This is not urgent.

It is just a question of now or never, we need to help Silke’s pups now or we will already be too late, these pups are in their priming fase, we need to teach them how to walk on a leash and how to behave like proper pets in someone’s home, because if we leave this for later it will probably be too late. Right now they are precious but they are beginning to bite each other, we have got them separated now and going from experience with previous litters we need to educate them now and find them a home, we ask you to ask your neighbours to friends, or a shelter near you, it’s important they’re able to give them a home. The poor animals will be gratefull, both the mother and the pups, they were born in the streets and I am sure we are not letting them die in a rescue or what? Kisses, hugs, bites and loving slobbers. Fermín

Action in Gomecello

The council in Salamanca asked us to intervene in the city of Gomecello to pick up some animals that were in the care of a homeless man, specifically there was a report  from the social services in Bejar stating that the conditions in which this man and the dogs were living were totally unhealthy, and it really was, so we went there and you can judge for yourself in which the conditions the animals and the owner of the dogs were living. The man will remain in the care of the social services, but the 7 dogs, 5 males and 2 females are in our hands to find them a home. You can imagine what I am trying to say?  Kisses, hugs, bites and loving licks, Fermin

I don’t know where to start

I don’t know where to start, I have so many things to tell you about and I don’t want to get mixed up because I want to tell you all about it, so I will start with the most urgent issue: kittens and pups.

It is completely crazy here since like I told you before, picking up stray animals is the task of the local governments or even provinces, and the thing is that anybody can bid on them, so our policy is that we put in a bid when it would have been appointed to a company that tends to kill the picked up animals, because we think that we give them a better chance. Sometimes I think we’re wrong because some adopters feel better if they save an animal from one of those killing places and since we don’t do that they assume that ours can wait, wait and wait.. but all this waiting has led to 500 dogs and over 150 cats, an enormous quantity and even then we still have the other contracts and that means more and more animals in our care. Animals that eat, shit and need a place in your heart as soon as possible, and a place in your homes too. I am going to show you the little ones but later on I am also going to show you the adult ones. I really think that since people know that the pickup of animals is being handled by a rescue organisation and they know they are not going to be put down, this will only lead to a larger number of abandonment, people are no longer ashamed when they want to get rid of their pet because they think that we as rescue organisation can deal with it, that we are capable of taking in each and every one of them without having to put down anyone of them, but I fear that if we won’t be able to find a place for a lot of our mixes, it is going to be very hard, so that is why we are looking for partner shelters in Europe that are willing to take up our little furry friends, and please find them homes because winter is coming and it is getting very cold here. Kisses, hugs, little bites and licks from all of us, Fermin.

Fotos:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA59ZKg0Ctk

Story of a number

 The history of galgos is full of numbers, how many are born, how many die,

how many are killed, how many are saved, how many are adopted.

But each of these numbers has a story, often sadly similar .

Luckily, each of these numbers, stops to be a number when it comes to

Scooby, crosses the entrance door and regains identity and dignity.

Herman was one of these, a number, one of the many who came in at the end of the winter, exhausted and scared, one walking skeleton, a pile of bones and fears.

Seeing his photos now, months later, is a great emotion for us.

Some of his friends didn't survive, have lost the hope a step away from the true life.

But Herman is a lucky number, during the months he has increased his weight but above all his confidence.

His will to live is our joy seeing him run and play.

He's unrecognizable, now is ready to go home .

He needs an happy ending, to redeem the lives of those who didn't have one and will not have an happy ending.

He doesn't need anything else.

We make laws....

...And  later on we either break them or abide by them, depending who are affected, it is absolutely disgraceful what is happening in this country with regard to animal rights laws. There are just a few but even those few are not being enforced. Something as simple as the obligation of being able to identify dogs, cats and ferrets using microchips, nobody is watching if this law is being enforced and every day we find thousands of animals abandoned on the streets or roads without any form of identification. It is incredible but still over 80% of the animals coming in to our refuge do not have this identification chip and I ask myself: if this was the case with cows what would happen then? I really don’t understand because we do know exactly how many cows and sheep there are in this country, and we are able to identify their owners if any of them gets lost  but in the case of pets it is not the same, it is clear that the authorities are not interested at all if the law is being enforced or not, and what even shocks me more is when we find some animal that does have a chip and we denounce it, the denouncement ends up being passed from one place to another until who knows where, they don’t have any idea about the laws nor do they want to know, not the state security, nor the administrations nor  the judges, it is a form of apathy that to me is unbearable.

