Hello all, Sorry we have not been around for so long - a lot has been going on! My mum had to have 3 operations to remove kidney stones so that was a lot of trips to the hospital and a heap of worry as she has so many other health issues - happy to report that although in some pain she is recovering well =)Secondly we had our 7th wedding anniversary and mum being the star she is treated us to a holiday in kos for 2 weeks! We had a holiday of a life time as we met so many new wonderful friends. I will post pictures and tell you all about it in my next post but...why the cat picture?
Well, Kos has hundreds of stray cats and dogs all over the island and we met a wonderful lady called sue who is trying her best with a small team of friends to really make a difference to the lives of these animals. We met because we saw a cat who had a lot of eye problems and we wanted to help him - our rep was useless and basically told us to turn a blind eye pardon the pun, and that she was a dog person anyway! Well having two cats at home we couldn't bear to see it suffer so we fed it when we could and set out to look for some help - we found sue! Who gave us some eye drops for the cat ;o)
Sue is originally from Ireland in fact she was born not far from where my family live over there so I knew a friend when I found one lol but she has lived in kos for 9 years. Sue sits out EVERY night on the small strip which has bars and restaurants in Tingaki Kos you can't miss her - she has a table with information in lots of languages telling people about the problems, pictures of dogs and cats that need help and she usually has one or more dogs or cats with her to try to find a loving Forever Home for them( I must point out that the people taking the animals are vetted and not just anyone can walk away with a cat or dog) - luckily lots of German and Dutch people can re-home these animals easily, once they have been vaccinated and given a passport the animals are good to go!
It was so wonderful to see people wanting to help and we even met a lady who had re-homed a dog the year before and she proudly pulled out his picture from her purse to show us how happy he was and how happy he had made her. We also a met a lovely German couple who were rescuing four dogs who had been running around in a pack near where they were staying, they felt they had to take them all to keep them together.
Sue currently has 14 cats and at the time we were there she had four dogs (2 were pups) although one has now been given a new home. Her life revolves around her job, meetings with officials, looking after her own brood and sitting out all night - she does not spend any time for sue!!!
Sue invited us to her house and asked if we could help with the IT side of things and we felt it was the least we could do...so I spent a day making her a website please take a look and help if you can http://animalrescuekos.com
she had a great idea to raise money for a very much needed sanctuary on the island so the animals waiting for a home have a safe place to go - a facebook appeal to get 1 million people give just 1 euro each. Please get your family and friends to take part =)
I have just spent the day putting all the information for the cats on the website and some images are upsetting - the person in question who has the 60 cats (if you do take a look) has a restaurant and him and his wife can't bear the thought of putting the cats down so they now have 60 - sue has a friend who is going to get them sterilised to help the situation - but they really need a loving home!
ARK (the name of the charity) has a programme of sterilisation which obviously is going to help stop so many new strays taking to the streets but heartbreakingly at the moment due to lack of a sanctuary the cats/dogs have to be put back on the streets after they have had the operation as there is just no where to keep them while they wait for a home.
The charity aims to build a rescue centre with a visitors centre and education facility but they need funding and land. They have been in talks with the local government but these things involve a lot of red tape and take time.
So on that note...we came home and rescued two more cats who needed some tlc so we now have 4 fur babies - (ours were rescued from here not kos as the uk has 6 month quarantine) they had been needing a home for 2 months so we felt we had to help if sue could do it so could we! We are going to constantly do all we can to help sue and the animals of kos...
We will be launching some cat, mice and maybe dog dolls very soon to help raise money for this very worthwhile cause ;o) so watch this space!
