Sheila - another emergency case

Sheila is a gentle, pretty female. She looks very cute with her scraggly fur and one can barely resist her dear eyes. Nevertheless her owners seemingly didn´t want her anymore and so she ended up in the streets of Valladolid. Like so many other dogs here…

She was not familiar to living in the streets, the city is big, a lot of traffic…Sheila was hit by a car, left alone suffering from a complicated fracture in her leg. She became weaker, was in pain until finally, lucky in the circumstances, she was taken to our Residencia in Valladolid. Soon it was certain we couldn´t treat her broken leg adequately there, so we took her to Medina with the clinic on site.

Sheila had a surgery now und endures all the treatments with a great amount of patience. She is really brave. Of course she needs to stay here for a while until her leg recovered enough to send her on the trip to a loving home, but our dream is somebody falling in love with Sheila already now, offering her a nice big basket. Wouldn´t it be fantastic, if a family was already waiting for her, as soon as she has recovered? If, after all she went through, Sheila didn´t have to stay at the shelter for longer at all? We couldn´t imagine any better gift for Sheila´s future!

Please help us to find a home for her! Maybe even with you???

Flecha, the brave little galga

Of all her brothers and sisters, Flecha was always the least striking, her pale brown color, her small size and elusive nature always made her go unnoticed in the eyes of her master.

On Sundays, when they went into the fields, her brothers and sisters paid a lot of attention to become good hunters, but she was always distracted, by the flight of a butterfly, the song of a cicada, anything was much more interesting than the explanations of her master.

She had always been different. According to her mother, a galga, a good galgo should be especially fast in racing, light as the wind, silent and fearless. And she never was. Not that she wasn’t fast, she just wasn’t interested. Instead of training by running after the neighbours cats, she played with them.

She was not only a friend to all the cats in the neighbourhood, she also became friends with Oso, the old Mastin vagabond, who occasionally wandered around the neighbourhood with his friend, an old and wise hare. When Flecha learned they were around she would go and visit them. She loved the stories that the old hare would tell about all the countries they had visited. The last trip had been to Europe and they had been in Germany, Belgium and Holland and they had met galgos that were adopted by families there who lived in houses with nice gardens.

That night when she came home, she decided to talk about it with her mother.  “Who has put such nonsense in your head?” said her mother. “We galgos are used for hunting and nothing else, and it has always been like that!” she continued, “and you have to learn and be a good hunter, otherwise the master is going to sell you or give you to a friend who doesn’t have compassion with you, and when they see you cannot hunt, they will leave you behind in the woods or shoot you!“

Flecha responded: “I don’t like to run after hares to catch them and then kill them. I do like to run, but just to run like the wind, playing with my friends, with Hare!”

Her mother looked at her, very surprised, and could not believe her ears. How could her daughter be friends with a hare?  Hares should be hunted by her, not played with.

In Europe there are countries that adopt galgos from Spain,  and not to have them hunt for them, but to live with them, care for them, play with them and love them.

That night, Flecha couldn’t find any sleep. She closed her eyes and imagined a large garden full of flowers and a family that called her, petted her and gave her lots of cuddles. The next morning ,when the master prepared for the hunt, together with her mother and brothers and sisters, she hid herself. Nobody missed her when the rest jumped into the trailer that the master used to transport them.

And off she went, and while she got further and further away from the place that had been her home, she looked back and it was like she saw her mother, wishing her luck and saying goodbye. Flecha knew what she wanted and that certainly did not include her master giving her away to somebody else who would use her for hunting or raising puppies, and then when she got old, would shoot her or hang her from a tree.  She wanted a family to protect her and care for her, and whe wanted to run in that garden that Hare showed him in the pictures so many times.

She knew where to go. Hare had told her about this refuge called Scooby. It was far away but she was fast. And she ran and ran without stopping, day after day untill she came to a small town. She remembered Hare’s instructions but she was a little disoriented, and she felt a little weak since she hadn’t eaten in several days and she was a little wobbly on her legs.

