Community Contributed
Joy Harding 1920 -
Kete Horowhenua2020-03-23T16:47:19+00:00Joy Harding has been in the Horowhenua for thirty years. During this time she has devoted her life to working with animals in Animal Rescue. She was working with the SPCA but saw the need for another organisation. The SPCA was overloaded with cruelty cases. Animal Rescue was founded to deal with the special cases that needed a little looking after. Mrs Harding founded Animal Rescue with the help of Mrs Vera Hunter and Mrs Hunter (Mrs V. Hunter’s daughter-in-law) in 1974. They worked together for a while then moved out of the district.
Animal Rescue moved around a bit. Originally it was situated on the Foxton Highway before moving to a place in Waitarere. They spent three years there and then the property was sold. Next it was to become based in the middle of Levin on Cambridge Street. By this point, they were looking after twenty-six dogs. It has now been established at Te Horo but Animal Rescue has bases in Levin still.
For two and a half years, Joy lived in Cambridge Street and she received a few complaints about the dogs barking. The Council inspector came along though and not one dog barked! The inspector said everything was fine and so she carried on. Then another complaint came about the noise level of the dogs barking. Joy was getting a bit annoyed with this so she invited twenty to thirty trumpet players to practise on her front lawn. They started around six in the afternoon and finished right on eleven in the evening. Would you believe, Joy never had another complaint about her dogs. She thinks the dogs were preferable to the band players!
On a typical day Joy would be out in the yards at about seven o’clock in the morning. ‘Those days you didn’t watch Days of Our Lives – you didn’t even know such things were on’.
Then it was back inside for a quick cup of tea if you were lucky. It took quite a long time to walk the dogs and tidy up. Therefore, Joy would finish off when it got dark. During this time she would have to answer the phone about thirty-five times. Feeding took a long time. ‘You just started at one end and finished at the other.
Friday was shopping day. Joy used to take the bus in and catch a taxi home. The week’s shopping included- ‘meat, bones and biscuits. You name it they were all there.
Animal Rescue had a bit of help. The boys from the court cleaned kennels on Saturdays. ‘They’d take the dogs for a mild walk. I could see how far they were going because it was straight up from the house.’
When it comes to the animals Joy has some clear philosophies: ‘We don’t take animals and destroy them because they are a bit old or if they have no place to go. It wouldn’t be Animal Rescue if you destroyed the animals. ‘If you can’t afford twelve kids, you don’t have them. Same with animals. If you can’t afford (twelve) dogs, don’t have them.’
One night on her was home to Waitarere, Joy commented to a taxi driver that this would be the first time the kennels had been empty in a while. When they pulled up the driveway all the kennels were full. Where they had come from Joy never knew. She glanced over to the house and saw that hanging from a choker on the rafter was a sheep.
Its was dead but its coat was still on and it hadn’t been cleaned. On the concrete in front of her was a cow which hadn’t been skinned either. But, meat was meat and you couldn’t turn it down when the kennels were full. Joy spent the evening skinning, cleaning and bagging. She believed it was the best job she had ever done.
On one occasion Animal Rescue had to literally clean out a farm. Horses, dogs, hen’s cattle and sheep. Two years later Animal Rescue was called back to repeat the process. Fortunately following the second incident the man concerned was not permitted to keep animals.
Animal Rescue is funded by public donations. It relies solely on people giving pet food of a little bit of money and dedicated people working with the animals. ‘Some people you don’t even know come in and drop a cheque on the bench and away they go.’
Kevin Jensen and Cindy Puketapu take animals into their homes to care for them. Joy says the general public are supportive and respond quite well. Talking about money raised through fund-raising and donations, Joy believes the money belongs to the animals.
Animal Rescue have a box in New World where people can put pet food for the animals. Cindy Puketapu cleans out the box once or twice a week. Every little bit helps.
One day down in Te Horo Joy answered a phone call from someone whose ex-husband was in hospital. The problem was that his cat was still in his flat. Joy got one of the workers to take a trip to town. Within an hour he returned with the cat. Animal Rescue rang the woman involved and discovered the cat’s name ‘Sam’. A good sized donation came in the mail to show the person’s appreciation.
A few weeks later, the woman rang back to say that her ex-husband had changed his will from the SPCA to Animal Rescue. The woman also in her will left half her estate to Animal Rescue.
Telly Savalas was a Chihuahua dog that came to Joy weighing exactly twelve and a half ounces. If you want to know why the name ‘Telly Savalas’, they were both bald! He was half starved to death and when he tried to eat his teeth and gums bled. The vet suggested putting Terry down but Joy persisted believing he would come right. One the first night Terry had decided to sleep on Joy’s bedspread, which is where he has remained for thirteen years. This Chihuahua was the first dog in a rest home and he paved the way for others such as guide dogs for the blind. The home was Homelands, Levin which is where Joy now lives.
Horowhenua Animal Rescue hopes to be working from their own property in Levin before the end of this year.
When asked ‘why was it named ‘Animal Rescue’ Joy simply replies: 'Because that’s exactly what it is’.
Cindy Puketapu runs the Horowhenua Animal Rescue Society in Levin today. A very interesting column about the society can be found on their Facebook site here.
Cindy Puketapu on the right receiving a cat food donation from NRM.