The story of Ned and Carmen

Our friend and associate Carmen has been the involuntary main character in one of the saddest stories that has reached Scooby lately. One of the saddest but at the same time also one with the most hope. She, together with Ned (who used to be called Rufo) are the main players in a story of love, courage, respect and the ability to overcome hardship. Carmen wrote us a letter, telling us about Ned, and after reading this we think there is no one who could better tell the story of her life. We hope it touches you the same way as it did us and that it teaches us to appreciate the enormous heart and respect of people like Carmen. Carmen, we thank you, we can never thank you enough for all you have done and are doing for our animals and I am sure that Ned will always carry you in his heart, as we do in ours.

“Ned”was born around mid july in 2013 in some straw bed with some other puppies, of which only 2 survived, close to a small village with about 500 inhabitants called Carbajales de Alba, in the province of Zamora, Spain.

His mother was a hunting dog, left behind and probably mistreated, because she never came closer than 50 meters to any person, even when they brought her food or water.  This was the kind of conduct that she taught her pups too, so that is why Ned has grown up with little confidence in people. She was admired by people because of her intelligence (the same as Ned), her dedication, strength and sacrifice to get her little ones ahead. It was a beautiful sight to see them together, seeing how she took them to the village in search of food, and to  how they were playing. Untill she got pregnant again and them someone decided to call the shelter to have them picked up.

The pickup was difficult and not very nice, Ned escaped but saw everything that happened. The first days he came back to where they took his mother and sister, alone, scared, barking and hiding when somebody came close. He was  truly lost and did not have anything or anybody to turn to.

In this difficult situation I decided that for the periods I was going to be in the village, to work with him and try to socialize him through my dog (an adopted dog, very old and very exceptional that had also been mistreated in the past). I decided to give him a name so he could respond to that but some people and kids already gave him one: RUFO.

Day by day, petting and talking to my dog in front of him (Ned is very observant and  clever)and later on taking long walks (where he joined us every day), he took a fancy to my dog who he used as help and support and his reference point. He loved him and covered him with kisses. When I was not there he stayed with him and copied his behaviour and in time he started to trust me. I even managed (after a long time trying) to touch him and to have him give me licks. He loved to go on walks and especially to run into the fields chasing birds (he’s very quick!). Playing with other dogs, even with me, trying to steal some rags away from me. Since he is very clever, he started looking for me in the places he used to see me, he recognized cars but he never went into closed spaces, especially if they had a door (he must have remembered the situation when they picked up his mother).

Because of personal problems, I could not stay in the village, nor take care of him anymore and I figured this was the moment for him to find a new owner, because it seems he cared more for me than for my dog. I don’t know if I did the right things, but I never thought it would hurt so much that they took him away. I remember him every day.

This is the story of Carmen, and she is still very occupied with Neds fate, looking out for him and hoping that he will find a home. Now is the time for you to decide and help us find him a family he deserves. Carmen and us will be very grateful. And you Carmen, you did a lot for Ned, don’t feel guilty, there are situations in life that even though we want to, we cannot change them, but we can try to make them as easy as possible. THANK YOU for your efforts, your care and for trusting us.

Update: Ned has already found his loving forever home in the USA and he is doing amazing there and making a lot of progress in becoming a happy dog!

How good, how nice

We have just realized that our Facebook page, yes the new one , the one that you don’t follow and you should follow because in that web page we want to publish all the information from all the Scoobys all over the world, from Scooby North America, scooby Lowlands, Germany, France , Italy, Zamora and of course the scooby mother that is Scooby Medina, well how I was telling you, something very interesting has happened and it is : The galgueros follow us on Facebook, or it is or they are just answering any publication that appear about galgos on Facebook, I don’t think so, anyway it is funny because they are trying to convince me that they are good people, in fact I am sure that there are good galgueros, this is why we signed an agreement with them, but I am sure that there are lot more bad galgueros and they are giving a very bad image to all of them,  but also the good galgueros are guilty, yes you are guilty when you witness another one mistreating their dogs and you are doing nothing, don’t blame us , blame your colleagues , they are the ones that are mistreating the dogs, we only show to the whole world what is happening, don’t try to say that it is a business , because it is not , somebody has told you that the best defense is a good attack , but you are wrong your best defense is to collaborate with the animal welfare organizations to finish with all these abusers. Good luck with your change of mentality, until you are not able to change your chip in relation with the animals, we will not be able to be friends. Fermín

By the way look on Facebook Sociedad Protectora de Animales Scooby

When you lend a dog a helping hand..

There are instances when an animals path crosses with that of a person that doesn’t treat them the way they deserve, but the story of Cepillo, a precios podenco, is different.

Cepillo appeared in the village of Tornedizos de Arevalo around Christmas, letting himself be loved by anyone that came close to him. Little by little, a woman from the village, Consuelo, started to put down food for him next to her house, and not only that, she also left some blankets next to her door so he could spend the wintertime in the best possible conditions.

The dog has a great hunting instinct so he brings Consuelo hares and rabbits many times and that’s the reason for the threats from the hunters, who say that the dog is interfering with their hobby and that’s why they want to get rid of him.

After having him checked out by the vet and finding that his health is perfect, they put up signs in the village to have him adopted, with the bad luck that they could not find anybody willing to offer him a home.

