January 13th, 2013 is a very special day for Mercylight. It is the day when we first met Unity – for some of us in person and some over Facebook. We named her Unity because her rescue was backed by the united efforts of every Mercylighter in the ministry, not a solo mission.
Unity is a dog that we found at Tampines two Sundays ago. She was so horribly emaciated and panting so hard that she looked as if she was going to collapse anytime. There was a choker chain on her and this means she is not a stray dog. Was she abandoned intentionally or lost? Nobody will ever know the answer except our Heavenly Father Who sees through the hearts of every being. Unity also had a deep cut wound on the left side of her mouth which had maggots growing in it.
When we arrived at the scene, the lady who was with Unity told us they have been there for a few hours and she had already made two calls – one to an animal rescue center and the other to a nearby pet shelter. The former had yet to arrive. The latter did not do anything. So an urgent decision had to be made.
We took Unity to the nearest vet and were charged an exorbitant amount of $500 for just 3 things: Fluid drip, antibiotics drip and one night hospitalization stay.
The next day, we quickly transferred her to another veterinary clinic for treatment. The veterinarians and their assistants are wonderful. They took care of her well. For the following week, Unity recovered from being dehydrated and weak and started to eat better as each day passed. She was checked against distemper, heartworm and tick fever and they all turned out negative. Praise the Lord.
Ten days after the rescue, Unity was sent to a referral hospital for an X-ray and endoscope to find out root cause of her panting and poor appetite. She could eat but she wasn’t consuming the sufficient portion that an average dog would. It also seemed like she could not open her mouth completely when she eats; only up to a certain degree.
The scope result shows that there is a growth behind the right side of her nose that blocks the breathing passage of right nostril. That explains the shortness of breath and it is probably also the reason why she can only eat a little at a time because she uses her mouth to do her breathing too.
The senior veterinarian is a very nice person who has much compassion for animals and is known to be very good surgeon. But being a practical person especially after handling countless cases of rescues, he asked this question out of concern: “Why do you choose to save this one?”
He went on to elaborate that by the sight of the condition of this dog, most likely she would have been put down by the animal rescue center even if they had taken her in. Perhaps it is also the same reason why the pet shelter didn’t respond. And even if they did, he was quite certain that most of them will make the call for her to be put down too.
Unity is estimated to be between 6 and 8 years of age. To many, she is considered an old dog and hence, she has much lesser or no chance of being re-homed. Plus she was in such a bad shape that the doctor’s opinion was: “This dog is too far gone to save and will end costly too. It is just not practical.”
True to his suspicion, the root cause of her breathing difficulty is a growth that has started sometime back and not a recent development. She may seem to have no other health issue now except the breathing part, but he cautioned that this is just the beginning of a possibly difficult journey for her if the growth is something invasive. Although we are now still waiting for the biopsy report to come out, his sincere advice is for us to carefully consider the options available for her.
In short, he could not comprehend our decision to save her, let alone bring her to his hospital to conduct an expensive checkup just to find out what is wrong. The idea was that we should explore the decision of putting a stop to the rescue at this point and let her go the easy way and save money and effort.
Why do we choose to save Unity? It was an unexpected question.
Our reply is:
There is no particular reason why. It wasn’t a question of choice. Being human, it is just impossible to turn a blind eye to the plight of a helpless animal like Unity that is placed right in the middle of our path. It is instinct to save. Did we roughly picture the costs of this rescue and how troublesome it could get? Yes we did. Rationally, it is not practical.
But the thing is this:
Can anyone walk away from such a scenario fully convincing himself that he has no choice at all and there is no nothing he can do about it? Not unless it is a war-zone situation or he is a child. If God were to ask us the contrary question (why did we not do so?) when we meet Him one day, what sheepish answer can we give?
Whatever it is, we have already done the rescue. It shouldn’t even be regarded as a heroic thing to do because it is not. There is nothing to brag about seeing such pitiful plight. What we can do now is to tread a step at a time, knowing that our God is a good and faithful God and He will guide us as we trust in Him and do our best. When everyone puts in a little effort, then together we can make a difference for Unity.
If it is time for Unity to go home to the Lord, then we ask that God make that decision, not us hopefully. For now, we only see the unwavering will to live on in the eyes of Unity. Who knows God maybe preparing the heart of someone to care for her right now like in the case of Wringle’s rescue? God’s plans never fail. At least when that day comes for us to say goodbye to her, we know that Unity will leave with the sweet experience of being loved by God through man’s mercy and not the sadness of being forsaken and ignored by many who crossed paths with her.
Meanwhile, we will keep believing in miracles because many of us have experienced miracles from God in different ways.
May you be touched by God’s divine love too!