If your a dog or cat lover please read this.....

I was reading an article yesterday that shocked me to the core, the dog pounds in Spain which are funded by the local councils and government gas yes GAS the dogs within 10 days if they don't get collected or adopted. The local rescue shelters that are set up around the country actually go to the pounds to try and save the puppies and when they go the next week they are all new dogs. The council/government give the pounds grants to pay for there food and things but the owners of the pounds actually make it hard for people to adopt them and boast that it only cost 35€ to gas a container of dogs and cats, then they keep the rest of the money! There are people who campaign about this but in Spain there are no rules or laws apparently. As a dog lover my first instinct was to go to our nearest pound and go and save them all but realistically I can't as I have my dog from the UK being flown over next week and we are in a rented house that only agreed to one dog. But if anyone is looking for a dog or you know someone who is thinking about it PLEASE will you try one of your local pounds or rescue centres they are bursting at the seems apparently because of the recession people are just dumping them left right and centre.

Thanks

These are some of the web links I read

www.brighteyes.dk and www.k9training-dogsschoolspain.com/pounddogsstory.html

Unfortunately this is not new.  Its not been the first time i have had dogs abandoned in front of my property, i have paid to take them to a shelter where i know they will not be sacrificed, unfortunately sometimes they never find a home and have to live in not too good conditions due to lack of space, specially in summer.

It is a very sad situation and a shame that all these loving animals end up that way.

People need to realise that they are living creatures and can not be abandoned in this way.

The other matter is that people do not have them castrated, this is a huge problem with cats, near where i live there are kittens everywhere and more each day, its such a shame and unfortunately many will never find a home. I know for a fact that some tourists when they see this take the cats to the vets and have them castrated, thanks to this generosity from these at least some cats will never have to suffer.

Joan

I have now contacted our local rescue centre today and they were so pleased to hear from me as they say they don't get many British volounteers and they are now full to the brim with 500 dogs from over the summer and only 3 people work there full time. It is all run off donations and volounteers. I am going to offer a few hours of my time can any one else?? When I have met the owner I hope you don't mind but I will be posting on here anything that anyone can do to help or if they know any one influential here or back in the UK. From what I can gather they need food, money for vets bills and bedding i.e towels. Which I'm sure we can all say we have thrown away old towels or bedding!! I am also going to try and organise some charity events and any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Where IS your local rescue centre, SEAK ? Tell us more please.

Please could you go to your profile & enter your location so we don't all need to keep asking, thanks.

What a generous person you are.

Hi, sorry I am in Alcaidesa but the rescue centre is in La Linea, there are loads of rescue centres all over spain though if you have time to search them on the net, they seem to be in bigger towns/villages I think there are a few near Malaga and Estapona, I realise some of you seem to be further up the coast but there are centres everywhere in what seems to be as much crisis. I know some people aren't into cats and dogs as much as "Us Brits" but Gasing adog for what can only be seen as the owners fault for not having them castrated or neutered is beyond me! Sounds like something from the war which has causes so much outcry (and rightly so) but yet we can do it to animals

When visiting the so many animal shelters like Ace Charity in La Cala de Mijas, SOS Animals and P.A.D. in Fuengirola at the Costa del Sol, your heart breaks seeing all those (generally healthy animals) in cages, big, small, old(er), young, babies. Locked up, hoping to find a new loving someone, a family to be loyal to. Some wait for months, years, and some give up hope simply dying of loneliness. Spain is a cruel country for animals but luckily some people do have a true heart and save them from the killing stations in La Linea, Jerez and also Malaga where animals are dumped like they were garbage bags! Horrific!

Unfortunately a lot of abandoning can be prevented if Brits only knew that when they vaccinate their pet 6 months before returning to the Uk due to the crisis they can take the animal with themto the UK  without having to hand it over (the easy way!) to an animal shelter and make it the problem of the animal shelter to try to re-home the animal meanwhile they already suffers so heavily under the burden of hundreds of abandoned dogs,surviving and paying for it all only from generous gifts from people. Sometimes people returning to the UK even leave their pet tied up at the gate of an animal shelter on their way to the airport of Malaga. How on earth can someone even think about this, let alone, do this?

Adopt a dog, it can also be done virtually where you pay as little as 5 euros/month(or more if you can ofcourse)  to support the feeding and housing of an animal. It can safe it´s life and it makes a better person out of you and also makes your life so much more enjoyable knowing you have actually done something to safe a living being who was dumped by no fault of his/her own.

PLEASE REMEMBER, A PET IS FOR LIFE, not a toy! 

Thank you from the heart......

I can say from the heart that the P.A.D. centre in fuengirola does an amazing job and look after the animals fantastically despite all the problems such as flooding and lazy brits (not always the case admitadly)  just dumping the animals with them as opposed to getting the jabs done and taking them back to blighty!

They rely on public donations and even had a sponsored swim in the sea at our local bar in carvajal, fuengirola, on new years day!

There is another fundraiser this sunday (08/05/2011) at the nordic centre in mijas with bouncy castle and all sorts of family fun. i know this because I took a cat from a friend of mine who had to move to the UK and this cat originally came from PAD. I went in there yesterday to ask a few questions about it´s history, etc and it breaks your heart when you see all the poor little cats/kittens.

I´ll be there and hopefully they can make enough to help more animals

As a first step one should encourage people not to use such shops as 'hobbyzoo' in Carrefour. The sale of live animals like this should be banned. There is more than enough money to be made selling 'stuff' for pets without relying on the impulse buyer on which these shops depend.

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 absolutely, 

It's the same in the myramar centre. 

disgraceful

Well done to all the kindly, well-meaning folk who are doing their King Canute impersonation and pretending that all pets can be saved by volunteering, giving time and/or money and converting the great uncaring public into caring, responsible citizens. 

Here in the real world, you will find that dogs, cats and any other pet that costs money to look after, will be dumped and abandoned when their "owners" can no longer afford to keep them.  These animals will then reproduce freely because said people won't have spent the money to have them neutered or spayed.  And the problem will grow in direct correlation with the growth in unemployment and poverty.  So, Houston, we have a problem. And you don't have a solution - apart from wishful thinking.   In the real world, those abandoned or feral animals need to be dealt with and that means that they have to be put down - humanely of course. 

A much better solution would be to treat most dogs and cats and some other pets as part of the food chain.  After a week, say, in the pound to allow owners to reclaim them (and to pay a fine for letting them loose and subject to them being chipped at the owner's expense), they would then be sent to the abattoir to be killed as humanely as any sheep, pig or bullock and there would be no grounds for complaint.  If Europeans are too squeamish to eat them, they could be exported to those countries who have no such qualms.  I ate dog in Korea where it is commonplace.  Sort of cross between chicken and pork. And you would not know the difference between cat and rabbit if faced with it on your plate.

One advantage of this approach is that the money raised from the sale of the meat pays for the pound and for extra dog-catchers so that conditions in the pound are nicer, the stray dog/feral cat problem gets a better chance of being solved and the rest of us don't have to subside these so-called animal lovers through our IBI.

I think once again the common disregard for animal suffering is the flipside of what many people love about Spain.  Everyone wants a non 'nanny state' and a lack of rules and regulations when it suits them, but when a lack of regulation hurts them, (or in this case many animals) , then suddenly the same people want change.  Until stricter rules on pet ownership, licenencing, inoculation, castration etc, are put in to place, then nothing will change.  Much like the whole property/justice system in Spain, things will only change with enough will from the majority of the people, not just a few brave and good people fighting for change.