I became an HLE Officer in 1994, since then I have had a front row seat to the worst that humans can do to animals. While I can’t remember each animal involved in the hundreds of cases I’ve investigated, there are several that have and will, always stand out. After all these years, few things truly shock me but I am always utterly shocked when someone burns an animal. I remember as clear as day my first burn case. Snowball was let out early one morning and within 5 minutes her family heard a god-awful sound, it was Snowball and the kids next door had burned her. She was rushed to a local animal hospital and brought into the intensive care unit. That’s where I first saw her. I remember having to tell myself to focus on the job and talk to the family to try and find out who would have done such a thing, but I stared and this innocent creature dying. There are few sites I can honestly say I’ll never forget and this was one of them. Despite heroic efforts Snowball passed later that day. The kids next door who committed the act were part of a local street gang and no one was willing to testify, we were never able to get them into a court room. Snowball had died in vain. Since then I’ve been involved in at least 5 other investigations where animals were burned, each time I was unable to help the animal involved.
A couple of months ago I was out celebrating my birthday at a local restaurant, when I received a call from our Humane Law Enforcement department. A cat had been burned in NE and she was rushed to Friendship Hospital for Animals. It struck me that things can happen at any time and we have to be ready for it, I’m glad our officers were. I went back to my table and couldn’t think of anything else but this cat, Snowball and all the others. The next day I called over to FHA and found out that while the burns were bad, she would soon be released from the hospital and needed a place to go and recover…enough said. I picked up Nola a couple of days later and brought her home. The right side of body had a large burn, her whiskers were gone and the tips of her ears had been burned. Over the next few weeks she stayed at home with her e-collar on (she HATED that by the way), she received daily medications and burn cream, had a couple of visits with her favorite veterinarian, Dr. Ashley Hughes and she was well on the way to being healed. Maybe it was something deep inside me held over from many years ago but I felt this one, I personally had to help.
As expected, now that her healing process has all but ended, she was ready to go and enter the adoption program but in the short time that she has been with me,I have decided that she isn’t going anywhere! She is now a member of my family and will never have to worry about anything again, except maybe her big brother cat running off with her feather toy. Other than that she is doing great and is starting to accept her new life as an indoor only cat.
Submitted by: Scott Giacoppo, Vice President, External Affairs and Cheif Programs Offcier, Washington Humane Society
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