Double Donations Week – 3 weeks to go!
Here at NAWT we are counting down the days, because in just 3 weeks’ time from the 29th of November until the 5th of December, all your donations will be DOUBLED to help towards keeping our animals warm, happy, and healthy this Christmas.
Donations for our NAWT Bedfordshire centre are more crucial than ever, as the current animal facilities are slowly falling apart, becoming unsalvageable, and are in desperate need of your help.
For the past 50 years, the centre has been a lifeline to thousands of homeless dogs who would have otherwise faced an uncertain future, frightened, vulnerable, and alone.
Take Foxy for example, who was found sick and abandoned with her siblings and would have died if it wasn’t for NAWT Bedfordshire finding them.
The animal care team arrived to work one warm summer’s morning in July 2019 to find Foxy and her three siblings, left in a box outside the gate, just weeks old and incredibly sick. They acted very quickly and rushed the puppies to the vet where their worst fears were confirmed; all puppies were suffering with the deadly disease Parvovirus. This is a highly contagious and often fatal illness that is common in poorly bred puppies. The vet advised that it was unlikely all four pups were going to survive another day.
Despite the diagnosis, the animal care team and the centre’s vet battled on to save as many of these little fighters as they possibly could. They refused to give up when the puppies were showing such fighting spirit, and they worked around the clock to provide for these dogs who were still only babies and shouldn’t have been separated from their mum.
A few days later, just after midnight, the weakest of the four pups, Basil, faded away in the arms of one of the animal carers, devastating the whole team.
Losing Basil must have been such an enormous blow for everyone involved but still they didn’t give up. Treatment continued for the other three puppies for the next fortnight until eventually everyone could breathe a sigh of relief when test results confirmed that the three surviving pups no longer had parvovirus and could begin the process to be safely rehomed to loving families.
Foxy was rehomed to her forever home, to which her owners recently got back in contact with the charity to share the following update.
“She’s such an important member of our family now and gets involved in everything from playing with Tucker (our other dog) to snuggling with us on the sofa.
She’s so intelligent and is doing well at dog training and even trying some agility too.
I don’t like to think about the terrible start she had in life and what she went through, but I’ll be forever grateful that charities like NAWT exist because I understand the even harsher reality Foxy would have faced without them, and that she never would have made it into our lives and our hearts.”
It is so worrying to think what could have happened to these poorly puppies if our centre wasn’t on hand to help. Due to the poor condition of our existing dog kennels, the centre can currently only responsibly care for a maximum of four dogs at any one time, which is very concerning especially when you consider cases suddenly popping up, just like Foxy. But there is now hope on the horizon.
A large sum of money has been pledged to NAWT Bedfordshire by a group of funders to create a matched funding campaign, which aims to raise £100,000 towards a brand-new kennel block. This money can be used to DOUBLE EVERY DONATION the charity receives between 29th November and 5th December 2022. For example, if you donate £5 during this Double Donations Week it will be worth £10 at no extra cost to you.
The new kennel block we hope to install, with your help, will have ten purpose-built kennels. These kennels will meet appropriate welfare standards, and hold double the capacity, to start helping some of the 55 dogs currently on their waiting list.
With so many homeless dogs waiting, it is imperative these new kennels are built to house them as soon as possible. The waiting list is only going to grow over the coming months as the cost-of-living crisis impacts on pet owners.
Please give what you can to ensure that our much-needed Bedfordshire centre remains a part of the community, and so the new kennel block can continue to keep dogs like Foxy warm and safe this Christmas.
Whilst the organisational focus for this year's matched funding campaign is a new kennel block at our Bedfordshire centre, our Berkshire, Cornwall, Essex, and Hertfordshire centres also have their own campaigns you can support during Double Donations Week. Should you wish to support your local centre, please follow their individual Facebook pages for more information.
Don’t forget, any donation you make between 29th November and 5th December will be DOUBLED, at no extra cost to you. It’s heart-warming to know, that by donating during Double Donations Week, your money will go even further and have DOUBLE the impact.