RULES for SCOOBY RAFFLE

Raffle runs from May 1, 2013 to August 31, 2013

Prize: One handmade Home for hounds blanket is crocheted with all soft acrylic yarns.  The hound’s heads have floppy ears.  The blanket is 42.5 inches by 33 inches. 

HOW TO ENTER:

There are two (2) ways to enter the raffle. 

ONLINE:

www.ScoobyRaffle.blogspot.com

·        Tickets purchase online, must be paid through PayPal (Scoobyna@scoobymedina.com)

·        Any ticket purchased online through PayPal (scoobyna@scoobymedina.com) will have your name and address added to each ticket. 

TICKET PRICING & PAYMENT:

·       1 ticket $5 CND/USD (4€, 3£),

·       3 tickets for $10 CND/USD (8€, 7£),)

·       8 tickets for $20 CND/USD (15€,13 £)

·       PayPal, e-checks and credit cards accepted via PayPal,. 

·        Personal checks and money orders are welcome.  Please see address below for mailing address.
Please note: all e-checks, personal checks and money orders are subject to clearance before ticket(s) are issued in buyer's name.

·       Winner will be drawn on August 31, 2013

CONTEST DRAW:

·        Draw will be made by an independent party not associated with Scooby Medina or Scooby North America on Saturday, August 31, 2013.  Winning ticket notification will be made via email and/or phone.  Notification will be made no later than 2 business days after the winning ticket is drawn.  Winner will have 5 days to respond to our winning ticket notification.  In the event, the winner does not respond, does not want the raffle prize, another ticket will be drawn to determine the winner.

·        By accepting the prize, the Winner agrees that Scooby can display their name on the Scooby websites and it’s afflicates and their Facebook page and announced to the various lists that the initial raffle announcement was posted to.

·        Shipping of the Prize will be provided and paid for by Scooby North America.  Please make sure your shipping address is correct.  Addresses must contain a physical street address. 

Questions? Please email diane@scoobymedina.com

If mailing a personal check or money order, please make payable to Scooby North America and mail to:

Diane Ward

115 Courier Ct. NE

Leesburg, VA 20176

USA

Scooby North America and Scooby Medina are not responsible for misdirected or lost enteries.  All money raised from this raffle will be sent to Scooby Medina in Spain to purchase food for the shelter.

Urgent action required by all European Union citizens - write now

On Monday 15th April Mme Michelle Striffler, the French MEP actively involved in animal welfare issues at the European Union, together with 11 other co-signatories, submitted the Written Declaration 0006/2013 on putting an immediate stop to the torture and mistreatment of greyhounds in Europe. Just 200 hundred words that can have a great impact on the lives of many greyhounds. The Written Declaration will lapse on 15th July 2013.

The Written Declaration clearly and simply states that all forms of cruelty inflicted upon the greyhounds around Europe should come to an end and that proper enforcement of animal welfare laws is necessary. You can read more information here.
The Declaration is for the Members of the European Parliament to sign. It would be a real shame if the Declaration wouldn't get enough signatures, so it would be very good if we as EU-citizents could let them know that we want our MEPs to sign the Declaration.
If you want to contact MEPs in your country, you can find their details in the following link:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html
I suggest this as a sample letter:

Name and
Address
of your MEP

Dear
It is a well documented and publicised fact that an estimated 100,000 galgos - Spanish greyhounds, are abandoned, injured, tortured, at the end of the Spanish hunting season EVERY YEAR. A much smaller number of British and Irish racing greyhounds suffer similar abuse. With all the information that is available on the Internet on the deplorable situations that exist mainly in UK and Spain, these facts cannot be denied.
A Written Declaration 0006/2013 clearly and simply states that all forms of cruelty inflicted upon the greyhounds around Europe should come to an end and that proper enforcement of animal welfare laws is necessary.
I beg you to please sign this Written Declaration, please do not shy away and ignore my plea. Please sign before 15th July 2013 and help everyone put a stop to the deplorable and inexcusable suffering of these animals every year.
Yours
Name
Address
Country

Summer is coming

It’s June and I have a lot to do at work, correcting exams, giving notes, etc, etc. But the good thing is that I have to wait less days for my holidays, and I really do need them, this year has been tiring in all aspects, at work and with Scooby as well..it has been quite a  few years rescuing animals, and then they tell you that you have no idea what it’s about.

But well, there are always things like that to deal with, part of the job, so I am going to give you some news;  the donkey had a little one, a female we are going to call Marie, the refuge in Zamora is filling up faster than we would want it.

 

As you know our policy is to put in a bid for the recollection of abandoned animals in those places where it’s being done by a company that has to make profit, we know that we are going to do a better job and we think this is better because this way we save all animals, even with the problems of overpopulation we might be getting, but the other option , like a lot of others do, is to go to the doghouses and pick up a few, the ones that have the most chance to be adopted and let the rest be put to sleep. It’s clear that you don’t believe  that a lot of them are being put down because we now have the problem that people seem to think that they are perfectly safe where they are, here with us and we will never put them down, so now those people are going to the doghouses to rescue dogs there, because they DO have an expiration date so maybe I should start lying to you and tell you that it is true what some people have been saying about us, that at Scooby dogs are being killed every day. So we have to find them homes as soon as possible, these poor little animals. Yes, it is needed to get them out of here as soon as possible but not because they kill each other, that is a lie, but because they are adorable and they need a home and if not we have to give them an expiration date  to get them adopted. Lately we have been getting all types and colors, don’t understand why but it seems as if people, when they know the dogs are being picked up by a refuge organisation, it will be easier for them to abandon their pet, because our pickups have doubled and tripled in numbers compared to previous  years, in Salamanca we are picking up litters of cats, all the cats in the world and a few more, same thing with puppies, we even picked up a litter with three little galgos with scabies, all being treated now. I think we have to start at the beginning and try to prevent this unbridled breeding of pets that won’t have any future,  so I think we should start some campaigns, starting with a campaign for raising awareness, then from the vets a campaign for neutering  at reasonable prices and further on a campaign on implementing the laws, fining those that breed without permits. What is clear is that it is a battle on many fronts, not only on the animal rescue side. I would do it like this

