Awwww - Hop and Carbon are both lovely pooches. Fingers crossed Carbon finds his new forever home soon and that he continues to keep his lovely Lab temperament. Good luck Hop xx I’d be doing just the same as you, Emily, if I were dogless. There’s a great animal sanctuary up the road from me - every time I drive by I want to turn in and visit.
Your posts make me want to get back to "my" shelter doggies in Spain. One has been rehomed since I was last there, just one I've heard on the grapevine that the shelter is up for sale for a mere €3,000, including the land and all the dogs and fixtures. Oh, if only I had the time and the resources, I'd buy it without a second thought.
That's so hard. Missing the doggies plus the lack of adoptions. I had a memorable conversation with someone in the UK about how she felt that dogs shouldn't be imported into the UK from Spain as it took away from the support of UK shelters like the Dog's Trust. The sad truth is, if they aren't exported, Spanish dogs can live their whole lives in a shelter...and that's the rosiest outcome. Their best hope is to get shipped out to the UK, Germany, Holland, etc. Spain has a lot of good people who do love animals and work hard to save them - but sadly it's also very accurate to say that the treatment of animals here is generally abysmal. Well, I'm preaching to the choir, I guess, because you know all that better than I do! That's such a strangely low price, especially considering it includes the land. I think time would be the biggest issue - you'd get the funding sorted fairly quickly if you appealed to all of us Chi fans.
Yes, time is something I'm seriously short of, and that's the one thing that I would be able to "buy" if I won the lottery! One day...
Today's photos. No sun, but finally, NO RAIN. Hop, who is going to a home in Holland in 10 days in the same town where his sister was placed six months ago - small world. Little Coby, who gets separate walkies as he's too small to be out with the general population during play time. Pinky the Podenco, who gets to run free along with Cobi as she knows the way. Does she remind you of someone special? Was going to do LAT work with Carbon today as yesterday he barked at the cows...today he couldn't care less about them! Even really close up, he didn't care about them... Enjoying some post-walk cuddles.
Lovely dogs - good luck to Hop in his new home. Carbon looks absolutely gorgeous... such lovely, calm labrador eyes in that photo. Time to ditch your record, Emily?!
What a privilege to share your walkies with you @Emily_BabbelHund. Looks like Carbon just hadn’t seen cows before and soon learned they were no problem. Could he come and teach my son? He’s terrified of cows. He went climbing in Switzerland - very high cliffs, free climbing. I said ‘how was it’. He said ‘I was terrified’. I asked about ropes etc. He said ‘No, it was the cows, they were wild and had bells, so I knew there were cows about all the time - terrifying!’
Cows on the mountain can be dangerous! Someone my sister used to work with is a trials bike fanatic. He came here to Andorra one year and was on his bike, doing his thing when... a cow landed on him. It had fallen off a cliff higher up! He was very lucky - the guy, not the cow - in that he "only" ended up with a broken leg. The cow wasn't so fortunate. I know it's sad, but it makes me chuckle Lovely photos, Emily, thanks for sharing. Don't tempt me with the Pod
Yes, it was rather amazing that he just ignored them yesterday. What a surprise! He was such fun to walk - even did zoomies on the end of the leash, which was flipping adorable. After three hours of walkies (an hour with each group of dogs), I was very tired at the end and we just sat on the ground and he sat in my lap. For me he seems like quite a petite boy, but I think that's because I'm used to all these mastin mixes. Yeah - Carbon AND Charlotte AND Messi. I'm going to need a bigger Tardis car! I have a friend like this. I never even used to worry about cows and she started sending me anything she could find about cows killing people or dogs. She infected me! But to be honest, I was more worried about Brogan, because cows seemed to love him and I was worried they'd get frisky with him and unintentionally hurt him. Now that he's gone, cows don't bother me and in fact I find them rather intriguing. Just as well because two of my favourite beaches have free-roaming cows on them. It's really better not to fall asleep sunbathing! Don't worry about Pinky, she's actually the shelter manager's dog. She just goes along on all the walkies when she feels like it and then comes back to the shelter when she feels like it. Something very cool, though - the cows in the photos have two podencos as protectors/herding dogs. They stay out in the field with the cows during the day and keep them more or less together in the very large field. And they are the little type of podencos. I never knew they could have that sort of job! I'm such a podenco fan. (Guess that means I need to find one to add to the Tardis dog ark)
I'm sure there's a bigger Tardis car just waiting for you too...! You'll need it for your continued labratours to bring them to meet all the forum friends!
Now Helen, you're just stirring up trouble! Actually I am really just walking dogs (and cleaning runs) at this point. The last couple months have been a bit rough for me, so dog searching is on hold. But I sure do enjoy these pups and wish I was in a position to take a couple dozen of them home. Charlotte, Messi and Carbon would definitely be at the top of that list.
Today was ADANA (that's the further shelter with Charlotte and Messi). I've only dog walked before, but when I got there today the shelter manager said, "No walking, there's too much rain!" (even though it wasn't raining). Then he handed me the world's biggest squeegee and told me to squeegee all the kennels behind another volunteer who was hosing them down. I think it was a test, but two hours, 12 kennels and many blisters later, I can add "Queen of the Squeegee" to my CV and the shelter manager was treating me like I'd joined the family. Trial by squeegee? The good thing (in addition to learning a new skill) was that I got to spend lots of time in each enclosure and really meet all the dogs. This was because the volunteer ahead of me with the hose was seriously slow. Messi was in the very last enclosure and he could see me coming down the line and kept staring at me as if to say, "What? Playing with other dogs? Aren't you here for my walkies?!" And poor Charlotte looked so happy to see me and then so sad when I left the kennel. I just kept having to pop back down to her spot whenever I could. Ana, a mastin girl in the same enclosure as Messi and Bobo, was my biggest challenge. She kept trying to whack her paw on my face and caught me a couple times with a big, wet and muddy paw. Then she stole most of the treats I'd brought. I guess I can't blame her for being smarter than me and figuring out how to get them! Otherwise, it was like "The Trouble with Tribbles" (yes, I'm old) except with puppies. There were at least a dozen new pups in addition to the dozen or so that were already there. The new batch are bodegueros. I can't even tell you how cute those little suckers were. I'll try to get some photos of them on Sunday. Ana the beautiful cookie thief... Messi is not amused by having his cookies stolen... Anna and Bobo have a confab...
