A Noseless Dog Gives Me a Crash Course in Animal Care

This report contains graphic images of a wounded animal – but in the context of rescue and care.

Back in March I spent a few days in Dobropillia, close to a relatively static part of the front line in the southern part of free Donetsk oblast. That might have sounded like a challenging environment… but what challenged me most was the journey back to Kramatorsk.

As I’ve written in earlier reports, Kramatorsk-based group Druzi Space, one of the groups who operate under the Aid Ukraine UK umbrella, run a programme for abandoned dogs and cats in villages near the front. Volunteers identify the animals, supply the locals who feed them, and conduct sterilisation drives.

Druzi and their friends also take wounded animals to Kramatorsk for treatment and hopefully rehoming. Humans aren’t the only ones suffering in the war, and some of the injuries to pets are particularly heartbreaking. For example, Tati, the co-ordinator of the sterilisation programme who I stayed with while in Dobropillia, rescued this dog who had been wounded after a missile strike. Her nose was sheared off, but she survived with basic first aid for a week until a ride was found to take her from Dobropillia to Kramatorsk.

Even in March (the situation is now even worse) people didn’t just casually drive to and from Dobropillia – not only were there FPV attacks but fuel is expensive and volunteer budgets are desperately small. So the ride was mine too: me in the front passenger seat and the dog in the back, in a box. I’m not afraid of animals, but my attitude has always been along the lines of ‘I’m over here, and the dog/cat is over there, and everyone’s happy with that arrangement.’ I’d certainly never interacted with an injured animal.

If you have an instinct for story you can probably guess what happened. Yes, five minutes out of Dobropillia there was a crunching, tearing sound and the terrified dog thrust her way out of the box and between the driver’s and passenger’s seat.

The driver was, of course, busy driving so I had to attempt to deal with this. Rather incompetently as I had zero purchase and the dog had decided to dig all four of her heels in (do dogs have heels?) to maintain position. And after a lifetime total of zero experience of animal care I suddenly had a graphically mutilated dog snout in my face. I didn’t panic, though, as she wasn’t aggressive, just upset and in pain.

Fortunately thirty seconds later we came to a village where we had been scheduled to stop to pick up some bags anyway, and the owner of the bags helped the driver drag the broken box out of the car without the dog escaping in the process. Inevitably as she panicked the poor creature hit her mangled snout again and she squealed with pain and began to bleed. It was not pretty.

The box was then placed back in the back seat but with the broken side topmost, as if it was a crate with an open top. I somehow managed to wedge myself into the back seat beside the crate with my feet on some gas cylinders and my knees by my chin, and the driver showed me how to hold the dog steady by the scruff of the neck with one hand. I used the other to keep enough of the crate-opening covered, by using a blanket held in the other hand, so that she wouldn’t jump out. And off we set on the 90-minute journey to Kramatorsk.

At first I was worried the poor dog would go frantic again, but she was more or less content to be held in place with her head sticking out of the box so she could see what was going on around her, repeatedly licking her wound. After a while, she sank down into the box and sat there; as far as I could tell feeling a little better, though maybe she was just weak.

Well, rescue organisations don’t name every animal that comes through, but in that up-close-and-personal a situation, you have to be on a first-name basis, so I decided to christen the dog Shelly. I had a friend who was a combat medic, and her unit semi-adopted stray dogs and cats they encountered at the front line (most soldiers do this). She grew fond of a dog called Shelly. Who was killed. And then there was Shelly II. Who was killed. And then my friend was killed, because combat medics are prime targets for the Russians. You get the idea…

BUT SHELLY III LIVES.

Here she is sitting relatively calmly in the box beside me. I think she figured out that while I was probably touching her wrongly in various ways, I was trying to help her.

So, that way we made it to Kramatorsk, where we parked up and my unexpected new friend was given into the much more capable hands of Ksenia of Druzi Space,.

At time of writing, Shelly is doing well following her surgery, but unfortunately the wider situation is getting worse. Donetsk oblast is the one place where the Russians are currently managing to advance, so there is ever-increasing demand for evacuation of people and animals, under ever-increasing levels of attack.

Aid Ukraine UK is the umbrella organisation encompassing multiple small groups like Druzi Space who are unable to fundraise directly due to the indiscriminate application of sanctions, meaning that they penalise Ukrainians in free Donetsk oblast as well as invaders in the occupied territories. AUU have a PayPal, and can also take bank transfers. 100% of money received goes to Druzi and their sister organisations conducting evacuation and community support work in the area.

Thanks to Jude Ellison for proofreading this post.