Bigger enclosure

In the last 4 years ACT has slowly grown bigger and better known. More and more people on the island know about us, which results of course in more cries for help.
With the few foster families we have on Thassos and the restricted space in our enclosure we sometimes had difficulties to offer a dog in need help. Until now we could manage but we were afraid that in the future we would have to turn a dog down.

So after long discussions we decided to build a bigger enclosure. We found a great plot we could use, but it needed good fencing.
Again we asked the Dutch organization Stichting Wereldasielen for financial help and again they gave us a huge donation towards the building materials.
And we may not have enough foster homes but we do have a lot of friends to help us with other works. So with many volunteers we cleared out rubbish, cleaned the place, fixed doors, put up secure fencing and doors and managed to almost finish the work in three (very warm) days. And this is the result:



We want to emphasize that it is not our intention to have a permanent shelter for any unwanted dog. We believe that people need to take responsibility for their pet and if they cannot keep it anymore it is their responsibility to find it another home. Of course we are willing to help them with that, but our enclosure is not meant for those dogs.
Our help goes to dogs that are left on the streets not able to survive there because of sickness or other problems. And we will try to rehome each one of them after they are recovered.

First of all we want to thank Stichting Wereldasielen. Without their financial help this would not have been possible.
But the same applies to our volunteers. Peter, Hannelore, Grant, Arno, Gitty, Sascha, Lutz, Dirk, Karem, Jürgen, Gisela, Tanja, Sabine, Marcus thank you all for your tremendous commitment!

Oliver became Mio

However hard you try, sometimes something goes wrong ...

In March 2016 Oliver moved to his new family in Germany. Everything seemed to be going well, until a photo on Facebook alarmed us and Klaus and Claudia: Oliver, now 8 months old, looked shockingly thin and dopy.

Klaus immediately contacted the family, but only met incomprehension: the dog was fine, he just does not absorb fat and on the advice of the vet he gets special food. On July 16, Oliver was taken away from the family and taken to a veterinarian. Her comments left no doubt: "That was just in time, much longer Oliver would not have survived."

Once back in the loving hands of Klaus and Claudia and on a special diet, Oliver grew in less than three weeks from 13 kg (with a height of 60cm!) to 20 kg and he is slowly starting to see the fun of life again. He is not there yet, but he's on the right track and fortunately he has not suffered any permanent damage.

Claudia decided to start the way to his new life with a new name: MIO, Croatian for lovable. A name that suits him.

His detailed story can be read on the website of Klaus and Claudia (in German):
Part 1 - http://www.wuestenwolf.de/?p=11841
Part 2 - http://www.wuestenwolf.de/?p=11923

How could this happen?!? I hear you thinking. Was it the fault of Klaus and Claudia, who ignored their own rule, not to home dogs in families with children under 3 years? No. Was it the fault of mother (in law) Marion, who insisted and promised to assist the young family with advice and help? No. The only one to blame is the young family itself, refusing all help and not wanting to see that Oliver's condition was getting worse.
Sadly, animal welfare is not an exact science and there is always a chance that something does not go as intended.

We thank Marion very much for her resolute and courageous action, and Klaus and Claudia to handle all this on behalf of ACT.

And Mio? For Mio we wish the very best family that exists, and a long and happy life.

Last week we had a lot of new arrivals…

First Dutch rep Jolien found a dog in a very bad condition in the Skala Potamia area. It was skinny, had infected eyes and wounds on her ears. She contacted ACT and was so kind to take the dog to vet Dina in Limenas. Dina was shocked by the state of the dog and also it had hundreds and hundreds of fleas. It was so bad she even had to bath her. Furthermore a speed test showed that the poor dog has Leishmaniasis as well. Besides flea/worm treatment and antibiotics, she was immediately put on Zylapour tablets. When the lab results came we were relieved that all values were normal, but the Leishmania titter was very high. Good news was that we can start giving her Milteforan. A very expensive medicine, but it has to be done. She is a young dog, so let's hope she recovers soon.
Xara, as we named her, can stay for the time being with Jolien until we found a place for her to stay.

Second Jackie was asked for help by a Greek man in Theologos. He had 2 dogs to "guard" his chickens, but he couldn't afford to have 2 dogs anymore. We discussed with him that we could take the dog, if he was willing to contribute a little money towards our costs. Thus happened and we took the little, one year young setter to the vet for a check. He was skinny and had lice (probably from the chickens), but thank goodness the Leishmania test was negative. After the usual flea and worm treatment we brought him to our enclosure. After some time with good food, he will get his first vaccinations and will be castrated. We named him Woody.

A while ago a stray mother dog with puppies in Skala Marion was reported. People were trying to catch them, but that wasn’t so easy because they were quite scared.
Then suddenly a call: 3 of the puppies were caught! Jackie had already prepared her "puppy beds" and picked them up at vet Nikos. Two days later another 4 were caught. They are about 2-3 months old and their name will start with a Y. We will give Jackie some time to think of 7 nice names ;-)

So we are talking about huge vet bills again for medicines, vaccinations, castrations, microchips etc. It is clear that we would be very pleased with any donation, big or small.

With all these new dogs all our foster homes and the enclosure are totally packed.
Hopefully we won't get any more emergencies, because we won't be able to help them unless we expand…