In telling the stories of all the rescues, there are a few here and there that I have missed out, not many, just a few that were quick turn around so to speak. But to reach 70 +, is I think, quite an achievement for us. So I thought I would share with you how it literally all happened.
This is Simba. Simba actually started us on the road to rescue.
We moved to The Algarve in 2001, where we opened a restaurant, after having had a successful restaurant in England. Simba used to come around looking for food, which of course we gave him. We learnt that he was owned by a Brazilian family, and kept on a chain for most of the time. Often we would go and release him from that chain, and he would come back to our place and have some food. We also learnt that these people would go away for days on end, leaving Simba tethered up.
They then decided they didn’t want him anymore. We could not take him back to where we lived because we had two cats and he was not good with cats. We did not live on-site, it was wintertime, and every morning when we arrived at the restaurant, Simba would be curled up on the mat at the front door waiting for us. This was at the same time that we had found Lady, he began playing with her and coming on walks with Lady and me, just sort of tagging along.
Then one day he became ill, a trip to the vets was in order, he diagnosed him with distemper. What a horrible illness that was, amongst other symptoms he had terrible convulsions, I remember this so well, it was just awful to watch. He was gravely ill and to my horror, Lady caught it from him. It’s very contagious, we were ignorant to this fact at the time. After continued vets visits and watching this poor boy struggle for life, his suffering was ended.
Lady in the meantime was fighting it, and her immune system must have been far stronger than Simba’s, as the degree of her illness was not as severe as his. She made it, she fought her way back and became strong and healthy again.
After losing Simba to distemper, Mino made a vow to help all the poor sick and abandoned animals that he could. And I think he definitely has done that over the last almost 20 years 😊 We have sacrificed so much to save these animals, but that was our choice. Since we have become older, it is becoming harder and harder. So we have had to make the decision not to take in any more animals. They would likely outlive us! As well as supporting all the dogs and cats that live with us we continue to feed those that live in the community around us, and Mino feeds the doves that come to visit us every night as well. There is no stopping him.
