JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, February 28, 2025

Valencia couple saves hundreds of abused and abandoned animals

by

Ambika Jagassarsingh
221 days ago
20240722

Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh@guardian.co.tt

An­i­mals tend to bring a great deal of joy to hu­mans, yet they do not all re­ceive the same love they self­less­ly give. Over the years, an­i­mal res­cuers Clif­ford Tardieu and his wife, Sharon Tardieu, have com­mit­ted them­selves to im­prov­ing the lives of those who have been aban­doned, abused, and for­got­ten through their an­i­mal shel­ter, Tardieu’s Kit­ten & Pup­py Sanc­tu­ary.

The Tardieus have been res­cu­ing an­i­mals since 1991, when they lived in St Maarten, and con­tin­ued the ser­vice when they moved to Trinidad. “I’ve been do­ing this for many, many years, and then when Sharon and I met in St Maarten, we res­cued our first dog to­geth­er, and then we start­ed to do a lot of res­cues with oth­er an­i­mals, oth­er pup­pies.

Trinidad is the first place that, when we came back to live here in ‘97, it was the place where we start­ed to do cats, and we on­ly had about four or five of our own cats to­geth­er.”

Tardieu re­vealed that their shel­ter, lo­cat­ed in the Va­len­cia re­gion, has reached its phys­i­cal ca­pac­i­ty. “There are 235 to 240 cats, in­clud­ing kit­tens, and we fluc­tu­ate be­tween 25 and 35 dogs ... I’ve had to turn peo­ple back. Be­cause lit­er­al­ly, when we have more and more than we have, it does take away the fund­ing or the help, the time, and the ef­fort and re­sources to help the rest of them.”

De­spite turn­ing away some of the an­i­mals due to the num­ber of them at the shel­ter, Tardieu will not pass a suf­fer­ing an­i­mal. With a tinge of sad­ness, he al­so ad­mit­ted that no mat­ter how much he tries, they alone can­not fight the grow­ing num­ber of aban­doned or stray an­i­mals.

“Once an an­i­mal is in my sight, once it is in front of me, whether it is on the high­way or whether it’s on the pave­ment, I don’t ... My prin­ci­ple is I don’t walk over it, I don’t dri­ve over it, I don’t dri­ve around it. I try to help it as best as I can, but that doesn’t mean I go look­ing to save an­i­mals any­more. Be­cause quite prac­ti­cal­ly, you can’t save them all.”

Since mov­ing from their pre­vi­ous lo­ca­tion in Mt Lam­bert, San Juan, to Va­len­cia, the Tardieus have man­aged to re­home sev­er­al of their res­cues. “Since we’ve been here for about a year and a half, we’ve placed about 30 to 35 kit­tens and cats and about 25 to 30 dogs in around Va­len­cia, Ari­ma, and San­gre Grande. Some­times doc­tors, lawyers, peo­ple of all kinds come here to adopt an an­i­mal be­cause, as you can see, the an­i­mals have a cer­tain tem­pera­ment.

We make sure that all the cats have that kind of love. So, they’re calm, they’re qui­et, they’re not ag­gres­sive, and peo­ple like that.” De­spite their best ef­forts, how­ev­er, it nev­er seems to be enough.

Tardieu al­so con­demned the be­hav­iour of some cit­i­zens to­wards in­no­cent an­i­mals. “The mind­set of a Trinida­di­an is that once an an­i­mal is on the road, they don’t ap­ply the brake or slow down; they pass over it. And when on the way back and the an­i­mal is in 1,000 pieces, they will try to dri­ve around the an­i­mal be­cause they don’t want to get it on their Pra­do ... They don’t re­alise it; it’s alive un­til it’s dead.”

