Read the latest story from Scooby Medina.
As a footnote, a friend who has 4 Spanish rescued dogs, lived in Spain, very experienced with the situation, applied to adopt a black galga from Scooby. After her initial application being ignored and ignored, she wrote me to help with my contacts. Long and short of it is, a curt reply – we don’t home dogs to the UK. So, folks, help Scooby but don’t expect to adopt a dog from them!
Comments
8 responses to “Scooby exposes – more animal cruelty in Spain”
I am Fermin Perez from Scooby and I want to clarify why we don’t rehome galgos in England, there are several reasons one is that you have enough problems with the grey problem, to add more with galgos, also there is no any organization that can check the home in England for us , maybe you know somebody who can do all this work , checking homes, adopters and giving all the needed after care for the dog and adopter if something goes wrong, for the moment there is nobody who can do the job. Maybe we are too cautious but every life is important for us, we rehome more than 1000 dogs per year and sometimes we make mistakes but always there is an organization behind to take care of the dog. By the way I am going to paste here the answer that your friend got from us and everybody can see that it is not just a short answer. Here it is:
Dear Ellie
Thank you for your email and you offer for the poor black galgos. I’m sure that Scooby HQ is not ignoring you at all, they just always so busy.
Scooby does not normally rehome galgos into the UK because we are flooded with retired/rescued greyhounds (still more than 10,000 go missing each year) and Scooby has always felt it best not to compromise the chances of these greyhounds whilst Scooby is able to rehome on continental Europe. Mainland Europe does not have the greyhound welfare problem we face in the UK and Ireland. Equally as important is the fact that Scooby does not have rehoming support facilities in the UK. We don’t have kennel facilities to back up the rehoming if it does not work out.
I represent Greyhound Compassion and we are a fund-raising group for various greyhound shelters and Scooby but do not have kennel facilities. Greyhound Compassion is run by a team of 3 people with magnificent support from a small number of volunteers but we simply do not have the resources to assist with home-checking, bringing dogs back to the UK from Spain and the follow-up. All of which are key ingredients in rehoming abused animals successfully.
Greyhounds in Need (Surrey) does have the right facilities for galgo rehoming in the UK. So if you are keen to have a galgo, I’m sure they will be able to find the right galgo for your home.
Greyhound Compassion concentrates on the provision of financial support for the development of the Scooby shelter and the organisation of practical help from the UK. So, if you’d like to help by supporting Greyhound Compassion, you’d be most welcome. We try to be efficient and make every £1 we raise reach the heart of the plight of the galgos/greyhounds. We have calculated that it costs us 3.5p to generate every £1 of our income, so if you’d like to lend support to this to help the galgos, we’d be most grateful.
With best wishes
Lucinda
So you can see it is not a short answer.
Anyway we are facing a similar problem in Scandinavia and there, thre is no greyhound problem so we are looking for an organization that could help on the rehomings there.
And we have many dogs needing o fly to the US so any flying godfathers and godmathers , helping the dogs flying them??????
Sorry, am I missing something here,but cannot understand Scooby’s attitude atall, particularly when someone has a lot of experience.
Can they afford to be so choosy? No point in them displaying pics of dogs in appalling conditions if they won’t accept the help that is offered.
Just read Fermin’s response, the situation does seem very complex and can understand a little more now – thank you.
Indeed Marion, I think you are missing a lot! Maybe you should read the above comment again and again untill you understand it…
Hello Marion, How do you think that we should do it? We don’t have an organization with experience with galgos that can check the home and take back the dog if something goes wrong. Maybe we cannot be choosy but you can be sure that we are very careful with our rehomings, anyway if you want to help rehoming Scooby dogs you are more than welcome on board.
To clarify, my point was that it’s not that Scooby was rejecting help but thinking of the thousands of greyhounds who suffer here. Scooby does not normally rehome galgos into the UK because we are flooded with rescued greyhounds (still more than 10,000 go missing each year) and Scooby has always felt it best not to compromise the chances of these greyhounds whilst Scooby is able to rehome on continental Europe. Mainland Europe does not have the greyhound welfare problem we face in the UK and Ireland. Equally as important is the fact that Scooby does not have rehoming support facilities in the UK. We don’t have kennel facilities to back up the rehoming if it does not work out.
In response to the comment about Scooby rejecting “any help that’s offered” – we try to help by supporting them from our fund-raising. Anyone who wishes to help Greyhound Compassion with this, would be most welcome.
I can understand Fermin’s stance on this. The UK has an issue with greyhound welfare. There are overlooked black greyhounds languishing in rescues. TIA greyhounds in the UK has over a hundred greyhounds in its care, many of them black overlooked dogs. It is a relevant ethical question as to why you would transport galgos into the UK (especially if homes can be found in mainland Europe where there isn’t the ex racer welfare issue) when the greyhounds here cannot get homes, those that are lucky enough to make it to a rescue that is!
Having had galgos myself and knowing how wonderful they are and I currently have a dog from Spain and an ex racer, I am not criticising anyone for adopting from abroad, ‘rescue has no borders’ and I know that many dogs have 0 chance of being adopted in their own country. I do however think that Scooby as a rescue (rather than someone making a personal choice regarding the dog they want to adopt) is being responsible by considering the greyhound welfare issue that we have in the UK.
Also being responsible is the fact that Scooby won’t rehome without home checks and a back up plan. It’s a shame that some of the rescues who are rehoming the Romanian dogs don’t have this in place. Some have been bounced around a number of homes before a UK rescue has had to step in. This is really sad when the dog has already been through so much.
Re black galgos – there is a beautiful one waiting for a home at Pepis. Also a lovely black and white one already in the UK at Greyhounds in Need.
As this is Fermin’s rescue, I think it is up to him to decide what is best for his dogs. Personally I think it is good that he is being responsible and cautious. I will be donating to Scooby, I personally think that this is a great rescue, saving many lives.
i can understand both sides here marion you because the lady offered a home and was refused when so many are killed and hanging on the streets villages towns even motor ways so you think scooby would jump at the chance but then i see fermins point ye he is correct the uk and ireland have big probs with the beutiful greys the charities here are finding it hard to cope on homing ireland even worse these poor dogs are getting put to sleep in their thousands and a lot may not be so lucky as to be put to sleep humanely even here you have only got to look at the mass bolt gun story who knows if most of them poor souls was dead befor they was buried ye i know over in spain canary islands ibiza portugal i could go on there is more and more horrendous killings it breaks my heart it really does i will set up arescue of my own if and when i win any money every one can depend on that from me so try not to bring each other down look at the bigger picture and stick together for the sight hounds united we stand devided we fall every one including the rescues who have their disagreements need to put it all behind them now and move fwd for the dogs every one will be aware of what i mean in sticking together ie help each other out tough it out with the councels government hunting federation etc every one must stay on same side no matter your differences just fucus on them poor souls