I will give you some examples; Aida, a female Doberman which was left with a serious scab problem with 2 veterinary reports, with a chip so we know who the owner is and we have reported him about a year and a half ago and nothing has happened, at this moment we did not even receive any information on the status of the case.

Xena, an English bulldog with chip and we reported it with the chip number in the police report, stating that the owner is from Cataluña and the only thing the court needs to do is to send a request to the Catalonian database  to give them the name of the owner, and they don’t even bother to do so, and 4 days later the case is acquitted by the judge of the magistrate court nr 2 in Medina del Campo, and I ask myself what law this judge has applied to close the case without even bothering to find the name of the owner, or do judges get to choose which laws can be applied and which not?  In that case maybe I can also choose which taxes to pay and which not. And we have heard of the dismissal of the case only by chance because we were not informed either, according to them because they don’t need to do that.

We have picked up and reported various cases more of dogs of all types and colours,  I also remember the case of a pickup in Salamanca, the owner was from Salamanca, we send an email to REIAC and when they could not find the owner they put the dog in our name, which is illegal because you just cannot do it  if the previous  owner doesn’t actually  renounce the ownership, we have some more that were picked up with chip and reported, but we are still awaiting the moment where any of the administrations informed us of how the case is going. Like I said in the beginning, we make laws but we are not bothered to apply them.

Therefore we have gotten in touch with a animal rights lawyer because we cannot condone these kind of actions, never mind by whom, nobody can just choose whether to apply a law or not, or you abide by all of them or you retract them, but this free interpretation is not possible in law. We will keep you informed if and when we are getting something done on this.

Kisses, hugs, bites and loving licks, Fermin

The reasons behind everything II

As what I have said earlier, someone objected that are “galgueros” and that if we don’t pick them up they will kill them in any horrible way. I have to admit that in some cases may be so, but in most it is not. Maybe it is because they have become more civilized or because they are afraid of the negative publicity that this represents but the fact is that there are fewer cases of extreme cruelty. Although I think they still exists, they have just learnt to hide it better. Well, FEG (Federacion Española de Galgos) agrees with all of this and from here we can reach agreements to improve the lives of galgos. Anyway I have been in this world too many years and I haven’t seen any improvement. It is always the same, we criticize “galgueros” strongly, call them every name in the book, pick them up their dogs at the end of the hunting season, we denounce any cruel case and nothing changes and so on, year after year. This strategy has not lead anywhere, insulting, not only in this area but also everywhere else. For me another clear example is the problem with the bulls. The more Spaniards are insulted because of the bulls, the more they will try to keep and defending their traditions and national identity. In fact because of this defense, Catalonia took advantage of the fact that they do not consider themselves part of Spain to prohibit the bullfighter spectacle (it was a political matter, more than an animal welfare policy).

In any case, we will modify our strategy, even if that means to sit and brainstorm with our “enemies” (as we say, “more flies are killed with honey than with gall”). As long as getting the money from the “galgueros” when they leave their dogs in the shelter, this is something I consider fair, as our governmental administration does not have to pay for this. This is something we agree with FEG. This money is not dirty money, as someone has mentioned before, but it is by justice that the leavers have to pay for it. Although I recognize that this is not fair for us either, animal lovers who have to pick them up, pay for it and work for them while they keep producing galgos in this way without punishment. I strongly believe that galgos must not be diminished against any other breed of dog. We cannot justify abusive, rewarding them making up free abandonment, but what we have to achieve is to enforce the laws, to identify all of them and to have a control over the destination of each one of our animals. To be honest, I am not 100% sure that this strategy will work, the only thing I know is that we cannot continue as before. We have spent many years doing the same and obviously that does not work or at least not as I wanted it to work. Kisses, hugs, bites and loving licks. Fermin .
( To be continued)