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Adonis,
as revealed in the Greek mythology is considered an ever-youthful
vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity.
The reference to Adonis, the Greek deity,
is accidental. Our Adonis' story, one of Animal Kingdom
Foundation's rescued dog from an operation in San Jacinto,
Pangasinan, is not of mythological stuff but the following
narration with its near death-"rebirth" events
is inspiring in its entirety and, surely, the Greek god
won't mind having his name attached to a dog, especially
if it has an interesting story.
On
the last week of June 2006, during one of the risky operations
of catching dog-traders by the Animal Kingdom Foundation,
Inc, an animal-welfare group based in Metro Manila, in the
village San Jacinto, Pangasinan, a skinny dog with tiger-like
stripes bound for slaughter was spared due to the assertion
of AKF's veterinarian Winston Samaniego. The skinny dog
was already snared from its cramped cage by the dog-trader
when the team of AKF Researcher Greg S. Quimpo, the supposed
customer who is interested in buying dogs, Veterinarian
Winston Samaniego and Ms. Suzanne Llanera, AKF's Managing
officer, acting as business partners, arrived at the dog-trader's
open view slaughter house and, immediately, Veterinarian
Samaniego discouraged the slaughter stressing that they
prefer bringing the dogs alive to a slaughter house up north.
And so the skinny dog was spared from a painful fate.
The recovery of a number of dogs, now rehabilitating
in AKF's Animal Rehabilitation and Rescue Center in Capas,
Tarlac was a product of a month-long surveillance by animal-rights
advocates, Greg S. Quimpo and Veterinarian Samaniego. The
Criminal Investigation & Detection Group-Unit of Lingayen,
Pangasinan spear-headed the raid and a complaint of violating
RA8485-The Animal-Welfare Law of 1998- was filed in the
prosecutor's office of San Jacinto, Pangasinan against the
butcher by the Animal Kingdom Foundation activists.
While isolated from the other dogs in the
center, the skinny and traumatized dog escaped from the
holding pen, climbed the wall of a dried-out pool and jumped
over the concrete fence out into the darkness. Considered
as an escapee, the dog was not hoped to be recovered.
Until one night, the kennel staff and the
guard of the center heard a persistent scratching coming
from the iron gate. It was the skinny dog! He has returned.
Closing the gate behind them, the kennel staff, Mark and
Jed, tried to snare the dog back to the pen while the guard,
Nick, stayed behind and watched. The skinny dog was elusive
and made the two boys pant in exhaustion. While the two
were catching their breath, they let the dog approached
Nick. Throughout the night the dog never left Nick's side.
He found a spot outside Nick's room and slept there while
everyone in the center were in their room. The next day,
they named him Adonis and, with the blessing of Charles
Wartenberg, AKF's President, officially declared Adonis
as the center's guard dog. |

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM FOUNDATION INC.
Animal Rehabilitation and Rescue Center
A non-profit, no-kill dog shelter
dedicated to saving abandoned, neglected, abused and slaughter-bound
dogs.
The AKF Animal Rehabilitation and Rescue Center is fully
operating on donated funds from the United Kingdom. Much
of the medicines and facilities utilized in it came from
the UK. A few corporate and business establishments like
Pedigree, Inc., Philippines and Oxford Suite Philippines
have also donated dog-food and towels. The center sits on
a 2.5 hectare rented property with enclosed concrete walls.
It has considerable numbers of kennel where rescued dogs
move freely. Each kennel features covered shelter with concrete
floors and wide open ground where the rehabilitated dogs
roam and roll with gusto.
The lone holding pen where distressed rescued
dogs are delivered has a feature sensitively built for stress-free
hauling. Upon entering a double-gate, the back of the delivery
truck levels up to a wall with mound
of earth on the other side. Once the back of the
truck is open, the dogs alight from the truck unassisted.
This has been proven to be an effective and safe way of
hauling-off frazzled and unruly dogs rescued from far-away
areas.
Several closures were constructed with
varied uses. There are pens for male and female dogs, for
ferocious ones and for disease-stricken ones. The clinic
on the ground floor of the main house is the major treatment
area. It can hold services such as neutering, spaying, treating
skin-diseases, surgical operations, vaccinations, confinement
and recovery of sick ones, de-worming, control of external
parasites such as ticks and fleas, mange infection and laboratory
tests for fecal, blood and microscopic examination. Competent
Filipino and English veterinarians handle these delicate
operations.
The upper floor of the main house has features
and amenities to accommodate friends of AKF. It is a fully
air-conditioned area with rooms, hot and cold shower, complete
kitchen and sala set with combined mixture of hard wood
and tiles.
The other building built for the staff
features rooms with its own hot and cold shower and double-decked
beds. The wide spaced sala and kitchen are fully air-conditioned.
It has its separate laundry areas and a porch to welcome
visitors.
A considerable number of fruit-bearing
trees, mostly mango, which give the whole area an aesthetic
appearance, lined up side by side on the pathway and lead
to the entrance facing the pleasing façade of the
main house. The trees are taken-cared of and expected to
produce fruits for harvest.
The AKF’s Animal Rehabilitation and
Rescue Center is, indeed, an ideal place to house distressed
dogs victimized by the illegal trade and to welcome animal-lovers
who have passions to save them.
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