Rescue Me to provide hospice care for end of life dogs.

Rescue Me Animal Sanctuary based in Melling is building a hospice on site to provide quality care for end of life dogs.

The hospice building , which is an adapted , newly installed garden room , will provide accommodation for up to three dogs with terminal conditions once completed. Each dog will have its own quiet area as well as access to an outdoor area and will receive the best possible care to ensure that they have the best quality of life given their health issues.

The need for the hospice was identified by Steph Taylor , who runs Rescue Me , when she met Angel after whom the hospice building is going to be named. Steph said “I’ve been going to the pound to help the dogs find rescue spaces and when I was there I saw this little end-of-life dog in a kennel.

“She’s a really old girl, a Collie cross Jack Russell we think, and she has multiple health problems.

“She’s got significant heart disease, her mouth was really infected, she had a urine infection, she had an ear we needed to look at. She wasn’t in a great way at all.

“I thought we could offer her a lot more comfort than a basic pound kennel. The staff there do a great job, and they look after the dogs really well, but it’s just not an ideal environment for such a poorly animal because it’s really busy and noisy, and they’re being pushed to their limits at the moment. 

“There’s a gap of help for these animals so we’re trying to fill it as best we can.”

Following the demolition of an existing dilapidated shed and the clearance of the area Rescue Me took delivery of a custom made garden cabin from a local company , Eazy Sheds, who have made it large enough to accommodate the pens kindly donated by neighbours Carla Lane Animals In Need .

With the help of Steph’s dad the room is being insulated , boarded out , having vet standard flooring installed for hygiene as well as electrics put in to make it a suitable area where dogs can be given palliative care

Steph explained “It will have its own private yard which is really quiet, and we’re going to put Astro turf down so the dogs will be able to sit outside on nice days. There’s also a paddock they can go on from the yard and we have an acre of land with natural trails so we can take them walking on those. It’s an ideal set-up.”

Having the hospice will also help save dogs who might otherwise have to be put to sleep if they are assessed to be terminally ill and remain unclaimed from the pound after seven days. 

“We’ll be able to offer to take them so they can spend time with us, and we can intensively look after them and assess them to see if they do really need to be put to sleep on day eight or if they’ve got a good quality of life and with some treatment we can get them to a level where hopefully we could put them into foster homes”. 

“We don’t know any background on these dogs, but we’ve got vets and nurses on site, we’ve got continuity of care, so we can assess all their medical problems and create individual treatment and respite plans for them”. 

“Palliative care is very individualised so we can take each dog at a time, with almost one-to-one care and do our best to make it like a home environment – clean, quiet and tranquil. We’ll make it as good as we possibly can for them while they’re with us, and if there is a dog coming through that we think would do better in a home environment then we will look to get a foster home for them.”

Angel didn’t just have one problem that the pound could sort with a vet, she’s got multiple issues which are likely to be the result of a chronic build-up of years of neglect. Those needed very carefully balancing against each other. 

“When I first saw her she was just curled up in a ball on the kennel floor in the pound. We got her out to the farm and she was in her own little world, she looked very borderline, but she slept and rested for the first few days and then we started to see a turnaround”. 

“Our vet put her on a course of antibiotics and some anti-inflammatories, and after a few days she was like a completely different dog. The drugs literally worked like magic and her personality started to develop. She’s really quirky and she’s funny, she’s got a little attitude now and she’s changed so much.”