Kitten needs a new home

Hi all, Heavenlyz have got another kitten that needs a good home. Click on the link above to go and meet her.

Hi Peter,

Good luck finding a home for the kitten. On your website I found a section that said, 'Skip' was badly underweight and was infested with maggots when he came to us. Just wondering how a dog could become infested with maggots? It sounds too horrible to think about. You have a wonderful website, very easy to navigate.

Regards, Rachel O'Neill.

Cheers Rachel

thanks for the comments on the website, when we're not striving to enhance our pet care and services, we're always trying to expand on the subject matter and the aid that we hope our website provides.

Skip was/is (the new owners still bring him back now and again) lovely. He'd been severely neglected by his previous owners, left outside, chained up, no water, no food. From what we know, over a period of time, he got a sore that went untreated and just festered. He didn't exactly live in a clean environment anyway. We specialise in cases that require intensive care. When he got to us he was a sorry sight, badly underweight (not as badly underweight as Sasha was though - look on the same page. I must dig out a picture of Sasha. If I could find a before - though taking pictures of her on arrival was not the first thing on our mind - and after, you would not believe it was the same dog) and, yes, maggots living in his various sores.

We kept him with us, cleaned and dressed his wounds, gave him the correct medicine (Liza's the expert, I'm just the webmonkey), the right food and liquids, lots of warmth, comfort, love, etc, etc (as any good rehoming centre does). It was touch and go but he survived. In fact he flourished and turned into a wonderful looking dog. His character was already good natured, luckily it hadn't been affected by his ordeal.

Anyway, the feeling of pride you get when they walk out the door is only (nearly) matched by the sadness you feel that he won't be with you all the time.

Please remember, we rely on people to spread the word when we have rehoming cases available.

That can even happen in people. I have heard of folks in extended care (seniors who need long term care) getting bed sores when not treated properly and they sometimes (in the worst, tragic cases) get infected with maggots. It just makes me sick (considering my grandparents were both in such a situation (extended care)... but not bedsores or maggots thank God).

But what is sort of amazing is that maggots are used (entirely differently) to TREAT people! If a person has a superflu, hospitals intentionally use maggots to kill it because they are the only thing that can break through the superflu 'shield', because medicines cannot. Extremely gross to think about, but if it means life over death I guess it isn't THAT bad!!

Sorry, a bit off topic I guess...

But that's what you get from watching the Learning Channel I suppose!

Not exactly. Certainly they will be no use against superflu, but since they only eat dead tissue they are used sometimes to clean up messy wounds - such as bed sores - especially where they are accompanied by a MRSA infection. Not sure what a 'superflu shield' is. It's certainly not a hard crust over the wound. They are not used a great deal, only I think where there are problems getting wounds to heal.

Like bed sores - they get an untreated would which develops an infection and attracts flys, which lay their eggs which hatch and so on. Though note the above - they eat dead not live tissue.

They were also used as a method of keeping wounds clean in the Napoleonic wars, since they ate dead and decaying tissues before gangrene could set in.

And they are now being used again for the same purpose. Effectiveness is winning out over aesthetics.

Well, according to the Learning Channel they are (and I saw this documentary recently - so unless all the scientists talking about this treatment were wrong...) - I am aware superflu is not a wound or a crust (thanks dude, really appreciate that!), the actual virus has a resistance to drugs, and that resistance is shield like (as shown in the computer generated diagrams - not some medieval piece of armour - it is a figure of speech) - the maggots can break through the resistance unlike drugs. That is what they were talking about. I very easily remember the very graphic diagrams of maggots eating the virus. I am not a doctor, but I watch many documentaries and have two degrees and a half decent distinctly visual memory. I reckon the documentary on TLC had some ounce of truth! It was about Bees, Leeches and Maggots used in medicine. Anyone else here watch it?

Flu is a virus, virus infections work by the virus taking over the cells of a body and using them to replicate the virus.

Maggots are used to eat the diseased cells in a wounds. They will do sweet FA against a virus infection.

There are almost no effective drugs against viruses and never have been, so few resistant strains of viruses exist. The only one which springs to mind is HIV.

However there are lots of antibiotics - antibacterial agents - and also lots of resistant bacteria, and this is what I think you mean with the term 'superflu'. MRSA is Multiple Resistant Staphlococcus Aureus - S. Aureus is a very common bacteria living on everyone's skin, but the MR versions are common in hospitals and one of the causes of wound infections. They are hard to treat with antibiotics as they are resistant to most and the few left are nasty drugs to the human as well.

So I think the term 'superflu' is misleading as it's not a flu virus, but some kind of bacteria that maggots can help with, and the 'shield' seems to be some way of suggesting that they are resistant to

I am wearing my asbestos knickers here now for what I am about to say. The website is great, but you charge an awful lot of money for these animals. Wood green only charges £75-£95 for a dog, and thats vaccinated and spayed.And most of the small independant rescues around here charge approx £45 for a vaccinated dog, and the owner has to have it neutered within a certain time and send a certificate to the rescue to prove it. Have you actually applied for charity status yet? I am always very suspicious of rescue centres of any kind as I have found loads for cats, dogs, and birds, which say that they will 'be getting' charitable status(they never do) and seem to make loads of money out of so called rescue. Most of the dog ones, charge you for taking the dog in, if it is well and innoculated they sell it out sometimes the next day for another sum. It is possible to make £100 from one dog in 24 hours. Then there is the so called 'hillside animal sanctuary' based in norwich, on their leaflets they give a reg number. I asked them if it was the registered charity number,it wasn,t. They are registered as a limited company!!!!They obviously put the number there so ppl will think it is a charity number. They go around and buy farm animals from markets to stock their 'sanctuary' and raise money. If you phone them and say you need to find a home for a goat or it will be destroyed, they won,t take it as they are full!! Well of course they are full, they make sure they are full by buying animals in from markets!! Some people are gullible, and others crafty and set up so called sanctuaries and rescues. The sooner all such places have to be registered and inspected, the betterNow that I have that off my not very impressive chest I feel loads better. After saying that, the boarding kennels side of the heavenlyz business looks