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• Help spread the word - we need homes for these beautiful pups!
• Holland trip strengthens international ties
• Goodbye Grisa
• Save the Greyhounds
• Despite everything, we carry on!
• Judge suspends removal of animals
• We will fight on!
• Aina - You Have Failed Us!
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• Please support this charity sale
• End Animal Suffering

November update

Should YOU get more involved with running the Centro Canino dog shelter? Yes YOU definitely should.

The new centre is just a few minutes’ drive away from central Palma, there’s lots to do, and meeting and mixing with so many lovely dogs, cats, puppies, kittens, chickens, ducks, horses plus the donkey and now a mule, oh, and two white rabbits too – it’s so much fun and it feels good to know that you are doing good. It’s a real privilege.

It’s all going on! We’ve now begun re-homing animals. Animal abuse, neglect and cruelty are rife in Mallorca. A lot of people treat their pets abysmally. It’s nice to know that at the Centro Canino, we’re back to doing what we do best. Helping unloved, sad, abandoned animals.

Here’s a very quick example. This happened just last week. After a tip-off on the phone, We found a beautiful very large dog (I thought he was a German shepherd, but he was actually an ‘oversized’ husky!) tied up at the roadside, in the middle of nowhere (well rural Mallorca sometimes feels like the middle of nowhere).

He was tethered (strangely, by his back left paw) with no water, no food and no shelter.

Such a huge dog – 40 kilos or more. Luckily he was very calm, very passive and not at all aggressive. We untied him, took him to the new animal centre, had the vet check him over, and put him in a nice clean kennel, with food to eat and water to drink.

After a week or so, a family turned up, checking if we knew anything about their missing pet. You can imagine their delight, when we led them to him. He’d been in an ok mood, but subdued, while with us. Once he saw his family, he was all smiles and a delight. He went home wagging his tale and full of joy.

It turned out that neighbours of the family continually complained about him. No-one would be able to prove anything, but the family guess that the neighbours got hold of the dog, drove him out into the countryside and left him.

The father of the family is a bit of 18-stone 6ft 2in gentle-giant, but he was going over to see his neighbours that evening, to have words with them.

In the last few weeks, we’ve taken in and re-homed stray puppies. Instead of these delightful pups growing up into wild dogs, they’ll grow up as devoted family pets. Our beautiful slightly crippled donkey – see picture above – is going from strength to strength, looks fabulous and seems to radiate happiness (especially when someone brings him carrots).

The new shelter is looking fabulous. The flags of all nations (well, Spain, Mallorca, Europe, Germany and of course Great Britain) now hang from flagpoles, above the main dog-kennel building.

Landscape gardeners are making the flowerbeds look terrific (at their own expense, as a VERY kind donation). If you’ve ever donated money to us in the past You’ll be very proud of how things are going.

If you’ve never donated to us, please come along and see the progress. And remember to bring your purse or wallet. P-L-E-A-S-E!

In late October/early November, the Palma clothes shop Pasatiempos did the most amazing thing. They held a special sale, in one of their shops, selling fashion clothes that they donated themselves, and wholesale clothing suppliers had donated especially for the sale. They raised more than 7,000 euros. Absolutely brilliant.

So if you love animals, what can you do to help? You don’t need to go as far as raising thousands of euros, but please consider making a donation, or volunteering for a few hours a week. Maybe you could do some dog walking?

I’ve just looked it up on the internet and walking burns 360 calories per hour. Sitting watching TV burns just 60. So for a half hour dog walk, you’ll have burnt up 150 extra calories. That’s a kitkat you can eat and enjoy, without feeling the slightest bit guilty!!

Please come along, and get involved.