Christmas Holiday in Seville? Not for the galgos nor the volunteers.

This is the story behind the 130 galgos arriving at Scooby Medina during the course of December. Cobie and Vera explain.

In Andalucia in southern Spain, the Foundation Benjamin Mehnert association is very actively busy with saving galgos which are, in the eyes of their owners “worthless for hunting” and will, no matter what, get rid of them one way or another. Thousands are brought every year to the perreras, the killing stations, also called the waiting room for death, where their life is not worth one penny and so they are treated like that.

The people from this association also try to catch as many abandoned dogs as possible from the streets or the fields, many of them almost starved to death, frightened/stressed, traumatised or injured. These galgos will, if not caught, run towards their death by means of starvation, run over by cars, get shot or beaten to death.

Some of the galgos from the gypsy camps are also saved too. The gitanos (Spanish gypsies) test the galgos for hunting and if they think they are not good enough for this, they will be exposed, killed or used as a defenceless sparring partner in pitbull fights.

Fondation BM is run by two ladies. One is Isabel and the other one is Giselle. Isabel started Adopcion Animal about 7 years ago and Gisele is a lady who lives in Madrid and has been helping economically many shelters used by Adopcion Animal. Gisele pays for the pension of the 300 galgos Isabel has.

Isabel has started to build a huge project called Recovery Centre with the permission and collaboration of the Junta de Andalucia. The project will host 240 galgos and a certain amount of other dogs which they have in pensions now too. On the 25.000 square metres land there will also be 2 vet clinics, education area with farm animals, 2 houses for the families who will care for the animals, 4 bedrooms, kitchen etc etc for visitors of organisations, recovery area and a huge area where the people of the organisations can run and observe the animals. The kennels have an inside and an outside area so the dogs can either be inside or outside. It is hoped the centre will open in January 2011.

When Gisele heard about the project, she decided to help. She used her organisation Fundacion Benjamin Mehnert for the purpose of donations, and so they have decided to use that organisation for the project. So Adopcion Animal has now disappeared.

Isabel and her daughter have a direct contact with the police and the killing stations. They are always advised when galgos arrive at the killing station or if a dogs has had a road accident. They also go into the gipsy areas to take the unwanted dogs from them. They do an incredible job. Unfortunately there are so so many dogs that it is difficult to cope. Lucky enough Scooby collaborates with them. They took 53 galgos as well 2 months ago.

The rescued galgos are brought by the Fondation BM to a ‘doghotel’ near Seville where they can stay for a certain amount of money per day. These costs are all paid by the BM association. From there they look for ways to get the dogs adopted.

Once again Isabel got in touch with Scooby with the result that now already 2 transports with a total of 63 galgos from Seville have arrived at Scooby. The trip to and from Seville is some 1200 kilometres but it offers these galgos a safe place, good care and a chance for a second and better life. We are pleased to be able to do it.

At Scooby the dogs will be vaccinated, sterilised or castrated, get a microchip and a European passport, and a blood test will be taken from every dog to check them for Mediterranean diseases like Leishmania, Ehrlichia, Filaria and Babesia. Then we make pictures of them and they are put on the adoption page on the Scooby website www.scoobymedina.com to find them forever homes.

Many helpful and reliable adoption asociations abroad do their utmost to find good and fit adoption families for these very gentile, quiet and humble dogs in which they almost always succeed and some of these 63 galgos are already enjoying a new life with their new families.

The abandonment of galgos is the biggest during the hunting season which started the 10th of October and ends somewhere at the end of February 2011. Now it is the beginning of December so not even half way through the hunting season and in record time in a few weeks there will be 130 galgos waiting in that doghotel until somebody takes them away to give them a new chance to a new life. Almost unimaginable! 130 galgos are urgently waiting for a safe shelter!

The doghotel is crowded, they had to stop taking in more galgos because there is no more room, not even for one galgo and the people from the Benjamin Mehnert association can’t now save a single galgo from certain death until there is room again.

And again they contacted Scooby to ask desperately for help.

130 galgos is a lot of dogs but Scooby cannot close its eyes to these galgos in need, because it’s not only these 130 dogs, it also concerns the galgos which now will be sacrified because they are in a perrera or die from cold or starvation, because they have to keep wandering the streets because there is no place for them in that doghotel. These animals also count!

Being one of the first and biggest galgo rescue organisations in Spain, Scooby has a big capacity for sheltering dogs and also do we have experience in taking in large numbers of dogs who needed shelter all together at the same time. So now we took the decision to, together with you, to go for it!!

Scooby is going to help these poor things and counts on your help because without that, we cannot do this mega rescue. Probably still this week we will take the first load of these galgos in Seville because we have a bit of room left but not for all 130 in one time, and of course, we cannot take 130 galgos in one transport.

Scooby has in Valladolid an empty doghotel where some 200 galgos can be sheltered but it urgently needs renovation to be able to receive this number of dogs and to provide them a SAFE heaven. The galgos which can’t go to the Scooby centre could temporarily be brought there and the doghotel near Seville would have room to take in other rescued galgos in need of a safe place.

WE CANNOT ABANDON THEM!! WE GO FOR IT, PLEASE JOIN US!!

What we urgently need to help these galgos is

Food for the dogs. If you can get it for free, great, but please don’t buy any expensive food because in Spain this is a lot cheaper and for 1 bag food for 30
euros, we can buy here 3. In that case a financial contribution is just as welcome so we can buy the food ourselves.

Money to pay for all the bloodtests.

Vets who are willing to help to sterilize/castrate all the galgos in our nice clinic at the shelter.

Volunteers who want to cooperate in this great rescue by taking care of the galgos after they arrive here.

Building materials, workers and again money to renovate the doghotel in Valladolid and make it “galgo – proof”. There is a house so if anyone with the right knowledge is willing to live there to run the doghotel, please, contact us!

Galgo coats and warm blankets to protect all these dogs against the winter temperatures here in Medina del Campo. (preferably waterproof dog coats)

And of course, we also need adoptants to give these dogs a happy second life which they do so deserve!

But above all we need money, a lot of it, to fulfil this huge rescue operation and is there a better month than December to give a galgo a second life as a Christmas present? Skipping a nice desert after a copulus meal could already make miracles!

Donations, big or small, would help us, but especially the galgos will be so very grateful.

How you can make a donation, you can read in Help us on the Scooby website www.scoobymedina.com and we will keep everybody posted about this mega rescue.

Thousand times a big thank you if you help, to let us help.

THE SCOOBY TEAM

Beryl comment; this is an incredible undertaking. But the saddest part of it is, I think, to read that the Junta of Andalucia is backing it all!! They are the regional government, people who can implement the animal welfare laws, stop the overbreeding and mass abandonment of galgos every year………….instead of which they are happy to expect the rest of the world to adopt all the unwanted galgos………..I simply cannot understand the mentality!