F.R.I.E.N.D. Animal Rescue

What a wonderful weekend we have had with our fund raiser. 23rd June.

Saturday’s weather was a bit grim but it didn’t seem to put people off and our usually tranquil orchard came alive with music. The bands were sensational and goodwill flowed through everyone.

Quite a few people brought their dogs who were very well behaved. The only naughty one in the group was Leroy, the deer, who was quite overwhelmed with the potential of so many new friends to play with. Unfortunately, Leroy’s version of play with dogs often turns to something a little more …. er…. um….. intimate! I think that all the dogs were surprised by his direct approach and lack of fear but when they found themselves giving a deer a piggy-back they really didn’t know what to do!

Following their set I was chatting with one of the bands who were blown away by it all and actually asked me if they could come back next year which was wonderful. They were laughing at the fact that they’ve never had a deer walk into the marquee and join the audience before! It was very loud but nothing much bothers our Leroy and he stayed in the midst of it, introducing himself to everyone, throughout. I think that generally folk were rather taken aback as he most certainly isn’t what most people believe a deer to be.

We had one very serious, malicious attack, presumably from a local who slipped up a dark, unprotected footpath that lead from where the animals were grazing to the road, took a fence post and fixed their gate open letting them out onto the road. It’s a country lane but the road is straight, wide and very fast and the potential of that action could have been disastrous. It’s not unusual for traffic to travel at 60 + mph along here so animals running out into the path of speeding vehicles would almost certainly result in carnage. I wonder if they even cared that human life might have been lost though that one wicked act of hatred against me. It’s frightening to think that there are people around you that are capable of such extreme evil.

Thank God we managed to get the animals back in without any harm but we were very, very lucky. We are considering a number of actions to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. As we stand the council won’t give us permission to erect a style even though they are protecting footpaths all around us. Their reason is disabled access which is reasonable but I do think these are special circumstances and even the police are supporting me on it.

We feel that we need, sadly, to light the footpath and erect cctv at the gates. This is going to be expensive but whoever is doing this is unlikely to stop and is now directing their venom at innocent animals.

Please, please, if anyone is able to help with the cost of this then we really need your help.