She had to rest and stop running. She didn’t know where she was. Without realizing she had entered a forest and she didn’t like what she heard there: barking, voices, gunfire all around.. she was in the middle of a hunt!

Suddenly she felt a terrible blow in her neck and she fell over, and a horrible pain went through her whole body. A bullet had hit her and she was loosing a lot of blood.

Flecha thought of Hare and got up, she couldn’t stay there, the dogs would find her and the hunters would end up killing her. She was thinking of Hare and of her mother. She had to get to Scooby. This gave her strength and she began to run faster, not knowing where she was, she just wanted to get away from that place. She managed to run several miles but she was very weak

The next day, when I arrived at Scooby and took out Leon, our Mastin, to the frontyard  I was surprised by his strange way of barking. He wanted to warn me, he had seen something. I went and there was Flecha, she was unconscious but she had reached her destination. I took her into my arms and it was nothing but a bag of bones,  she was so fragile and looked like she could break any moment.  She was covered with blood and had a wound in her neck that looked like a shotwound, and it did not look good. Her legs were in bad shape, full of scratches  and cuts. We immediately took her to the vet and here she is now, with us at Scooby. Flecha is very slim, she has a small face and a fragile and delicate appearance. She is good, loving and the strongest and bravest galga I know but the look in her eyes is still sad. She continues to dream of her garden  and her family that will love her .

Joys and sorrows

Thanks to all of you we have been able to rescue more galgos, and this time they came from Cuenca, Jaen, Salamanca, Badajoz, Madrid and Sevilla. Certainly not as many as last year but I think this is only the beginning. I think we are capable of taking in more, and I have already committed myself to a rescue in Sevilla and one in Moron, and just so you know that this would not be possible without you all. I am telling you this many times but it is really certain that without the adoptants, the people and organizations that help us, this wonderful and  sometimes ungrateful work would not be possible.

This work with animal rescue honestly brings its joys and a lot of disappointment as well. To give you a small example,  last saturday we picked up two Galga’s from a village close to Medina, thanks to two friends we have there. They called us to explain that the owner of these galga’s tended to hang them in his backyard, and then he would bury them, so we would not never know about it. These two friends finally managed to persuade him that it would be a lot better to let us find these dogs a new home, so that was a joy for us, but two days later we found that one of our dearly loved galga’s Esme had died.

A terrible blow for everybody but especially for Sandra who took care of her since she came to the refuge, it had always been a delicate dog with her Leishmania, but lately she seemed to improve and now all of a sudden she stopped eating and died, and that really is very hard. Sandra is crying all day, Esme died in her bed, because that’s where she put her when she fell ill.

It is an enormous joy to realize that all these galgos I talked to you about, the ones that we picked up from the different kennels and that were going to be put down, are here now and are safe.

It is a big sorrow however to know that in the kennel in Talavera they have been killed, even though they knew we were coming to get them.

It is a big joy to be able to count on you, and a big sorrow to be criticized by someone, most times without them knowing what they are talking about, and to all these people I would want to say that it is so easy to criticize but it doesn’t help the animals. And  fortunately there are a lot of people like all of you  whose help enables Scooby to keep on rescuing animals.

Fermín



Our Miss Marple

Negri has come to be a part of Scooby’s inventory. There’s no way around her when you’re heading for the office or the clinic. She is our very own Miss Marple, who sees everything and ponders to solve every ‘case’ presented to her. Whether that be finding the best way to get on the couch in the office before the cats get to it, or obtaining the goodies in the feeding barrel for the dogs without being noticed.

Negri is a very smart and prudent dog. She’s not the ‘look at me I’m jumping for you to notice me’ kind of dog but rather the patient observer, who has everything under control. And in case she really really takes a liking to someone, she is the most loyal and funniest dog ever. Enrique, our veterinary, is followed by her every step he takes as soon as she sees him, she’s waiting for him to slip her some yummies which of course always is a success, since she’s very good at winding people around her pinky toe if she puts her mind to it ;-)

At the moment she’s in Paddock 4 and near the Scooby-entrance for the Clinic, where she keeps things peacefully under control. She loves spending a while in the sun or on her outdoor couch, observing people and animals passing by. The cats on the terrain are totally ignored by her.

