Another 27 Galgos...

...from the perrera in Cuenca have arrived at Scooby on January 10th.

Cristina and Simonetta, an Italian volunteer, left already at 6 in the morning to get the dogs to Scooby. So it was a double women power transport and it worked very well!

We hope we can soon release them into a new life as beloved pets and we count on you to make our hope become reality!

Please enjoy the slide-show!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbYpSg-G2_k

A very sad day for the oldies

Today we had to let go of two of the Garden residents: Donald and Moro. These two oldies have been at Scooby for almost a year, where they have gotten many treats, hugs and kisses.

But sadly enough they both have gotten very ill over the past few days. Medication and painkillers didn’t help anymore so the vet had to take the difficult decision of letting them go. Poor dogs, spending their last months in a shelter instead of a home.. These two sweethearts luckily did not have to be alone; our brave Ana, their Scooby Sugar Ant, was right there with them. Thank you Ana for being there!

Donald and Moro will be missed by many. Donald, no longer sitting in front of the yellow door waiting for your stroke and Moro, no longer asking you to throw his tennis ball.. Rest in peace old friends!

Emperador, a new horse for our farm

Take a close look at the picture and tell us if it would have been possible to avoid taking him in, he’s about 27 years old and we figured that after talking to the first owner of the animal. The thing is that they called us to tell us they had a horse that was no longer useful so they wanted to get rid of it, they came up with an invented story about how the poor thing came in the sorry state he was in, the poor Emperador, and now the case is that he is with us and we have to make sure he gets some meat on his bones, get his hooves sorted out and make sure he looks like a horse again, so he can spend the last years of his life well taken care of, and maybe he can help us entertain some children who could ride him because I can guarantee he is a very well behaved horse. The strange thing is that his ownership is in the name of a man who is not his real owner because they have sold him without arranging the paperwork, so right now we are trying to find our  who is the real owner so they could hand over the official ownership to us, and then he only needs someone to adopt him, even if it is virtually.

Greetings from Emperador

Hot dogs

The people at Scooby continue to give their best to help improve the quality of life of our dogs while they are staying with us waiting for their turn to be adopted, which usually isn’t that very long, at least for the Galgos.

Throughout one morning our specialized technicians worked to install 28 heating lamps in 4 courtyards, where we have more than a hundred galgos. That way the animals can confront the bitter cold in the Spanish winters in a more comfortable way.

This new installation will of course cost money and that will be have to be covered by the donations of all the people who are helping Scooby for a long time already or for a first time. Every little bit of help, however small it may seem, will be used for improvements on the site or for the benefit of the animals that stay with us at Scooby Medina. All these improvements are meant to make the time that they are with us before being adopted, a little easier and comfortable. Because in the end we should not forget that they are our prime source of concern.

Thank you all for your support and help. If you are interested in working with us or want to know more about our work, please find all the information you need on our webpage www.scoobymedina.org

 

Update about Scooby’s offer to help El Galgo Senior

Dear friends

I am going to tell you what happened on my (unnecessary) trip to Alicante, as you may know Pat Osborne has died, being run over  by a tram, it seems she was a bit deaf and didn’t hear the tram getting closer.  Pat ran a refuge for galgos and when I found out, I offered our help to take in all the animals that were present in the refuge and to be able to coordinate all that , I went that way, arriving in Murcia on friday to stay with my brother so I could arrive in the refuge El Galgo senior the next day. And that is what happened. Yesterday, on Saturday I arrived there in the morning and to tell you the truth I did not like very much what I found there. A lot of different people from different organisations were there too  and they were picking out dogs to take with them. I don’t know where this idea was coming from but I was very surprised, and even more when Maria Jose, the Belgian volunteer for El Galgo Senior, so a part of the organisation, said she was just as surprised, that people were even having arguments about the dogs with her, she told me there was one dog that had already found a  home in Switzerland and then one of the present women said she wanted to have that one and that those people needed to pick out another. If you know a little about the process at Scooby you know that we do not choose the animals, we just try to solve the problem and take them all in. I was asking around and the volunteers told me they had seen people there they didn’t know and who had never been around there. I found out that Pat was taking in mostly galgos from  galgueros and gypsies from the neighbourhood and I got the idea that it might be possible to continue the refuge, that Scooby would take care of the galgos and the refuge and that is what I mentioned to Pat’s son, that Scooby could provide a worker, Oscar, who could move there from Medina to take charge of the refuge and see if this was a possible option. Scooby would then take care of all the costs in the beginning, just because I was worried what was to become of these poor animals.

My offer was refused and the only thing that was left to do was pick up the animals and I could not choose, I would just take in all I can because all have a right to a new future, White, black, males, females, shy, sociable, with Leishmania and without. I left my telephone number and left. And yes, I let the local staff there know because you can understand after 25 years of saving galgos, I am not going to get into a fight with anyone to save a few more. And there are plenty more to save, and maybe not all of them will be in the media as much as those, they will probably not be posted on Facebook, but they are galgos and they need help.  Later on I found out that a certain Ana Patricia, whom I do not know and I don’t know from which organisation she is, was telling people that I was a hunter and a gypsy and she was going to make sure that no galgo was going to Scooby. I really would like to know who this person is so I could explain to her that I was already saving galgos before she even knew what a galgo was. So, this is what happened, Scooby wasn’t necessary and we will keep on taking in galgos from dog pounds that nobody wants, one thing for certain is that we have 27 coming in from Cuenca and we will get another full batch from Sevilla because Isabel called us to say she was swamped.  I know there have been initiatives to raise money for Scooby for these galgos, as we will not pick them up. And tell you what, these galgos have very few expenses since they were all neutered, chipped and vaccinated, so in fact ready for adoption. So people who have already donated for this cause, let us know if you want us to return the money, otherwise we are going to use it for the 40 galgos that are coming in from Sevilla. But what would have been appreciated is if somebody would have told me beforehand, so I wouldn’t have had to drive the 1200 km for nothing.

And finally, we offered Maria Jose, the Belgian volunteer to help with the transport and that offer still stands. If you need help, you just need to ask for it, and I would like to invite her publicly to come and visit us because after our conversations I know she is going to be delighted with our animal sanctuary. 

Greetings, Fermin