Club Obedience Team for giving their time and support to the Dog Day event. The Obedience display they put on certainly entertained the crowd around the ring. Also, thanks to the Guide Dogs and P.A.T. dogs for turning out and taking part in the Dogs with Jobs parade.
Other supporters of this event were Airbus, Broughton, Petplan, F.G. Whitley, Buckley, Elite doggy & style, Dorwest Vetinary Herbs, Petlife International and Crown Petfoods. Our deepest thanks go to them for making this event such a success.
We raised £1364.59 for Capricorn Animal Rescue, which is absolutely wonderful.
Thanks to all of the above and especially to all the volunteers who worked so hard on the day and of course the dog owners who took part in the show and helped to make it the success it was.
Dog Day Celebration Update
Capricorn Animal Rescue would like to thank Crown Pet Foods for supporting our Dog Day Celebration with prizes of 7.5 kg bag of Dog food for Best Pedigree, Best Novelty and 20 Mionijacks for class winners, plus 1 box of samples. We are very grateful to Crown Pet Foods for their support and prizes.
New Charity Shop
There is a wonderful lady named Avril Clements of Ruthin, who finding time on her hands decided to set up a Charity Shop in Ruthin with all proceeds for Capricorn Animal Rescue. She chose the shop, stocked the shop, organised volunteers, and has now opened the shop which is 9 Clwyd Street, Ruthin, where there are a lot of wonderful bargains to be had.
We cannot thank Avril enough for her warm hearted generosity and very hard work, this will really help us ensure that our work continues as it is very hard going at the moment due to the recession.
So if you find yourself in or near Ruthin, pop along to this great shop and grab yourselves a bargain.
Capricorn Inundated with Unwanted Pets
We have 48 kittens, 31 cats, 38 rabbits, 3 guinea pigs, 28 ferrets and more are still waiting to come in. Pets are not being adopted at the moment, have not been for the past three weeks. We are full to overflowing. Its odd but dogs are going out so quickly that we haven't been able to send photographs to put on the web site.
Kittens - We have all colours: tabby, tabby and white, black, black and white, ginger, ginger and white, tortoiseshell, tortoiseshell and white, we even have a beige kitten. We home them at the age of 9 weeks and over when they have had their first inoculations, been wormed, flea treated, insured and have a neutering voucher for when they are 6 months old.
Rabbits - We have all types, sizes and colours from 8 months old. They have been neutered and well handled.
Ferrets - We have jils and hobs from 16 weeks of age, albino and coloured. All neutered and well handled. Our ferrets only go as pets, they are not for working or breeding.
Please see the Homeless pages for photos of the animals waiting to be rehomed.
Gem
This little Border Collie bitch was left tied up under a hedge in a local park. She was so terrified that she messed on herself. She is terribly underweight, with her spine, hips and ribs showing through her fur. She was full of fleas.
We have named her Gem, because she is a little gem. She is slowly gaining confidence as we work with her every day, talking to her, stroking her, gaining her trust and soon she should start to put on weight now she is getting regulated feeds.
There is no excuse for abandoning animals in this way, even if left in a park where lots of people go and she was sure to be found. The trauma they go through when they are left like this has to be seen to be believed. I just wish that I could take these people, stake them out in the open with no shelter, no food and no water and see how they like it!
Book Sale
When books are donated to our charity they go to our charity shop, any not sold then go to the coffee evenings and again any not sold then go to our jumble sale, after that I get them for my book sales.
I am trying to have a book sale once a month. I book space on Mold market on a Saturday and have about 10 or 12 tables selling lots of books at 20p each. Last month we raised £320.00, which is a lot of books.
If you are spring cleaning, decorating or having a clear out please give us a ring. We will be glad to have your unwanted books, bric a brac and any unwanted Christmas presents, e.g. the beauty products, hankies etc that you will never use and hide away in a drawer or a cupboard. We would love to have them for our tombola stall.
Please telephone us on 01244 547938 if you have anything we can use to raise funds.
Thank you.
Puppy Thrown Away
I recently received a call from our vets to pick up a tiny puppy. He was only 4 1/2 weeks old, his teeth were just starting to show through and he was just starting to find his feet, learning to walk. He was thrown over a six foot high garden wall into a garden. When he was taken into the vets he was in shock and he was limping on one of his hind legs.
I took him into our kitchen, in front of the fire, gave him a bed and a teddy bear to cuddle up to and a small feed. He couldn't even chew biscuits!
This is a baby animal, too young to be away from his mother. He has been found BUT what has happened to the rest of the litter? Have his brothers and sisters also been thrown over garden walls and fences and left to die?
Why do they still do this sort of thing? All they have to do is telephone us.
Bertie
Bertie is a little Jack Russell cross Beagle dog about 2 years old. He was picked up by the Dog Warden and taken immediately to the veterinary hospital where it was found that not only was he very emaciated, but that due to untreated injuries to his front legs they had become very badly infected. His left leg was so bad that the flesh was rotting and he had to be operated on to clean the diseased flesh from his leg.
He was then brought into Capricorn where he is being fed on Chappie, very small meals, five times a day and having his injuries bathed in salt water around six times a day.
I am having to massage and manipulate his hind legs frequently during the day, as the muscle wastage due to the malnutrition is so bad. His joints have stiffened quite badly and if he is to make a full recovery we must get his legs working again.
Twiggy
This poor cat was picked up in Ewloe by a lady who telephoned me to say that she had found a cat in a very bad way. I told her to take it to the vets immediately and this she did. That was Saturday. On the following Wednesday I was in the vets and they said that they had had this cat brought in and could I take it in to Capricorn.
They had checked her out and she was perfectly healthy, except that she was near death through starvation. She is literally fur and bones. She is short haired, but it was so matted on her back that the vet had to shave her back to clean the matted fur.
She is still a bit wobble and very weak, but she is eating five or six very small meals a day and has today tried to use the litter tray. She missed.
This cat is very loving, loves being nursed, cuddled and made a fuss of. She is wearing a plastic flea collar and it is so obvious that she has been a very much loved pet. It would be wonderful to find her owner who must be missing her dreadfully.
If you recognise Twiggy please telephone me on 01244 547938.