The 56-year-old an­i­mal ad­vo­cate dis­heart­en­ing­ly re­vealed that the work­load at the shel­ter fell on three peo­ple. How­ev­er, they man­age with who they have, but a lit­tle ex­tra help will al­ways be wel­comed. “We’ve had oth­er vets, some young vets, as­pir­ing vets; they’ve come up here and done some work with us. We do have one guy work­ing with us. He stays in the cat­tery down be­low, at the bot­tom of the hill. So, when we look back, what we’d re­al­ly need is for peo­ple to come and vol­un­teer their time.

We would love to be able to af­ford an­oth­er work­er be­cause the sheer vol­ume of an­i­mals is a lot for two peo­ple or even three peo­ple to do on their own.” In ad­di­tion to the lack of man­pow­er, the cost of car­ing for al­most 300 an­i­mals is ex­treme­ly high. Tardieu added, “Al­most all of the mon­ey we get here is from do­na­tions; it’s from help. If it wasn’t for do­na­tions, we couldn’t do this. And that’s why we had to go pub­lic be­cause we had to be able to feed them.” He said they go through a 22-pound bag of cat food in one day, while a large bag of dog chow can last about a week.

How­ev­er, oth­er fac­tors con­tribute to the ex­pens­es. “We al­so have the med­ica­tion. We al­so have the vet vis­its, we have the doc­tor’s vis­its. And those things add up. I would say we use any­where from $5,000 to $10,000 a month in ex­pens­es here, maybe a lit­tle more de­pend­ing, be­cause each of these cats ... it’s not just food, but they re­quire med­ica­tion. Some­times they get sick. And some­times, most times you have to give them worm­ing med­i­cine. So, it’s cost­ly.” To help man­age and ab­sorb the costs of the shel­ter, Tardieu, a self-pro­claimed car con­nois­seur, re­stores cars when time al­lows.

But be­tween the im­pact of COVID-19 on his side job and a can­cer di­ag­no­sis in 2011, he can­not overex­ert him­self. Tardieu has been in re­mis­sion for the past 13 years. He re­vealed that hav­ing can­cer gave him a bit of per­spec­tive that pro­pelled him for­ward. “I don’t like to see peo­ple suf­fer. So, I help can­cer pa­tients as well. So, once an an­i­mal is suf­fer­ing, I will do my best to stop the suf­fer­ing. I don’t have a prob­lem when an an­i­mal dies, be­cause it’s no longer in pain ... Be­cause of my bat­tle with can­cer, I thought that I would use my sec­ond lease on life wise­ly.” De­spite the hard­ships, the Tardieus al­ways try their best to help their res­cues, since they get a sense of ful­fil­ment from see­ing them flour­ish. “It’s a catch-22 type of thing with an­i­mals; they can give you joy, you could be hap­py to save an an­i­mal, es­pe­cial­ly when an an­i­mal was tor­tured. When an an­i­mal has been chopped, when it’s been poi­soned, and you bring that an­i­mal back from the dead, and you see an an­i­mal thrive, you know?

“For ex­am­ple, some­body ran over this cat. And it came here, and we were sure it was go­ing to die, we were al­most cer­tain it was go­ing to die. And he’s mov­ing around rather well. So that in it­self is an ac­com­plish­ment. That’s some­thing to look for­ward to. That’s some­thing you feel good about.” Tardieu said over the years, cit­i­zens have be­come ex­treme­ly cal­lous to an­i­mals, but this has not made him lose hope. He be­lieves that with the help of vol­un­teers, they can do even more. “One of the things that I think would help us run a lot smoother is maybe one or two more vol­un­teers to come once a week; it would be great if they come once a day.

But if a vol­un­teer could come once a week, more do­na­tions, clean­ing sup­plies, food, if we could get a vet or two to come here and vis­it us.” Tardieu al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to do its part by im­ple­ment­ing a spay and neuter pro­gramme for an­i­mals, which would even­tu­al­ly help curb the num­ber of strays present on the streets.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the Tardieus in pro­vid­ing a haven for dis­placed an­i­mals can call 382-4926 or 703-0502


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored