A dog with no nose who was almost put down because nobody wanted her has finally found a home.
Bonnie, a Border Collie cross, was rescued in Romania and was on the verge of being put down due to the extent of the injuries she sustained as a stray.
The pooch was found with her snout missing, leaving a large, open wound, and part of her front left leg missing as well.
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Bonnie, a Border Collie cross who is missing its nose and part of its leg, has finally found a home
The pooch was found with her snout missing, leaving a large, open wound, and part of her front left leg missing as well
Kate Comfort, 29, from Canterbury, spotted Bonnie on Facebook and adopted her months later
Bonnie was brought over to the UK by Beacon Animal Rescue Centre where Kate Comfort, 29, from Canterbury, spotted Bonnie on their Facebook page.
It was love at first site for Kate and Bonnie was officially adopted her a few months later.
Kate, a civil servant, said: ‘We adopted Bonnie from Beacon Animal Rescue Centre which is run by my best friend Rebecca.
‘Rebecca put up a post of her with her beautiful big soulful eyes and huge ears and I just fell in love.
‘I had trouble trying to convince my husband at first – as we already had three dogs – but no one wanted Bonnie so I said that I would foster her until we could find her the perfect home.
Bonnie was rescued in Romania and was on the verge of being put down due to the extent of the injuries she sustained as a stray
Bonnie the sweet dog with no nose has finally found a forever home
‘The fact no one wanted her made me want her more, she was vulnerable and needed love.
‘It turned out that her perfect home was our home and we ended up adopting Bonnie ourselves!’
Kate admits she was alarmed by Bonnie’s appearance at first but grew used to it the more time she spent with the dog.
Kate and her husband, Ross, 31, wanted to gain experience of taking care of dogs with unique needs but ended up falling in love with Bonnie and couldn’t give her up.
Upon the decision to adopt her, they began fundraising for Bonnie to get a prosthetic leg, but the wound on her stump kept opening up.
They were advised to remove it and wished they had done it sooner; Bonnie is now completely pain-free and as agile as the couple’s other dogs.
Kate admits she was alarmed by Bonnie’s appearance at first but grew used to it the more time she spent with the dog
Kate and her husband, Ross, 31, wanted to gain experience of taking care of dogs with unique needs but ended up falling in love with Bonnie and couldn’t give her up
Kate said: ‘We thought about paying for Bonnie to have the surgery, but once we realised it would have been purely cosmetic and would have made no positive impact on her life then we decided against it.
‘We thought putting Bonnie through an operation to try to make her look more “normal” would have been cruel.
‘Our Bonnie is perfectly imperfect, we love her just how she is and if anyone is offended by how she looks, then that is their problem – not ours.’
Despite some negative comments towards Bonnie, she boasts 14,000 followers on Instagram where she goes by the name of Bonnie the Brave, with her pictures receiving thousands of likes.
Kate added: ‘I originally created an Instagram page for her when we were trying to raise money for her to have surgery but, even though the surgery never took place, her followers have grown and grown and we have been overcome by how much impact Bonnie’s life is having on people.
It’s not certain what happened to Bonnie’s face with all of her nose and front part of her mouth missing
Despite some negative comments towards Bonnie, she boasts 14,000 followers on Instagram
‘She is an advocate for unique dogs and we have had so much kindness and positivity, it’s just incredible.
‘In person, most people are amazed by her but again, we have had some negative responses.
‘There have been people who have actively shouted and screamed at Bonnie with one person even trying to kick her.
‘People have referred to her as “it” or a “thing” which hurts my feelings as she deserves the same amount of love as any other dog.
It’s not certain what happened to Bonnie’s face with all of her nose and front part of her mouth missing, but they suspect it was done by a human when she was living on the streets.
Kate said: ‘Bonnie is one of the best things to happen to us and I’m so glad we gave her the home and family she deserves’
Kate said: ‘We aren’t totally sure what happened to Bonnie, the girl and her mum who found Bonnie thought it was a train because they had seen her there previously.
‘The other suggestion is that an animal did it, perhaps a fox or a wolf or even a human but we simply do not know.
‘Despite this, Bonnie isn’t wary of people, so if it was a human, she is very forgiving.
‘But then again, animals are forgiving creatures – they never fail to amaze me with how tolerant and forgiving they are when subjected to cruelty and abuse.
‘I prefer animals to humans, I wish we were more like them, which is maybe why I surround myself with animals, rather than people.
