Pictures speak louder than words - some of our beautiful dogs in Denmark

It's wonderful to see dogs from El Refugio being so loved and spoilt and taken care of in Denmark. We are so very grateful to these wonderful people who have adopted them.

Walkies!

 What a sweet face

 The gang's all here

 Having fun

Happy dogs and happy boss

 Just look at that face ...

 Run ...

 ... run ... run ... run

 Best beloveds

Handsome

 Beautiful!

A well deserved rest.

Can't wait to get going

Bob the Cat and James

Bob and James have become quite well known around London in the last few years.  James is a homeless man, living in a hostel, who befriended Bob when he found him injured.  They have now written a book, which is being launched at Waterstones in Islington on Tuesday 13th March. Their regular pitch is outside Angel Tube, in Islington but they are often to be seen around Covent Garden. I first noticed them years ago when Bob was trotting along beside James, a most unusual sight.  Since then I have met them in various places including, a few weeks ago, on the 38 bus. It's a most heartwarming story and I hope James and Bob will have many more happy years together.

URGENT APPEAL FROM FABIENNE– OUR DOGS CAN’T GET HOME BECAUSE WE HAVEN’T ENOUGH FOR THE FLIGHTS.

Who will help us pay for them?

Malu - just one of the many little ones waiting to go home

So many puppies are ready to go, a lot of deserving dogs are also so eager to leave for their golden baskets. But we have no flights to put them on so they can’t get home. So we’re making this appeal to find people who would be willing to buy a ticket to help our dogs in this huge crisis that is overwhelming us all.

It’s very serious, very tough. We won’t give up fighting, you can be sure of that. But we have sleepless nights and fear sneaks up on all of us. It’s so very hard, all around us shelters are closing – we get cries from help from all directions.

Nowadays when you are in the campo, the countryside, you see whole gangs of wild dogs that haven’t been able to be saved or even trapped and taken to the killing stations because they too are overwhelmed. My phone rings so much it’s like a call centre, so many people wanting us to take their dogs – it knows no limits. Everything is so bad now in Spain and the victims are so often our four legged friends.

Who would help us with the price of a ticket. It would give our poor darling wretches such huge pleasure to fly to a new family and we would be so very, very grateful. They all deserve a life, a happy ending.

Greetings Fabienne

You can leave your donation to:

Account number 4635.18.128

t.n.v. ACE charity, Spain

Or via PayPal, where there are no fees.   For details of the PayPal account please see the main website –

http://ace-charity.org/en/

As usual, I’ve done my best with Google translate. I’m sure Fabienne will forgive me for any inaccuracies.

The Bodeguero – the little dog that smiles!

Four sweet faces - four sweet and loving characters

It breaks your heart to see so many Bodegueros and Podencos left behind in the shelters, while so many other dogs are adopted. One of the reasons may be that these breeds are little known – not just in Holland but in the UK, the rest of mainland Europe and indeed throughout most of the world. In this post I’ll concentrate on the Bodegueros and will write about Podencos another time.

Leon-hoping for his golden basket

There may be various reasons for the lack of adopters for Bodegueros. The main ones are almost certainly ignorance of the breed and its characteristics and the confusion with the Jack Russell terrier, which it seems has a bad reputation in Belgium though not I think generally in England. However, the Bodeguero is a completely different and original breed – strong, healthy, sweet, very intelligent and loyal. 

Lore - one of the lucky ones

This sturdy little dog has a nice and compact muscular body, fairly long, elegant legs, and a nice smooth coat. They have beautiful little faces! Real teddy bear faces – and yes, they do smile! The breed is known by various names.  The Rat Nero (rattevanger), the Perillo Ratero (rat dog) and the Bodeguero Andaluz.  They got the name Bodeguero from the wineries and wine cellars (bodegas) where they are used to keep wine barrels free from rats and other vermin.

Mikvel the Clown - look at that smile

The Bodeguero first became known towards the end of the 18th century with the arrival of the English wine merchants in the province of Cadiz, Spain. The British brought with them a breed of particularly smooth-haired fox terriers. These were crossed with the already existing local dogs that were used as rat catchers in the bodegas.

Kwien-just wants to play

These hybrids quickly became popular and made excellent ratters. At that time they were bred to be white in colour, so that they could be seen in the dark vaults of the then unlit wineries. In 1993, the Club Nacional del Perro Andaluz Ratonero Bodeguero, was formed and in 2000 the breed was recognised as a native Spanish breed by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture. It is not yet recognised internationally by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale.

Zozima - thrown over the gate of the Refugio with her siblings

These dogs adapt well to full-time indoor or apartment living but have lots of energy so they both enjoy and need a great deal of daily exercise. They love to spend time outdoors, playing games such as fetch and tug-of-war, and having plenty of room to roam, run, and play.

Madina-my turn next?

They thrive on strong dependable relationships with humans. This in particular makes them easy dogs to train and make excellent pets being bright, clever, obedient, loyal, loving and affectionate with adults and children alike. Like all shelter dogs they may take a little time to adapt to a new home. But once they have settled in (and being so intelligent and eager to please this may not take too long) you’ll have a delicious, crazy, sweet, funny and loving friend for life.

Figaro - nearly a year and still waiting

I want to acknowledge and thank Ineke for posting the original article by Judith, in Spain on the Dutch Blog on March 3rd and also Karin van den Akker who drew her attention to Judith’s article.  I would also like to acknowledge and thank Judith. I did try to translate her article using Google Translate but in the end it was easier to write my own version, drawing facts from Judith’s article and from various other sources including Wikipedia and All About the Breed

Beloved Bombardonneke

Karin added a postscript saying that she is completely won over by these lovely dogs, as I am.  I have met so many of these darlings at El Refugio, among them our beloved Bombardonneke, Mikvel the clown, and so many others. They are funny, sweet, loving and clever and all deserve golden baskets.  I hope there are many adopters out there who will give these wonderful dogs a chance. They will reward you with fun and laughter, loyalty and love.

Samuel - Another Small Miracle

Samuel. An expensive Christmas present the family tired of and on top of everything else the poor boy had an eye problem. So he was dumped. In the week Fabienne sent me this email ...


"Today we had the good news that our dear loving boy SAMUEL is seeing again, he could not see because of the amount of skin hanging over and scratching his poor eyes, also, his eye lashes were growing into his eye. The operation went well, now we hope it will be fine in the following weeks ..."

You can read Samuel's full story in Fabienne's Diary.

LOYALTY

With many thanks to Marjolijn Spoor for the photos.

Bless the Beasts and the Children ...

... a video specially dedicated to A.C.E. by Dutch stars and A.C.E. Ambassadors Grant and Forsyth. Thanks to them and all involved for this lovely gesture. And for those who didn't know (I didn't) Julie Forsyth is Bruce Forsyth's daughter. You don't need to speak Dutch to understand the captions because the pictures speak for themselves and the words are in English.