She’s friendly towards all fellow habitants in her small doggy society and also kind to new patients arriving at the clinic. At night, when the daily turmoil in the shelter is over, she tends to soften up and has a playful moment with her doggy friends.

At all that Negri’s start at our shelter was dramatic to put it mildly. She barely survived her first day at Scooby. We found her carrying a diseased pup in the birth canal, an emergency operation was needed to save her life. On top of that her mammae were badly infected and needed treatment, too.

But she made it and right now all she needs to be really happy is a great home. Since she’s not really putting herself in the spotlights most adoptants overlook her presence. She’s also a black coated dog and somehow the black dogs end up waiting for their forever home a lot longer which is hard to understand since she is a beautiful dog and the colour of her fur has absolutely no bearing on her character.

So now we are looking for black dog lovers. Please let us know who you are! We’re absolutely sure that whoever adopts Negri will have the first prize in the lottery anyway!

Some Scooby impressions

Our Rotti-during the night this boy is our guardian dog, supposedly...
Now we know how he ´kills´ time if there are no intruders:-)

Raula and Austin in their fancy donated coats and collars!

Also Coria is wearing one of these (still clean;-) new coats!

And Socrates, fitting to an elderly gentleman, one with ladybugs;-)

Black beauties waiting for adoption!

When a Galgo falls in love with a Pointer, the result is a Galgointer;-)

Or a Pointalgo?

Feeding time at the “water-paddock”

Something that will never ever happen, the sun going down behind paddock 4;-)

Well, at least it was the same evening, so only a tiny fake with West and North;-)

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you..

At this time, at the turn of the year, it’s normally a time to look back at the passing year, remembering all the things that went well for us and the things that didn’t go that well, and that is why I am writing this. To  make sure you won’t be bored  I will try to do it in various parts but today I want to express my profound gratitude to a lot of people, already knowing I am probably going to forget to mention somebody and that that is going to get me into trouble because that person or organisation might feel offended, but here we go. 

This year has been a year of crisis, a crisis that has affected us all, including Scooby and for this reason I need so say thanks more than anything to a lot of people, to the people who work with us and untiringly took care of all our animals, each one of them doing their tasks, it being either cleaning, repairing fences or building housing, healing them or transporting them,  day after day, in cold and heat, in rain or without water because the pipes froze.

Thanks to the increasing number of spanish volunteers, and we hope this number will keep on increasing because they are needed  for our animals. Of course thanks to our volunteers from other countries who have chosen to spend their time with our animals, instead of spending their holidays in luxurious hotels on the costa’s or any other part of the country, simply because they love animals in general but especially the ones we have here.

Thanks to all the associations that have put their trust in us and support us, without them our work would simply not be possible at all.

Thanks to all those people who have offered a home to one of our animals, this is in the end our absolute goal: giving all of them a home.

Thanks to all the people who dedicate themselves and make Scooby work and who are not in the frontline, but without whom all this would be very difficult:  the translators who make sure that our news is being distributed in 5 languages (and why I need to be short and  to the point, otherwise they will have more work!), the people who facilitate our website and ensure that our animals are put up there and being adopted, the people who have started the Project 3000, the people that take care of all the virtual adoptions, the real adoptions, those that carry our Scooby shop, in Spain as well as abroad, well actually all those people who (seen or unseen) make sure that Scooby keeps running smoothly.

And finally, and probably the most important, thanks to all you people who help us in any which way you can, either with material or mentally, donating your money or adopting our animals. Together we have navigated Scooby through this difficult year 2011. It hasn’t been the first time we have hit difficult times and I am afraid it will not be the last, but I really hope we can always count on you, as the animals can count on us,  and we are working hard to do that .

From the bottom of my heart:  THANK YOU!