When Maria's own dog became ill she was distraught. She wrote:
'I took her in my arms and as I put my face down on hers she gave a sob of weariness and pain.'
Maria could pay to have her beloved Yorkshire terrier put painlessly to sleep but her mind turned to the poor owner who could not afford to buy medicine or advice from a veterinary surgeon.
'How dreadful for the animal and the owner,' she said. 'The whole problem haunted me, someone had to do something to help. I decided it was up to me to make a start.'
Her first objective was to find premises for a dispensary. But this was no easy task. Her critics told her:
'The poor don't have any sick animals and if they did they would not bring them for treatment'
Each request for financial and practical support was flatly refused, Unreleting in her crusade Maria responded:
'Have you ever suffered pain until you did not know how to bear it any longer? Animals suffer like that only that are not able to say so!'
Finally, on Saturday 17 November 1917, after a long and bitter struggle for recognition and funding, Maria Dickin opened her first 'People's Dispensary for Sick Animals of the Poor'. Outside the dimly lit cellar in the Whitechapel district of London, a notice read:
Bring your sick animals.
Do not let them suffer.
All animals treated.
All treatment free.
Quickly overcoming their initial suspicion of anything free the locals flocked to the tiny cellar dispensary. The police were needed to control the crowds. Larger premises had to be found to accommodate the treatment of over one hundred animals a day.
Continued
