Eloise Horsfield
A BRITISH couple on holiday in Spain have spent over €1,250 saving the life of a dog who had been chained up and left to die.
Chris and Bob Thornton, from Cumbria, discovered the German shepherd outside an abandoned cottage near Mount Sagra, near Alicante, on Christmas Day last year.
“I don’t think she would have survived another night,” said health visitor Chris.
“She was very emaciated and could barely stand. She had a huge raw wound around her neck where the chain had cut in as she struggled to get free.”
The couple released the dog, who they named Noa, gave her water, and returned the next day to feed her some turkey left over from their Christmas dinner.
They then took Noa to a vet who treated her neck wound and transferred her to a rescue centre.
But on returning to the UK, Chris and Bob decided they wanted to keep Noa – and so paid the rescue centre €750 to nurse her back to good health.
They later paid a further €500 to fly Noa to their home in the Lake District.
“She is quite stocky now, she has loads of strength,” said Chris.
“She will certainly have a better Christmas this year than the one she endured last year,” she added.
It was Noa’s lucky day. Well done you two. A happy ending for a change. x
Well done. If we didn’t live in an apartment I could see us ending up rescuing loads of dogs there are so many strays. It’s heartbreaking to see & it’s lovely to know that at least one of them has been given a good home.
dogs just need a floor to lay on, they are not fussy wether its a flat or a house.
Well done to that couple , nice to see there are still some nice people around
Rescued 3 puppies born to an abandoned dog and kept them in our apartment. Two died from scrapies which easily crosses over from sheep, we never want to go through an experience like that again.
The sole surviver Ossian was lucky for over a year as our neighbour Pepe a pastor let us use an abandoned cave house and corrall out in the Tierras Malas/Badlands, a large part of which he rented for his sheep.
Ossian was joined by two other abandoned dogs which were stolen. I quickly sussed out the theives but the response of the Guardia was that they did’nt care. A few weeks later I had a confrontation with one of the theives – it quickly turned violent but he ran away when he realised that if he stayed he would never walk away. Went to the Guardia, it went to Court where a female judge lambasted the theif and his friend and 3 months later I was the guilty party – this could only happen in Spain.
We have never forgotten our three friends or the other dogs I buried and it does’nt bear thinking about the way they would have been treated after they were stolen from us.
So here we are in France with two other dogs – one abandoned at 3 months old on a slip road off the Autovia (normal practice). He was truly an ugly little puppy but grew into a very handsome dog that ironically many Spanish wanted to buy from us. The other lived a miserable existence on a cortijo and one day this little hunting dog about 6 months old decided to follow me and Fox. She had over 250 tics with blood sacs in her ears and along her back – how could I turn her away.
Someone who worked in the local garage recognized her – I told him to send her owner to see me – he never did – he took one look in my eyes and knew excatly what the scumbag’s fate would be.
Both live happy lives now with Madeleine the little hunting bitch bossing everyone about. She has incredible energy and 20K walks are nothing to her – she is always starting hares/rabbits and deer.
I’d like to go hunting bipeds with her but the gendarmes won’t let me, I’d only hunt certain types of bipeds, when cornered I would promise to despatch them quickly but still the gendarmes say I can’t – shame that.
There is a similar version of this in a National British paper, which has lead to many anti Spanish comments on animal cruelty.
I would like to correct a few details as being a volunteer at the Spanish run dog shelter, El Capricho in Baza, I was honored to meet Noa who the Thorntons found the Christmas of 2010 as she was at the shelter for just over a year, the care was quite intensive for the first 3 months, she was transported over to them in the UK January 2012, when the laws were relaxed on taking dogs there.
Bob and Chris are wonderful people but there were more heroes in this story and a lot of them being Spanish. I hope my corrections are published this time as so far it has seemed very biased.