Greyhounds in Need

Charity Registered .NO. 1069438

Scooby News.

September 1998

Protectora de Animales SCOOBY

San Francisco 3
47400 Medina del Campo (Valladolid)

Dear Friends

This is my second letter to you and there are many things to tell you.

Thank you all for your efforts in writing to José Valín, the Agricultural Counsellor of Castilla y León and to the Mayor of Medina. You all know we are seeking the support of the local Council for the purchase of land for the building of a greyhound sanctuary. Nothing definite has been decided yet but we are in negotiation with the Mayor. José Valín has donated us a computer and a Land Rover which are very useful for our work.

Movement Towards New Surgery

Last summer, two vets from Pro Animale, Germany, came to Medina to work in our makeshift surgery castrating and sterilising most of our dogs. Our surgery is still rather inadequate and lacking in the equipment and comfortable facilities which the dogs deserve but we will do our best to achieve this in the near future as we hope to set up a proper veterinary clinic here. The RSPCA has already given us a grant which will partly help to finance the setting up of such a clinic.

RSPCA Visit

Two RSPCA Inspectors came on the 1st September to look at the carcasses of hanged greyhounds in the countryside. We found even more recently hanged dogs in the pine woods, and tragically this will increase at the end of the hunting season next January. The hunting season has already started and consistent with this, on the 4th September our refuge was broken into at night and nine hunting dogs were stolen. I am circulating every refuge in Spain with their photographs to try and recover them. The RSPCA has chosen our La Mota Castle in Medina del Campo as the venue for their educational conference, October 16th-18th, for the training of teachers in Spanish schools on the subject of the care and respect for animals. Scooby will of course be involved in this conference.

New Command Centre

We have opened up the basement of my house and turned it into a Centre for our activities. It combines a dining area, office, surgery, and kennel for dogs needing attention. We all come together and eat there twice a day. Dai and Anne join us there of course when they come here. They both work the whole day in the refuge. They are lovely. On their last visit, Dai built nine separate kennels in the refuge and constructed a mesh lookout upstairs where there is a large sliding door, improving ventilation and giving the dogs somewhere to lie in the sun watching the world go by. Also we have created a large fenced paddock outside with a massive sunshade along one side, and the dogs enjoy lying outside there most of the day in the summer.

Another Day, Another Rescue

Hardly a day passes when there is not an abandoned dog or two to pick up. A little while ago we found a litter of pure galgo puppies being nursed by a mongrel bitch. We thought this was rather curious until the next day we picked up the real mother who had a mammary swelling and was therefore unable to feed her pups. The two ‘mothers’ greeting each other so affectionately. It was very touching to see. Many of our dogs have gone with Dai and Anne to homes in north Europe and Pro Animale took 25 more greyhounds to Germany for homing. This enables us to bring even more abandoned dogs to our refuge. We continue to work for animals here researching and reporting the cases of cruelty and abandonment. Thank you to all those who wrote letters on our behalf and donated money to us. We need your support.

Greetings to you all
Fermín Pérez

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