-         Information and awareness

-         Making neutering easier

-         Imposing fines.

It is unbelievable that still you find signs with animals for sales on walls in the cities or announcement in the newspaper, in the second hand section, it is a fiscal fraud because I am sure they are not paying taxes and that the taxoffice is not doing anything is unbelievable. Kisses, hugs, bites and loving licks, Fermin

                                                                       

SOPHIE, A SPECIAL LITTLE DOG

Sophie's case touched my heart. When I saw her I felt so compassionate and wondered what she had done to end up where we found her. So small, so scared, so innocent, so .... there is no right to do what they do to these animals .... Her look hurt me in my soul. She was all alone, trembling, and very scared, her little eyes seemed to be saying, "take me with you". And I could not resist and took her in my arms and said to her "I promise you, I'll find a good home", and she gave me a lick on the nose, like in an act out of appreciation.

She was found in Medina del Campo wandering around and asking for help to everybody she found in her way. Hopefully someone saw her and called us to pick her up. When she came to Scooby, she was in so regrettable conditions. Her hair was very long, dirty and so full of knots that was causing her wounds in her tiny and extremely thin body. We do not know whose dog she was or who cared for her, but I am glad that she is now in Scooby.

We took her to the salon to remove all those knots and prevent more injuries in her small body. Without all her hair we realized she must be starving! She was extremely thin!

She has been gradually recovering. She has met several cats and children, who she seems very comfortable and friendly with. We have been also teaching her to play with toys because the poor thing has not played in her life. Now she is waiting for that person to give her a home and their unconditional love she deserves after all she must have gone through...

To whom it may concern

I have dedicated the last 30 years of my life to saving animals, most of all galgos and I have publicly denounced the abuse against these animals, I have even received threats, more than once I have been told I would end up like them and I never got scared, and now after all this, we still have to demonstrate our love of animals .

When I thought up Scooby 25 years ago, some things were very clear to me and one of them is the happiness of the animals, I don’t like cages, even if they’re made out of gold, they are still prisons, our dogs have to be in the refuge for months or even years and dogs are social animals and need to live in groups, and that in a few cases might lead to accidents. These things happen in all the refuges that I know that the animals are not solitary, that is the price we need to pay, a high price that we always try to prevent, but I am sure it even happens in your houses with dogs that are together for many years, one day something happens that disrupts  the established order and they just fight.. If anyone having more than two dogs tells me it never happens to them is lying, I just don’t believe it, it even happened with my own dogs at home so it is very obvious that it happens more often in a refuge, whatever methods of prevention we are taking, there are always these impossible cases. To pretend that you are able to achieve that in a refuge with over 500 dogs and 60 different patios nothing happens like this is simply crazy, but it is just as or even more  crazy to pretend that it would be possible to prevent this or even insinuate that we would let this happen because of neglect, I do not accept this from anyone. Instead of giving stupid commentaries it would be better to offer feasible solutions, if there are any . Even though I have been taking care of galgos for 25 years, there is probably a lot to learn still. If you don’t like us to give them bread and cans, give us the funds to provide them with proper food, if you don’t like the fact that there are so many in one patio, make sure that you find them homes to go to, since that is in fact your task. It is so easy to spread your comment, as they say in my country: it is so easy to talk but it is harder to provide food. Pay for a president  with revolutionary ideas that will take away any problem if you are capable of doing it well, but please stop talking because the insults are easy and free to go around but they do not benefit anybody, least of all the animals.

That was the part for those it may concern, now are some general information:

During the years we tried everything and gathered a lot of experience regarding dogs living in a pack.

We moved the underdogs to other paddocks and found out that these dogs can be put anywhere, they will be underdogs everywhere. We made groups of underdogs and found out that also in these groups there will be less weak dogs who become more self-confident and show dominant behaviour towards the others after a while. In the last time we removed the dominant ones from the pack and found out that after a short while others will move up and take their position. And that is simply due to the fact that a pack of dog is and will always remain a hierarchic system with non-equal members despite of domestication. Additional, in a shelter environment without a human as alpha and not much of mental and physical challenge for the dogs, the conflict potential is much higher.

Another fact is that the Galgos have practically no subcutaneous fat and very short fur, what makes them look so stunning beautiful like top athletes but in case of a fight this is the worst combination at all. When other dogs just loose some hair or have small superficial wounds, in a similar fight the Galgos can receive severe injuries.

As we are neither able to change the genetic behaviour of dogs in general nor the body structure of Galgos in particular, we need to accept that we will always have to deal with accidents, no matter what we do. We know that the banality of fate is easier to bear when you have somebody to blame but please...stay fair.

Fermín