ATCO Pets

S🖤ME🖤NE TURNED 13! Happy birthday Noah Miles! WE LOVE YOU!

When fb memories hit hard. I miss you so much Henry. 🌈

Last week Noah Miles aka ATCO’s Activites Director was diagnosed with liver cancer last week. They said they could do surgery, but would not know if they could remove it all until they were in there. The surgery is higher risk and higher reward if they can. The oncologist would not commit to a prognosis if we didn’t do surgery, but said we would start seeing the effects of the cancer in the next few months.

After letting it all sink in for a week and getting advice from others we know and trust (thank you), we have made the difficult decision to not do surgery and to just keep him comfortable for as long as we can, to honor him and put his quality of life over my desire to keep him here as long as possible.

We will love on him, spoil him and cherish every second of the days we have left.

Anyone who knows us knows he is my soul dog and this news is devastating. He has been with me through my darkest of days and now we are both living our best lives.

He is loved by so many so I wanted to give everyone an update on my boy.

This is him by his favorite tree enjoying his farm life.

Please keep him in your prayers. He is truly one of a kind.

I have a former client in the German Village area in need of pet sitting this weekend (2 dogs). If you know of someone you would highly recommend please comment here!

Thank you 😊

I miss these two together. She always sat there and he always let her.

Fb memory today. I miss doing this so much! Miss all of “‘my” babies and their pawrents.

Judy, a purebred pointer, was the mascot of several ships in the Pacific, and was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and taken to a prison camp. There she met Aircraftsman Frank Williams, who shared his small portion of rice with her.

Judy raised morale in the POW camp, and also barked when poisonous snakes, crocodiles or even tigers approached the prisoners. When the prisoners were shipped back to Singapore, she was smuggled out in a rice sack, never whimpering or betraying her presence to the guards.

The next day, that ship was torpedoed. Williams pushed Judy out of a porthole in an attempt to save her life, even though there was a 15-foot drop to the sea. He made his own escape from the ship, but was then recaptured and sent to a new POW camp.

He didn't know if Judy had survived, but soon he began hearing stories about a dog helping drowning men reach pieces of debris after the shipwreck. And when Williams arrived at the new camp, he said: "I couldn’t believe my eyes! As I walked through the gate, a scraggly dog hit me square between the shoulders and knocked me over. I’d never been so glad to see the old girl!"

They spent a year together at that camp in Sumatra. "Judy saved my life in so many ways," said Williams. "But the greatest of all was giving me a reason to live. All I had to do was look into those weary, bloodshot eyes and ask myself: 'What would happen to her if I died?' I had to keep going."

Once hostilities ceased, Judy was then smuggled aboard a troopship heading back to Liverpool. In England, she was awarded the Dickin Medal (the "Victoria Cross" for animals) in May 1946. Her citation reads: "For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps, which helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners, and also for saving many lives through her intelligence and watchfulness".

At the same time, Frank Williams was awarded the PDSA's White Cross of St. Giles for his devotion to Judy. Frank and Judy spent a year after the war visiting the relatives of English POWs who had not survived, and Frank said that Judy "always provided a comforting presence to the families."

When Judy finally died at the age of 13, Frank spent two months building a granite and marble memorial in her memory, which included a plaque describing her life story.

Every kill shelter should post this photo on their front door for the people who are surrendering their pets in our throw away society. People in Ukraine are carrying 80 pound dogs through a living hell to save them and not leave them behind! 🐾🇺🇦