‘Bonnie is one of the best things to happen to us and I’m so glad we gave her the home and family she deserves.’
To keep up with Bonnie’s adventures follow her at @bravebonbon on Instagram.
Mexico’s rescue and drug-sniffing dogs start out at the army’s puppy kindergarten
In the middle of a military base outside Mexico City, an army colonel runs what he calls a kindergarten for dogs.
In the middle of a military base outside Mexico City, an army colonel runs what he calls a kindergarten for dogs.
Puppies that one day will become rescue dogs, or sniffer dogs for drugs or explosives, get their basic training here, at Mexico’s Army and Air Force Canine Production Center. The puppies are born and spend their first four months at the facility, before being sent to military units around the country for more specialized training.
Founded in 1998, the center has in the past produced breeds such as German Shepherds and Rottweilers.
Now, it exclusively breeds Belgian Malinois — about 300 of them a year.
“It’s a very intelligent dog, it’s a dog with a lot of hardiness, very resistant to diseases,” said Col. Alejandro Camacho Ibarra, a veterinarian and the center’s director. It is the Mexican military’s only such production facility, and Camacho said it may be the largest in Latin America.
The mainly green-and-white, one-story buildings look like any others at the military camp in the State of Mexico, near Mexico City. But the difference here is in the sounds that fill the air: high-pitch barking from dozens of puppies scattered through its maternities and training camps.
Precautions here are strict because of a recent canine parvovirus outbreak that sickened some of the puppies. Visitors are disinfected with a spray, and must step into a watery solution to clean shoe soles. Only military personnel can touch the puppies. If you want to get close, you need to wear scrubs, shoe protectors and a mask, but you still cannot hold or pet the animals.
The training starts early in life, about a month after birth once the weaning process finishes. And everything is taught as a game.
“We start playing with the dog,” Camacho said. The idea is to draw them to items that trainers call “attractors” — like a ball or a rag — and puppies are challenged to catch them. “Every time it holds his prey, it’s rewarded, congratulated, and it learns to go after that prey, after that attractor,” Camacho added.
Unlike in civilian life, where puppies often get food treats, in the military the only prize for a job well done is a caress and some praise.
In one section of the camp, there’s a trail with obstacles including rocks, a tunnel, a section of empty plastic bottles to clamber over, a ladder and tires.
A soldier beckons the little dogs with a rag they must capture. The brown puppies with black snouts begin running through the trail, jumping over the rocks and crossing the obstacles. One takes the lead and the second struggles to cross over the plastic bottles, but also finishes. Both go to bite the rag the soldier holds.
“Very, very good, sons! Very good, boys,” he repeats while dragging the puppies as they maintain their grasp on the rag for several moments.
Camacho explains that the puppies are known by a number until they are three months old, when they are given a proper name. Each year, the center gives names according to a single letter of the alphabet. In 2023, that letter is “F.”
Febo, Frodo, Fósil, Forraje and Fido are some of this year’s names.
The basic training ends when the puppies are 4 months old. Then, they move to other military units to become specialists in detection of drugs or explosive, in search and rescue or in protection and security.
The current government of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has relied heavily on the armed forces for various initiatives, from public safety to the building of airports and a tourist train line. And K-9 units have been a key element of some of the military’s activities, like the detection of drugs.
Col. Camacho said that some dogs born at the center have been trained to detect fentanyl, a synthetic opioid trafficked by Mexican cartels that has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.
That kind of specialized training happens elsewhere, but the colonel says it builds on his center’s basic training by using “attractor” objects but having them impregnated with the scent of what the dogs need to track, such as a drug.
Dogs retire from their military service after eight years, Camacho says.
Many of the dogs have become unsung heroes of missions in Mexico and abroad. Occasionally they become publicly known, like a German Shepherd named Proteo who was part of a rescue team sent in February to Turkey after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 40,000 people.
Proteo died during the search for survivors of the quake. A statue of him now stands at the center.
Another dog that made headlines in Mexico and abroad was a yellow Labrador retriever rescue dog named Frida. The Navy dog gained fame in the days following Mexico’s Sept. 19, 2017, earthquake that left more than 300 dead in the capital. She retired in 2019 and died in 2022.
Col. Camacho said that the dogs have a symbiotic relationship with their handlers during their working life in the military.
“The dog uses us to survive, but we also use the dog to do a job,” he said. “So it’s a coordinated work where we both get a benefit.”
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