Rescuing Kaiser

On the second day of our holiday we were romantically walking along the beach, hand in hand, when I spotted something laying half in the sea, and half on the sand. “Look!” I shouted “It’s a baby seal.” We ran towards it. As I laid my hands on its baking hot dark body, and rolled it over, we soon realised that the little lump wasn’t a baby seal. It was in fact a young puppy!

I immediately swept the puppy up into my arms, and gasped in horror over how hot his coat was, and how limp and lifeless his little body was. His eyes were rolling and were milky in colour. His stomach sloshed, and was heavily bloated. He let out a little groan, and tried to struggle, so I placed him on the sand, where he began violently throwing up, and then ravenously eating sand and drinking seawater. We knew straight away that we had to get this little puppy some help, and as we took a step back to look at him, he limped frantically after us.

He was covered in mud and sand. I don’t know how long he had been there for, but it soon became clear that he had been trying to survive on sea water and sand alone. Tom urged us to get him back to our apartment as soon as possible. He was floppy and wilting fast in the heat of the day. I had to give him to Tom to carry, as he was a dead weight. We sneaked him up to our apartment where I lay a towel on the floor and placed him on it. I nearly cried as he just slumped into a ball, with barely enough energy to sit up. I tried to get the fluids down him, whilst Tom dashed out to buy dog food. He was so thirsty that he drunk over half a litre of water in one go, and then fell asleep on me until Tom returned.

When Tom came back with food he lay down by the dish as he mustered up the energy to eat. The little pup was starving. After about 10 minutes he found the energy to start walking around, and then even started playing with us. We started feeding him lots of small frequent meals, and as much fresh mineral water as he needed. It seemed that he had a lot of seawater to flush out, as he spent the whole day and evening weeing. By 9pm he was asleep and out for the count, so we made him a little bed on the low shelf underneath the coffee table, and Tom carefully put him to bed, wrapped tightly in a towel. He was exhausted, and we just sat there watching him all evening, trying to work out what to do with him.

At about 6am he woke up and Tom went out to the living area to see him. He was so grateful and got all excited. Tom tried to put him back to sleep in his new bed, but he was beside himself with excitement. I jumped out of bed to see what was going on, and as he approached me, his little tail was wagging madly. As we sat there cuddling him, it became apparent that his inflated, bloated stomach had gone right down. With just the help of some love, reiki, clean water and food. We went back to bed, and he followed, and lay down on the floor next to my side of the bed, where he slept through until about 9am.

Tom had seen an advert in a local guide about a lady who takes in stray dogs and cats. I gave her a call, but she said that she couldn’t take him in, as she was absolutely full, with over 40 dogs. She gave us the number for John a friend of hers who is also passionate about helping stray animas. He told me that he will look after the puppy at this boarding kennels, whilst he organises a dog passport for him to be allowed into the UK. It just so happened that John would be passing through our area in a couple of day’s time.

We kept the beautiful puppy, which we decided to name Kaiser (pronounced Ky-zer) in the apartment for a few days and nights, taking him out in Tom’s rucksack for walks in the countryside, whilst the cleaners were round. Very quickly his personality started to shine, and he became a loveable rogue, who we nicknamed ‘the chunky monkey.’ He walked like a baby bear, and was so cuddly and wholesome. Tom and I fell in love the moment we rescued him from the beach. He must have been dumped, because he was about 10 weeks old, and there is no way he would have survived on sea and sand, in 25 degree heat. Like I said, he was also a chunky puppy, so it’s obvious he had been fed up until some point.

We went over to Julies to meet John, so that he could borrow a crate to take Kaiser to his. The moment Julie saw him, she laughed and said “oh my god, he’s going to be a big-un! Look at his jowls!” We got a taxi from our resort to her house, which also looks like a boarding kennels, full of rescued dogs. We had to hide Kaiser to get him into the taxi, as it’s no secret that many Greeks hate dogs. We used to walk about with him in Tom’s rucksack on our chest, with his head and a paw poking out. As he was getting fed constantly, he started to get noticeably stronger, and put up more of a fight when we had to temporarily put his head in the bag to sneak him in past reception!

We were dreading the taxi journey. Tom kept the driver talking, whilst I got in the back with Kaiser in the rucksack. I quickly put my seat belt on and let Kaiser’s head and paw poke out. The taxi was noisy, with loud walkie-talkies and bleeping going off all the time. The bag was also on the floor, between my legs, where I held him securely between my feet, and comforted his head in my hands. He looked petrified with his eyes open wide. I couldn’t talk out loud to him in case the driver was to turn around, so I just kept saying in my head to him “Good boy, it’s OK, you’re going to be fine.” Within minutes he had stopped struggling and had fallen asleep, as I held his head, and stroked his cheek. Tom and I were amazed at how cooperative he was being. I wouldn’t have blamed him for going crazy, since the last time he was probably in a car was when he was getting dumped at the beach, no doubt!

Soon after we arrived John turned up to take him back to his until he would be old enough for the pet passport scheme to get him into the UK. We all stood there from a distance as the 40 dogs barked from their runs. John explained what would have to happen in order for him to qualify for the passport, how much it would cost us and everything else we needed to know. I was sad to see him go off, but the guided tour around Julies rescue centre helped keep my mind off it, and realise just how lucky Kaiser had been for us to find him before it was too late.

Julie currently has 2 separate litters of puppies, a room with a very timid dog who was recovering from being spaded, one pen with about 8 medium sized dogs in it, one massive pen with about 10 very large dogs in it, and about 10 smaller runs with numerous little dogs, not to mention a room with 2 tiny kittens, that Tom and I held as she cleaned them out. The whole experience was mind blowing. Julie was stretched to the full, constantly working with the dogs, and undertaking cat neutering programmes, remarkably all out of her own pocket. This is a lady who cares like mad. She apologised profusely for not being able to take on Kaiser, but we could see with our own two eyes why. We knew that Kaiser was in good hands with John, who is a professional dog trainer, and bestselling dog-training author.

8 days later we hired a car and did the 2-hour drive into the mountains where Kaiser was staying. We were so excited to see him. When Illious, the guy who takes care of Kaiser, opened his run up little Kaiser, like us, went mad with excitement! I tried to pick him up twice, but he was so excited he just couldn’t stop weeing. Finally, we managed to cuddle him. It was amazing how much weight he had put on in just over a week. It was incredible. He was also more playful than ever – and his teeth were sharper too. He also looked even more like a bear cub.

We spent 8 hours at Johns that day, playing with Kaiser, and hearing all about the other dogs, donkeys, horses, fowls, dear, circus lions etc that he had rescued in the past. The ‘before and after’ pictures of some of the animals were heart breaking, yet incredible. When I have more time I will go into more detail about some of them.

The rest of our holiday was fantastic, although both Tom and I found the Mediterranean attitude towards animals too much to bear at times. There were stray dogs, puppies and cats everywhere, and it broke our hearts. We would feed them as often as possible, and some would come and lie with us on the beach as we sunbathed. The Greeks thought we were absolutely mad, but we’re just total animal lovers.