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
