May 2022 Update from Casa Felicidad

 

Bueno, el Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Martos aún no ha otorgado al Asociación para la Defensa y Adopción de Animales Ciudad de la Peña su licencia para operar su refugio, por lo que todavía podemos operar prácticamente solo como hogar de acogida.

Don't worry, that is the only Spanish in this blog. It is however true, Our local Animal (Dog and Cat) rescue can still only operate on a Foster Home Only basis as they still do not have a license to use the land they have on the outskirts of the city. Right now we are lucky insofar as we only have one abandoned dog in foster in our house at the moment however our local rescue is desperate for foster help both with dogs, puppies, cats, and litters of kittens. If you feel you can help (or donate) please do not hesitate to contact them.

The Foster Dog is called (by us) Sammy, his Spanish name translates as Little Heels, not sure what the significance of that is but whatever. He is a Big softie boy, about 8+ years old, and has a broken front right leg that stubbornly refuses to heal and by golly is the treatment expensive. In about 10 days a new treatment will be tried at the specialist hospital in Granada, so all fingers crossed.

           

We do of course still have our other rescues and semi fosters, and Heidi, the Podenco cross with

dementia is still with us, still barking at nothing, still shaking in fear at any loud bangs, such a rarity in firework loving Spain eh? and has now begun to corner stare, which is disconcerting, to say the least. 

She does however enjoy the sun, so all we can do is make her life as happy as possible, as we have done for the past nearly 7 years.

Our other Oldie semi foster is Evita. The story of how she came to us is odd. A nearby rescue centre put out a request for any old, unwanted but working washing machines, we didn't have one but we did have a tumble drier which in Spanish sunshine was rarely used, so we offered it to them. They eagerly accepted as drying the hundreds of towels and blankets was another problem they had, of course, we offered to deliver it and were treated to a walk around the centre. This was a fatal mistake for a couple of animal lovers and we fell in love with this little old girl who was a bit grumpy and unhappy with all the youngsters bounding around her. The arrangement we have is that technically she is in Foster with us but for all practical purposes she is ours. She is never too keen when puppies start walking but again she is a sun worshipper, as long as she has a comfy place to lay she is happy.

Our largest and smallest rescues are Milly some sort of Dachshund German Shepard Cross, a tiny puppy when she came to us and now a big lolloping lump of loving dog, and Tutu who was the smallest of a rescue litter and has stayed tiny, she has mismatched ears, google eyes and a snaggle tooth. She loves nothing more than tummy rubs and is convinced that is what her hoomans were put on this earth for.

Tinto is another rescue, oddly enough when he first came, he was totally attached to me
but suddenly switched his affection to Mrs. D and is now mortified if she leaves the room or garden without him, when she went away for 10 days to the coast to visit her son, daughter in law and grandchild, Tinto spent pretty much the whole time just staring at the door waiting for her to come home and now rarely leaves her side.

The only remaining dogs we have that we brought from England are our two Toy Poodles Marty, named as such as we got him just after buying our house in Martos who is a Parti Poodle, black and white along with the Grande Dame of the house Sophie, or more Properly Sophia Diamond Princess, Yes she is a real pedigree and has the attitude to prove it. Sophie has always hated walking, in

fact, one time we even bought a child's doll pushchair at a Boot Sale (for £2) so that she didn't have to walk around on the stony ground. We walked her all around Cheddar in it and she loved it.

Unfortunately, age is beginning to catch up and her eyesight is not what it used to be and her legs don't jump quite as easily as they used to, so we have a little ramp at the end of the bed to make it easier for her to get on and off.

At Casa Felicidad otherwise all is peaceful, the last lot of puppies went about a month ago and because of Sammy, we have had to insist we can only take urgent or desperate cases as puppies could easily knock him over or unbalance him, although he is getting better using just 3 legs and seems to cope with the stairs fairly well, just not too often.

Everybody is enjoying the sunny days, the birds seem happy with the new position of their feeder and we appear to have a nesting family locally as there is a regular visitor and possibly his Mrs. Sparrow occasionally.  

Now that spring is here and along with the rain, the sun is really warm, the bees have appeared again and are checking out all the fantastic plants we have set up, apparently just for them. We are also regularly visited by butterflies who also seem to enjoy having a rest in the pretty colours.

So we hope that life is treating you as well as it is treating us and sorry for repeating it but please  Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Martos get your fingers out and help Asociación para la Defensa y Adopción de Animales Ciudad de la Peña

 

Have a great time and above all Be Kind, See you next time

 

Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Martos, Please Do The Right Thing (Please Share)

 It has been a tough couple of years with this Coof thing and all, but living in Spain has had its advantages, most importantly the weather has meant we have spent a good proportion of our time outside. I've even built a Tiki bar in our covered area on our downstairs patio.

Despite battling the pandemic and all the financial hardships that it brought, The Spanish administration has also delivered one of the most important pieces of legislation in recent years. It has declared that animals are sentient creatures and it is against the law to mistreat them and even listed some of what they term mistreatments. As in certain parts of the UK, animal abandonment is a big problem over here and in the six and a half years we have been living here we have done as much as we can to assist our local rescue centre by fostering and even adopting abandoned dogs.

For all these years the Asociación para la Defensa y Adopción de Animales Ciudad de la Peña has used us to foster new born puppies, elderly and vey sick and injured dogs. We are able to assist with these specifically as we don't work and can therefore devote more hours than many of the fosterers who have to earn a living in addition to the volunteering. We have no objection to this as we love animals and devoted large parts of our time (and money) to doing similar in the UK, however, it has become more and more difficult for the organisation to help as our local council, Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Martos so good in many things, particularly in beautifying the town, has failed to give the Rescue people the proper licence. 

A Recent quote on one of the rescue posts read "Debido a la falta de colaboración del Ayuntamiento para la renovación de la cesión de los terrenos del refugio, en el cual hemos tenido que paralizar la actividad y del mismo modo a la tenencia de la licencia para poder realizar la actividad"  

This translates as;

Due to the lack of cooperation of the City Council for the renewal of the assignment of the lands of refuge, in which we have had to paralyze the activity and similarly to the possession of the license to be able to perform the activity.

Our living room has now become an obstacle course of protective barriers as we have a dog that has been beaten severely and now has a repaired and healing broken leg and another that has been hit by at least one car and has a crushed (and untreatable) pelvis. 

At the same time, we are coping with a Podenco with dementia, or possibly brain damage as she was hit by a car some time ago, A puppy whose owner is having trouble coping with, so just a temporary foster we hope. We also have an abandoned small
podenco cross, an old girl, an abandoned Papillon cross, Our own German Shepard/Sausage dog cross (a rescue,) 2 miniature poodles and a rescued Chihuahua cross.

As I said earlier, we do this out of love for the animals and ask for nothing in return, the love the dogs give us is reward enough.

We do however plead with our council for help for the rescue, I implore   Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Martos to contact the Rescue and implement the licences and permissions so that much-needed building and repairs can go ahead.  

Thank you for reading this far and I only ask that you share it far and wide and if you can, ask the council to expedite the permissions.