One day the dog did not come back to the home of the woman that had been loyally taking care of him and she got worried, so worried she could not sleep at night. And that same night, at around 3 in the morning she heard barking outside of her house, barking that suggested pain. Cepillo was there, but this time he came back to the house that offered him food and warm blankets, with a trap embedded in one of his paws.

Consuelo woke up her husband who managed to remove the clamp and they go back to bed after giving him first aid.

The next day they took him to the vet again who gave antibiotics and bandages.

Then Consuelo decided to tie him up at her house but when she saw the sadness of the dog because he could no longer go out and take a walk in the fields in liberty, and since she already had a little dog in the house she could not take him inside, and after the advice of the vet, Consuelo decided to call Scooby. With sadness, knowing she can no longer see him every day, she talks to one of our workers Pablo to pick up Cepillo so they can find him a home where he is no longer being threatened by hunters, far from traps and as much food and blankets that he needs.

Cepillo has shown us what a good loving and quiet dog he is, now it is your turn. Do you want to offer him a home?

 

Thank you and invitation from Greyhound Compassion

Dear everyone,
Thank you very much for your help today at our extra jumble sale.  
Thanks very much for spreading the load at  the end of the event and 
for the jumble convoy through the lanes!  Well, altogether we raised 
£304.75, not bad at all.  We’re expecting another £16 from book 
sales, so we should get to £320.  For a first go in a new venue, this 
wasn’t at all bad. Thank you very much.
We have some good news too.  The British Small Animal Veterinary 
Association has signed a memorandum of understanding with Scooby to 
offer a neutering course at the shelter to its newly qualified vets 
and to vets returning from a career break.  The aim of the course is 
for the vets to improve their surgical neutering skills.  There are 
more details here http://www.bsava.com/CPD/Scooby.aspx
This comes at a time when Scooby wants to improve its onsite clinic 
and buy an ambulance so that a Scooby team member and vet can collect 
the strays and unneutered dogs from their owners from the much deeper 
rural environs.  Greyhound Compassion is launching its fund-raising 
campaign to contribute to this “Pup Prevention Plan” on Sunday 6 July 
with a lunch and dog walk hosted by Mrs. Hazel Spear at her home in 
Hertfordshire. Everyone and all breeds are welcome. The lunch party 
and dog walk will cost £10 per head. All proceeds will go to the “Pup 
Prevention Plan”. Please let us know if you would like to reserve a 
place, if you haven’t already done so.  It is heart warming to 
realise that the Scooby shelter started out as a two storey building 
and a neighbouring ruin housing the local stray galgos and other 
breeds more than 20 years ago.  Now, thanks to the contributions GC 
and its team have made to Scooby, we have helped to bring about a 
purpose built shelter with running water, electricity and an on-site 
clinic, which now has a relationship with an organisation like the 
BSAVA and has managed to start to bring animal cruelty prosecutions
in a country traditionally hostile to animal welfare.    This is a 
tribute to all of those jumble sales and street collections!  Thank 
you very much to everyone and we hope you will join us for a glass of 
wine and dog walk on 6  July to toast the shelter.  This is fantastic 
news for Scooby!  We’re hoping for this to be good kick-off to a 
ground-breaking plan for Spain.
With very many thanks
Greyhound Compassion

Different things that make me angry.

Now I am going to start telling you different things that make me angry, I am sure that there are so many that I will have enough for several articles, but this is a beginning.

The first question is; all these people that thinks that we are working on animal welfare because we don’t have anything else to do.

These are a bunch of stupid people without brain , they think that abandoning dogs we are going to be more happy because then we keep going with our organization, nothing to do with my real feelings, whoever who knows me a bit, should know that I like the animals but mainly I would like to like only my own animals and not all the animals abandoned every year, sincerely I would prefer to go to the beach every weekend better than going in an exhausting transport of dogs to Europe to save them, but obviously we cannot do anything different while there are so many ………… in this world we need to keep working, there is an interview from me somewhere a lot of years ago and there I was saying that I would like to close the shelter and instead of that the shelter is becoming bigger and bigger.

The second question is to be politically correct so I cannot say what I really want to say, I have been in this galgo world forever so I know everything and everybody and sometimes I would like to scream really loud but I cannot because then Christiane, she is German and very correct and she doesn’t allow me to do it. But one day ………………..

Big kisses, and loving licks. Fermin

Short news 4

I think it is the fourth time that I write small news, we do have big histories but sometimes I prefer to write simple things about the daily life at Scooby, like for example now that the winter has come back again, it is really cold now and windy so now that we expect good weather , it has changed completely.

The new place for the horses is complete and absolutely great, we have plenty of space and now that everything is clean and tidy, it looks absolutely great, by the way I will write something about the horses separately. By the way, there we have an old like a swimming pool used for irrigation and I have offered workers and volunteers to clean up and to use it like a swimming pool in summer.

Our geese and ducks are like crazy laying eggs and I really feel sorry to remove them but we cannot do anything else to avoid too many animals with feathers in our lake, but they are really aggressive defending their “children”

We have remodeled absolutely the transport van so hopefully the transports will be even more safe for the dogs and also we will have more space for them, it will be also lighter so we can transport a little bit more on our way back.

We are becoming absolutely professionals in the transport now we have also the Telepeajes for Spain and France so we don’t need to stop at the toll stations, the dogs will get less stressed and the drivers also.

Our educational project is going really well, we have already started with several visits to schools and we hope that the schools will start visiting us as soon as when the weather will be better, now is too cold.