I know, I know,
Christiane is almost having a panic attack, and she did tell me well in
advance: Fermin, you need to do the final year update, and I told her that now
I have holidays it is a lot easier, and what a fool am I, now I am on holidays
without being able to open my email. It ‘s almost too scary to open it, and if
it is already like that now, what is going to happen when I get back to work..
Anyway, I know I have thanked you the last year, and I am not going to repeat
myself. Not because you don’t deserve it, you do and a lot more, but I just
don’t want to repeat myself, you already know I have you in my heart, what
would Scooby be without you, so here you go, just consider yourselves kissed
and hugged and I will tell you that if I contunue I get mushy and melancholic,
although that is more or less normal at this time of the year.
But to come back to
normal, I am going to tell you about the things we started this year and we
will continue with in the coming year with your help. Regarding the refuge, the
improvements have been considerable for both the dogs and the other animals, we
still have a few months left to perfect it and to open it to the public and
organise school visits, to promote our refuge for what it is, a real safe haven
for all the animals we have here and I don’t think there are a lot like this.
It is definitely not the most luxurious one but I can assure you that the
animals here are happy, and we want to attract school children to show them
that the protection of animals is ageless.
We started with the
heating and are renovating the perimeter fences that the dogs have been
destroying, we are finishing the new cages of 7-3 and are starting to renovate
patios 3A, B C and D creating a little corridor so when we have to move dogs,
the other ones don’t bother them.
This year we have also
added Rebeca to the team, who will be responsable for the promotion of Scooby,
making sure we are getting published in the media and promoting our animals so
they can find a home as soon as posible. I am sure you will hear a lot from and
about her the next year, she is also responsable for drafting the complaints
about animal abuse, and what is even more important, follow up on these
complaints, so they will be handled and processed instead of disappearing into
thin air.
And last but not
least I will tell you about the project
that for me is the most ambitious, we have been sending letters to the hunting
federations and the federation of galgos, to see if we can start up a combined project
that at the end of the hunting season, the galgos and the other hunting dogs
can be collected and the owners will be responsable, bringing them to the
refuge and bringing in a small amount of money to arrange for change of
ownership etc. etc.. so that they won’t say later on that we don’t want to work
with them.
In total this year, like all of them has been filled
with activities that I will tell you about in more details later on, and like I
told you, this has all been possible thanks to you, adopter, thanks to you
partner, thanks to you volunteer, thanks to you employee, thanks to you who is
helping us with funds, thanks to all of you organisations that place your
animals with us. Thank you and now on to 2013 that will bring a lot of
problems, but will also bring new energy to cope with them.
A big kiss and hug
for all of you. Fermin
