A dog who was ‘lucky to survive’ after being thrown from a vehicle driving at 50mph along a rural Kent road has finally found her happy ending – and started to wag her tail!
Vets were amazed the terrier wasn’t seriously injured when she was seen being tossed out of a vehicle travelling at 50mph along Benover Road, Yalding, on 28 January. Witnesses rushed her to a local vet who reported the incident to the RSPCA.
The animal welfare charity is highlighting its rescue and rehabilitation work for dogs like Freya as part of its Cancel Out Cruelty summer appeal. The charity is concerned that calls reporting cruelty rise over the summer months and is urging the public to help it tackle animal abuse.
The RSPCA receives around 90,000 calls to its cruelty line every month and investigates 6,000 reports of deliberate animal cruelty, including cases like Freya’s. But in the summer (June-August) calls rise to 134,000 a month, and reports of cruelty soar to 7,600 each month. With the increase in pet ownership and the cost of living crisis putting a strain on people’s finances, rescuers now fear more animals will be coming into care during the next few months than ever before.
Freya was lucky not to be seriously injured when she was cruelly thrown from a moving car like a piece of rubbish.
Inspector Kirsten Ormerod, who launched an investigation* into the incident, said: “Freya was incredibly lucky to survive after being hurled from the moving vehicle at such a high speed and vets were incredibly concerned that she may have suffered internal bleeding so performed surgery immediately. Witnesses described her being thrown with such force that she landed on the opposite side of the road, and the vehicle didn’t stop or even slow down.”
Vets found the frightened terrier to be underweight, suffering from fleas and with a matted, dirty coat. After discharging her, she was taken in by the charity for care and rehabilitation.
Gill**, from Maidstone, was heartbroken when she heard about Freya’s story and decided she’d love to offer the terrier a home. When she seriously started looking to adopt a dog she spotted Freya’s profile on the RSPCA’s Find A Pet website but didn’t realise it was the same dog – until she read the story in her local newspaper!
She said: “I lost my Jack Russell terrier in April and we’d been thinking about getting another dog. I was so sad to hear about what had happened to Freya and thought we could give her a wonderful home but assumed she’d be snapped up. When my daughter sent me her profile on the RSPCA website I fell in love with ehr straight away – but I didn’t realise that she was the same dog until I read her story in the Downs Mail and recognised her!”
Gill, her husband Ray and their daughter went to meet 18-month-old Freya – now renamed Bella – at RSPCA Leybourne Animal Centre. Gill said: “As soon as I met her I could see she was lively but I wanted to give her a chance!”
Now, Freya – who found being in kennels really difficult – has settled in well at her new home; and has even started to wag her tail.
Gill said: “Freya is really happy here and is always wagging her tail. She can be a bit naughty and play bites a lot but we love her just the way she is. We have a trainer coming to help us as she is very scared around men and finds it difficult meeting other dogs. But she’s been through so much that we know it’ll take her some time to understand that she’s safe now.”
Freya is just one of many cases the RSPCA has dealt with over the last year. In 2021, the charity received 1,081,018 calls to its cruelty line, including 38,087 abandonments (or more than 100 animals callously abandoned every day).
RSPCA figures also show that despite being man’s best friend, 92,244 dogs were reported to the charity last year as being victims of cruelty (2021). That is 253 a day or more than 10 an hour. There was a significant 16% increase since 2020 – when the pandemic took hold – when 79,513 reports of dogs being cruelly treated were made to the charity.
A total of 38,087 abandonment reports were made to the charity’s cruelty line last year – an average of over 3,000 reports a month, 104 a day or four abandoned animals every hour.
In Kent there were 1,011 abandoned animals reported to the RSPCA in 2021 and 742 so far this year (Jan-Jul 2022) – a 58% increase from Jan-Jul 2021.
Heartbreakingly, the number of animals being dumped is also on the rise nationally with a 17% increase from 2020 to 2021 and a 24% increase in 2022.
