Marion Churchill & Sarah |
Compassion for Camden, Inc., is a humane society dedicated to the prevention of cruelty
to animals. The organization was founded in November 1992 and incorporated in the
State of New Jersey the following year. We are a private, non-profit, all-volunteer
humane society funded entirely by private donations and recognized as tax-exempt under
section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Service.
.
In this, our second decade, our focus includes YOU in hopes that we may be able to enlighten
and inspire you to take action for animals.
“It
all began with Sarah, found in misery on a given day in
the fall of 1992. A loving black dog with compelling eyes
and a certain magic. Throughout, she has been my inspiration
and the driving force to make a difference for those left
behind. Sarah’s magic continues to shine.”
— Marion Churchill, Founder and President
of Compassion for Camden
In
November 1992, when we first began, I gathered a dozen friends
for a meeting. With Sarah by my side and her dreadful “before”
picture, I talked about the dogs and cats I had seen in the
city suffering in all stages of deterioration. I told my horrified
audience about dog fights so commonplace in Camden that people
are under the impression they are legal. And, I told of the
child who had seen a puppy set on fire and described such
graphic details to me as the puppy “slobbering”
while burning to death.
Camden
is a relatively small city with 82,000 residents, just across
the river from Philadelphia. It is the county seat for a well-to-do
Camden County where politicians have swept animal issues under
the rug for decades. There was much said that day about Camden,
which has the dubious distinction of more dogs and cats abandoned,
impounded and euthanized than any other city in the state
and is indeed the worst setting for animals in the state of
New Jersey.
I
asked everyone present how we, the very people concerned about
animals around the world, could allow this tragedy to happen
less than ten miles from our homes.
A
five year goal to make an all-around difference and to push
the county’s politicians to provide a county animal shelter
seemed reasonable. To achieve that goal, I vowed that I would
volunteer full-time and for as long as possible.
We
introduced humane education into the city’s schools and
during unique mobile summer sessions at the city’s public
housing projects. Veterinary care programs were started as
an attempt to avoid abandonment by keeping dogs and cats healthy
and good-looking — and spayed and neutered.
Early
on, we stopped the horse-drawn carriage trade from setting
up shop in Camden by petitioning the city council. This, in
turn, prompted an ordinance to be written and passed, banning
Philadelphia operators from bringing their cruel and corrupt
trade to Camden’s waterfront area.
In
1996, I wrote — and council passed — a precedent-setting
spay/neuter ordinance and, in 1997, the long-awaited and debated
county animal shelter opened its doors. In 2001, we passed
yet another model ordinance which prohibits the continuous
chaining of dogs in the city. Our mobile adoptions, offered
to folks in the county, saved hundreds of lives and a mobile
animal drop-off program in the city ended the suffering for
yet hundreds more.
For
more than ten years we have seen incomprehensible cruelty
and neglect and witnessed first-hand the very real connection
of animal abuse and child abuse. Father Doyle of Camden Churches
Organized for People calls Camden “a place like no other.”
Our
quest for sanity is merely one of hundreds. No other city
in the state ranks near Camden when it comes to urban woes
happening here on a grand scale and now covering a period
of more than 35 years. Thus, services benefiting animals are
considered trivial and unimportant.
But,
somehow we have managed to be heard. Unlike any humane society
before us — or since — our ongoing presence at city
hall and in the community has brought attention to Camden’s
tragedy. Indeed, some things have changed and much more needs
to be done.
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Sarah’s
Story
by Marion Churchill
To
see Sarah the way
we found her, roll your mouse over the picture
at the right.
In
early October 1992, I received a call from Wanda Falkingham,
a brave and gentle soul who made her daily rounds in Camden
feeding homeless dogs and cats. She had done so for more than
25 years. On this day, she informed me that she had been feeding
a particular white poodle for about six months. “The
dog lives in an abandoned house on York Street,” said
Wanda. “I leave food around the back of the house, but
never see the dog close up.” Although, the day before
she thought that she may have gotten a better look. “Now
I'm concerned because the dog has lost all of its fur.”
Her voice trembled as she told me that the dog would probably
not survive the winter.
Soon after
our conversation, I set out with a friend to inspect the abandoned
house on York Street. “Look through this opening, you
can see the dog,” my friend said. We spotted the dog
peering out at us through one the cracks in the building.
It was well into the evening and the light had begun to fade.
“It’s strange to see a dog even resembling a poodle
here,” I noted. “I don’t know, sure doesn’t
seem right.” It was clear that two people would not be
able to retrieve and contain a dog in a broken-down building
with cracked floors and numerous escape routes. “We’ll
just have to leave the dog. Won’t be cold enough anyway.”
The following
day I drummed together a rescue party of five and made the
usual arrangements with a local vet clinic. Back on York Street
each of us had their special assignments: Georgeann, Shirley
and Helen would guard potential escape routes and Newt and
I would climb into the building.
The wide-open
decaying floors inside the house proved to be quite an obstacle.
In order to walk across, we had to literally press up against
the walls. “Be careful. If you fall to the basement it’s
all over,” said Newt. To make matters worse, we kept
stumbling over an unimaginable assortment of trash. With my
flashlight I searched each room on the lower floor. “Here,
here, up here. I’ve found dog,” I heard Newt yelling.
