10-year-old girl praised for rescuing pavement puppy

A 10–year-old girl has been praised for taking the time to rescue a small puppy she noticed on the pavement in Khayelitsha, South Africa, while walking home from school.

While others would have walked right past “this young child picked the puppy up and walked all the way to Mdzananda to get it help”, says Marcelle du Plessis, Fundraising and Communications Manager at the Mdzananda Animal Clinic.

Staff at the clinic are hailing Andiswa Kwele as an animal hero.

Once she arrived at the clinic, the puppy, just three days old, was immediately wrapped in a blanket, placed on a warm water bottle and bottle fed with puppy milk.

“I was so proud of this young girl,” said Sr Heidi May, General Manager. “Seeing children act in this way shows me that our education programmes are working.”

The animal clinic has a strong focus on community education with a variety of programmes including on-site education, door-to-door education, school classes and events in partnership with other organisations.

“We are proud to announce that we have gained permission to start animal education in four schools in their life orientation classes. We started these classes at the beginning of this school term and will be working on entering more schools in the rest of the year,” says Mrs May.

In July they hosted educational events in Macassar and Gugulethu and did door-to-door education across Khayelitsha three days a week.

“We believe that a community that loves animals is a healthy community and that, through our educational and health care initiatives, we are helping to create a community with compassion and care for every animal,” says du Plessis.

The puppy, now named Jelly Bean, is doing very well and is being fostered by one of the clinic’s veterinarians until he is ready to be adopted.