From Fermin Perez.
The Villalobón Victims: You might remember the report in our August bulletin of the 8 dogs (7 galgos & 1 mastin) we rescued in Villalobón. They were in a pitiful state of neglect. It was an emergency situation in which we found cachexic dogs, full of internal and external parasites. Thanks to our vets and animal care staff, all of them were nursed back to good health, making a full recovery. We have homed 4 of them in Italy, where they are living la dolce vita and wrapping their adopted families around their paws. The remaining 4 dogs are at Scooby and equally dictating their needs to the staff while they wait for an adoption enquiry.
As you know our Medina del Campo shelter is deep in the countryside and sometimes our electricity and water supplies are unreliable and intermittent. We have a massive, industrial water pump on site which draws the water from the ground. Another smaller pump then deposits the water into a reservoir tank which is more than 10,000 litres, from where the water is piped
around the shelter. The main, central pump broke and broke big time in the summer. We always need water and July/August was probably the worst time the equipment could fail. We simply had to plough on and have it repaired immediately. The breakage was the first shock, the second was the €3,280 invoice. There was simply nothing else we could have done, the shelter and the
on-site clinic could not last a day without a water supply. Thankfully within a day we were back up and running.
Our next casualty was the Scooby van. On one transport to Italy in October, the Scooby van was caught up in a multi-car pile-up in France and there was nothing our driver could do to avoid a big dent on the front wing. The van was full with 24 dogs, heading for new family homes. Thankfully nobody (human or dog) was hurt in any part of the accident. This was surprising because some vehicles were badly damaged. We managed to make contact with a couple of supporters in France (6 hours into our journey) who kindly helped us get to safety with our wreck of a van.
In the meantime we called on the Scooby team back in Medina who hired a vehicle to come to the dogs’ rescue. We were all safely taken back to Scooby. We were really counting our blessings because in 30 years of transporting dogs and cats to homes in Europe, we have not had a single accident and, moreover, nobody was hurt in this incredibly nasty road traffic accident. The trip completed the following week using another transport van. The Scooby vehicle was finally delivered back to
Spain in November. It is now with the mechanic and he says the repair is possible.
How you can help Protectora Scooby.
Unfortunately for the past few years there is no one to write the English news blog on the Scooby website, so I am publishing extracts from the December bulletin. A second part will publish in a few days.