Why we are raising funds

This year my sisters and I have been fund raising for the proposed Animal Memorial.

It has been a combined effort from the people of Morley who have donated items for us to sell at car boot sales and my long suffering husband, whose garage has been totally over taken by my “stock’’. Putting credence to “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure’’

Going to car boot sales most Sundays has not been easy, getting up at 04.00 and packing the car to the roof, we have managed to raise £1800, but there is still a long way to go.

Often people have been only too willing to donate items, but I have had it said to me “why bother for dead animals from years back ’’ To those people I say that the million + horses that died, the pigeons that flew and the dogs that carried vital communications and medical aid into the battle field helped us win the GREAT WAR.

“He (Sailor) would work for 24 hours a day without winking. He was quiet as a lamb and as clever as a thoroughbred, but he looked like nothing on earth, so we lost him. The whole artillery battery kissed him goodbye and the drivers and gunners who fed him nearly cried."

Nowadays the improved mechanization and communications the number of military animals has dramatically reduced.  Now it is mainly dogs and this year they have been given regimental status in their own right with the Ist regiment for MWD consisting of 284 soldiers and 200 dogs

Within their ranks there is Toby, who in his enthusiasm for his work not only found explosives but set about and ate some, putting him the vet’s for emergency care but within 24 hours he was back on patrol with his handler none the worse for his culinary mix up

A Belgian sheep dog Chocolate found a cache of explosives enough to make 100 IED’s. Considering how many soldiers have been injured or lost their lives to these devices puts Chocolate’s find into perspective on just how many lives he and his handler saved on that one find alone.

This year has seen Treo, a spaniel X with a record for delinquency in his younger years, receive  his Dicken Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross for his work in Iraq and Afghanistan

Beau, the black labrador who was so badly injured in an attack that killed his handler Sergeant Donald Tabb. So loved was Beau that, when he was retired due to his injuries, he was repatriated back to his handler’s  family in America

Rest In Peace

Sacha, a golden Labrador, who died alongside her handler Lance Corporal Kenneth Lowe in 2008 whilst searching for IED’s.

 Herbie, the collie huskie X, of the Australian Army killed in action with his handler Sapper Darren Smith and Sapper Jacob Moerland in June 2010.

Mike the German shepherd dog, killed in action in Iraq in 2008

These working dogs of the coalition forces in today’s war zones, they are highly trained, doing the job they are sent out to do and they die doing the job they love, phrases synonymous with and which we are proud to say about our human soldiers.

Civilian animals are within these ranks and include Anya, the German shepherd dog, who despite being stabbed in her chest, continued to put herself between the attackers and her policeman handler in 2008

The dogs of the UK Fire Service and the Urban Search and Rescue Team

The animals who sit and comfort with the phobic, the deaf, the blind, the disturbed and the dying

The list is endless.

This is why we “bother’’ and because I firmly believe what we take from history, we live with today and should learn from for tomorrow