We found the dog on the second floor in what might have been
the master bedroom standing in front of a broken window.
We stared
at the dog in disbelief and horror, truly a sight we had never
before seen. The dog’s condition had deteriorated to
a point that it seemed impossible that she was still alive.
She was shaking pitifully, her eyes red and set deep into
her scull; her head was covered with mange so crusted and
thick that it may indeed have looked like curly white fur
from afar. The rest of her body was flaming red and naked.
She eyed us,
then the window, as if to jump, then made an attempt to flee
by seeking refuge in a hallway closet littered with discarded
old clothes. This may have been her sleeping quarters for
the last six months. The dog scratched around in the dirty
clothes as if to lay down. She was clearly weak and perhaps
ready to give up, but then bounded out as a final effort to
escape from us.
Our desperate
and iron-clad determination to help this dog had allowed us
to stay reasonably calm. Still, my hands were shaking as I
clumsily tied my home-made noose around her neck. The dog
responded with a struggle and an attempt to bite, but she
was too weak to keep it up for long. “OK, little one,”
I said in hushed tones. “Don’t worry. No one will
hurt you. No one.” Our soothing words and gentle encouragement
seemed to help calm her as we led her down the stairs.
The other
three rescuers were standing by the building’s gaping
hole that we had climbed into. “We’ll slide the
dog through,” Newt shouted. “Hold on to her.”
She was incredibly frightened, shaking ever more desperately
and all attempts to calm her now seemed to be in vain. The
only remedy would be to rush her to the veterinary clinic
as fast as we could.
But instead
of finding relief and comfort at the clinic, we found hostility
and indifference. “I cannot believe this,” said
Helen. “Marion made arrangements, and now we’re
told that the dog can’t be treated or boarded here?”
It seemed that the veterinarian had no expertise to treat
the dog or wasn’t remotely interested in getting involved.
“My advice to you is euthanasia,” the vet said coldly.
“That’s
it?” exclaimed Shirley. “This dog was abandoned
and left to die in Camden, and now she’s being abandoned
again?”
Our group
was devastated. We had an emergency in our van and no place
to go. “Let’s see who we can get a hold of,”
said Georgeann, while punching numbers into the cell phone.
We sat with the dog in the van calling various animal hospitals
and left messages for rescue groups. “I have a couple
of hospitals now that will see us, but there’s no boarding.”
It certainly looked bleak. The hours had gone by and two members
of our rescue party had to leave. They bid farewell and wished
us much luck.
“You
have to explain the extent of the dog’s condition,”
I said to Helen who had taken over the phone, “otherwise
we'll get there and might get turned away again.” It
took four more hours to find an animal hospital that would
treat and board the dog. The hospital was well over an hour
away, but a solution had finally been found and we were thrilled.
The dog had stayed with us in the van during the entire time.
She had taken some water, nothing more, but she seemed a little
more at ease now. A good omen we said, nodding approvingly
to the dog.
The staff
at Steinbach’s Veterinary Clinic in Blue Bell, PA, welcomed
us with open arms. They received our devastated rescue as
if she were our beloved family member. Procedures were started
immediately, phone calls were made, and opinions exchanged.
I watched with tremendous relief as the dog trotted alongside
the veterinarian down a long hallway to be placed into intensive
care. She stopped and turned somewhere halfway down the hallway
to look back at me. “I’ll be back for you,”
I whispered. “I told you not to worry.”
Two days after
her rescue, my husband and I made the decision to adopt the
dog from York Street, whom we now call Sarah. And after six
weeks of hospitalization and intensive care, she finally came
home.
Postscript
2002
Marks Sarah’s 10th Homecoming Anniversary
Sarah
turned out to be a Newfoundland, a breed of dog known to rescue
humans from drowning. Compassion for Camden was founded because
of her immense suffering and heroic recovery. She gave us
that final push to forge ahead and initiate a solid plan to
improve the plight of Camden’s dogs and cats. Sarah touched
many lives during these past ten years, animal and human alike.
She was the star on Philadelphia’s Primetime television
documentary and so many other TV shows and newspaper interviews.
She inspired articles to be written all over the country,
was welcomed in Camden's Council Chambers, and encouraged
others to become active for animal and human issues.
As I write
this and look back to that experience in my life, I should
tell you that a few years after Sarah’s rescue and quite
by chance, I met the person who once had Sarah. The North
Camden woman had followed the news coverage and approached
me during one of our mobile humane education sessions in her
neighborhood. She told me of a puppy she had bought in a local
bar and that she had named the puppy Bud. She went on to tell
me that the dog was eventually stricken with a distressing
case of mange which she was unable to cure with home remedies.
At the time,
I was uncomfortable and shaken by the news and the discovery
of the former caretaker. Though, over the years I haven’t
dwelled on it or given it much thought. But, it’s these
few words that will always remain with me when she told me
that Sarah “ran with wild dogs.”
Sarah touches
my life every day. If it can be done at all, it will be —
because of her — that home remedies may be administered
in conjunction with attainable veterinary care, and tragic
tales of “wild dogs” from the mean streets of Camden
will come to an end.
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Compassion
for Camden
Post Office Box 2642 • Cherry Hill, NJ 08003
(856) 751-1571 • FAX: (856) 424-7757
Email: info@compassionforcamden.org
Web Address: http://www.compassionforcamden.org
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