Val tells the stories of most, if not all, the dogs they have rescued and cared for, starting with Lady, the first one rescued while they were living in Portugal. Val and Mino moved to Puglia from Portugal, travelling separately in two vehicles and bringing their rescue dogs and cats with them.
As Val says
“Puglia in Southern Italy is a beautiful place, with wonderful food, wonderful weather and the people are generally warm and friendly. Unfortunately many do not respect domestic animals ……
Once in the South of Italy, we began to see the problem was far worse than Portugal, the amount of sick and abandoned animals was appalling.
Most of these animals are such beautiful friendly creatures, it breaks our hearts. We want to bring them all into our home. Of course, this is not possible. As it is, we have far too many. Most of the ones we have taken in are sick or with broken or damaged limbs. Just discarded because of this! We then get these poor animals treated. Our vets here are superb!
The bad luck we have encountered here has been phenomenal and it still seems to go on.”
My beautiful Lady was our first rescue dog. We found her in 2001 in a communal rubbish bin, when we lived in the Algarve. A friend of ours tried to take her, but she was unapproachable, she growled and snarled at him. When I got close to her, she rolled on her back and let…
Sparky was our second rescue dog. We found him in 2002, he was about six months old. He was in a small crate next door to where we lived, in Portugal. He was left without food or water for several days, apart from what we gave him. When we got home from the restaurant, Mino…
Pooch was rescue dog No.3. In Portugal early one evening, I was looking out of the window of our restaurant and saw a dirty little creature walking up the road towards me. He was a ball of matted brown fur, that in places touched the ground. Poor little boy, he was starving and full of…
In April 2003, Mino and I witnessed the headmaster of the primary school opposite our restaurant in the Algarve kicking Ginger, trying to get him out of the playground. All he was trying to do was be friendly. What an example to set to children.😡 We went in and got him out, he was such…
Bear was a big old soft gentle giant. In 2003 Mino found him, abandoned most definitely. What a lovely boy he was. He certainly was not a young dog. I expect someone got tired of him and wanted a newer model. That and the fact he wasn’t well, these people won’t spend any money on…
Bessie was a small, very frightened rough-haired jack russel …her owner had died and his son was supposedly taking care of the dogs. (There were three of them.) He left the dogs in the old man’s house, which was practically falling down. They were lucky if he fed them once a week, let alone once…
Scruffy was a real challenge for me, he was unapproachable. I loved him at first sight and was determined to get close. Again, perseverance paid off, he used to come for food, but wait until we had gone before he ate it. Slowly he became less afraid until he was so friendly, we had to…
Bobby was rescue number 8, he was one of the three dogs that came as a package! the other two were Bessie and Scruffy They all lived together with an old man who subsequently died. The son of the old man didn’t want the dogs but was supposed to be feeding them. The house was…
Puppy Bill was dog number 9. He couldn’t really be called rescued as he never knew any hardship. He was one of Bessie’s puppies. Bessie gave birth to six pups by the side of our bed on Mino’s birthday. She had three black and three white and brown on 22nd June 2004. I didn’t want…
Here we were in Italy, there were stray dogs everywhere you looked. Paco was the first Italian one we took in after arriving in Italy. Rescue number 10, what a dog, he had been wandering the streets of Squinzano for some considerable time. Beautiful boy, he fitted in with all the others like he’d known…
There was a restaurant opposite where we lived, and one of the women that worked there asked us if we would look after her little dog Titti for a short while, as she was currently living with her in-laws. The mother in law didn’t like animals, she was very cruel to Titi. She even left…
One Sunday in November 2005, I was walking through the market one morning, and spotted this huge puppy, with this extremely long tail, that almost touched the ground. He was so bewildered and lost. No more than 6 months old. He was an adorable dog. He followed me home and became one of the pack.…
Charlie was rescue number 13. He was no more than 18 months old when he found us! He had been abandoned with a broken back leg. At that time we lived opposite the beach, and used to walk all our dogs there early morning. Charlie would appear from nowhere, and play and run with the…
Flossy arrived in March 2007. I was out on my bike one morning and I witnessed Flossy being attacked by a pack of stray dogs. I immediately came to her defence, by shouting and shooing off the perpetrators. Of course, what happened then, she followed me home. What was I to do, she wasn’t going…
Back in early April 2007, we met Piccina, she used to follow one of the local men, she was always very friendly when she saw us, mostly with Mino, but was always very hungry. She was skin and bones, this chap she followed could barely afford to feed himself, let alone all the dogs that…
In April 2007 Mino found Squirt shut in a cardboard box in the porch of an empty house, near to where we lived. Poor little boy was no more than 4 months old, had no fur, and stank to high heaven. A trip to the vets confirmed he had severe mange. He is a miniature…
Tuppence was rescued in April 2007, just after Squirt. Tuppence was one of the sweetest dogs you could ever wish to meet. We were told of this little dog that had a broken leg and was being chased by bigger dogs. Mino found her, she was not going to be captured easily. Eventually, he and…
Bicki was dumped outside our gate in summer 2006, he was no more than 3 months old. We were becoming known, “those stupid English people, they have loads of dogs, we don’t want him, let’s leave him there!” We had to take him in, poor little boy. He was a Pastore Maremanno, an Italian sheepdog.…
Some people who lived not far from us owned Paddy. Then just before Christmas 2007, they moved away to Germany, leaving the dog in the garden. A nephew was supposed to be feeding him daily. Haha, once a week if he was lucky! Hard to imagine, isn’t it? What sort of person would do that?…
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